Yelp is adding a nifty feature today which will make scoring a table at restaurant a breeze. The reviews and listings site is integrating OpenTable’s reservation system into Yelp.
This essentially allows any logged-in Yelp user to make a reservation without having to leave the site. There is now an OpenTable section on the Yelp listing page for all restaurants who are listed with the reservations site, which is currently taking reservations for 11,000 restaurants. You can then make an OpenTable reservation much like you would on reservations site. The feature is only available in the US only. Additionally, you don’t need to have an OpenTable account to make the reservation.
However, if you use the same email to create an Yelp account and an OpenTable account, you will receive your OpenTable points if you make a reservation on a Yelp business page. It’s surprising the feature hasn’t launched earlier; it’s certainly something that will be useful for all Yelp users.
The deal is part of OpenTable’s affiliate program which includes Zagat, Yahoo, MenuPages and TripAdvisor. OpenTable, which is profiting from its rapidly growing mobile business, has seated a total of 24.2 million diners in the past two quarters.
Yelp also released a few interesting statistics today. Over 29% of the reviewed businesses on Yelp are restaurants. And the reviews site just passed its11 millionth review and had more than 32M unique visitors in the month of May.
Yelp has had a tumultuous 2010. The company raised a large round of funding in January and was one of the initial partners with Facebook a few weeks ago to launch personalized experience (which unfortunately had a security hole). But the startup was hit with a number of lawsuits claiming extortion in March.
But useful features like this will only help Yelp become the defacto reviews and listings site and perhaps even overtake main competitor Citysearch.
OpenTable provides a restaurant management system for restaurateurs called the ERB (Electronic Reservation Book). In addition, the company operates OpenTable.com, a website for making restaurant reservations online. The website initially launched in the San Francisco area in March of 1999. Since then OpenTable has grown to have a customer base of over 25,000 restaurants in the U.S., Canada, Germany, Japan, Mexico and the UK. More than 325 million diners have been seated via OpenTable.
Another company founded in 2004 by two former PayPal employees. Yelp is a local reviews website covering the United States, Canada, the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Spain; Yelp drew an audience of more than 50 million unique visitors in March 2011. Yelpers have written more than 18 million local reviews, making Yelp the leading local guide for real word-of-mouth on everything from boutiques and mechanics to restaurants and dentists.
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