We're not yelping, now Yelp has arrived, say the local competitors
The arrival of local reviews giant Yelp on the UK scene will have a lasting impact on the local players who have painstakingly built local reviews sites. Some mirror Yelp’s model completely, some compete on only some – but still significant – aspects of the site’s business model. I asked some of the major players in the market to comment on what they think will happen next, and how they will deal with Yelp’s arrival.
Marc Lyne Brownbook.net
– It’s a global platform and has over 27 million businesses listed worldwide – with major coverage in USA, UK, Canada, Australia and users contributing to listings in 220 other countries
– People can add reviews but it’s not what Brownbook is all about, it’s the free local business directory that anyone can edit; it’s created by the people for the people (very much based on ‘wiki’ principals)
– It has no sales force, it’s all self service. Brownbook rewards users for their contributions, with a lifetime share of revenue
– It helps people and businesses to flourish in tough times by, offering business owners no-cost and low-cost tools to promote their businesses online (at a price point that is an order of magnitude lower than any of the competition), and offering people a way to boost their income by contributing to Brownbook (users can earn as much as $24 in a single transaction – not just nickels and dimes!).
– Launched in May 2008, Brownbook is growing at 40% per month and the mobile site is growing at 60% month on month
Joel Brazil, Tipped
Mark Livingstone, CEO of Touchlocal.com
We welcome Yelp’s arrival into the UK as its further validation of this emerging way of advertising and also allowing consumers to make informed, local choice. Touchlocal continues to grow at over 100% per year and with over 4m uniques per month has a very significant position in the market. Getting traction is one thing but monetising it is another and reliance on display advertising is clearly not the way right now. With over 100 people in the sales team at the company it had taken a very large effort to build our position and its only now that we are seeing revenue streams in the 10’s of millions. Stating the obvious although it is becoming clearer by the day it’s the well backed, access to capital companies that will survive and win. To adapt an old retail phrase “traction is vanity, monetisation is sanity” Interestingly it’s the Yells and Thompson’s that should take this as yet another hammer blow.
Stephan Uhrenbacher, CEO, Qype