Released: June 13, 2007

‘Yelpers’ review local businesses

Source: Jefferson Graham, USA Today

San Francisco home mover Pat Ryan says he’s picked up 200 jobs since a satisfied client first raved about his moving services on Yelp, an up-and-coming website where ordinary people write reviews about local businesses.

As more customers started leaving comments, it changed the way he does business. “The reviews keep us on our toes,” Ryan says. “Word of mouth is the lifeblood for a moving company.”

Yelp is bringing the concept of user-generated reviews, long popular in travel and electronics, to local businesses. “Yelpers” who register at the site weigh in on everything from nail salons to car washes. Other sites have had a similar idea: Google Maps, Yahoo Local and IAC’s Insider Pages and CitySearch marry local directories with reviews. But Yelp took the concept and “turned into a social network, like MySpace,” says Greg Sterling, an analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence.

Yelpers have written more than 1 million reviews since the site launched in 2004, with more than 500,000 posted in the past four months.

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