Yelp, Inc.
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Type of site
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Public company |
|---|---|
| Traded as | : YELP |
| Founded | October 2004 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California United States |
| Founder(s) | Jeremy Stoppelman, Russel Simmons |
| Key people |
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| Industry | Local search, business ratings and reviews, online food delivery |
| Products | Online advertising |
| Revenue |
 US$550 million (2015) |
| Employees | 4,050 (July 14, 2016) |
| Slogan(s) | We know just the place |
| Website | www.yelp.com |
| Native client(s) on | iOS, Android, Windows |
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Screenshot
Screenshot of the Yelp Vaccouver homepage in February 2017
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Type of site
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Local online reviews |
|---|---|
| Available in | 15 languages |
| Owner | Yelp, Inc. |
| Slogan(s) | "We know just the place" |
| Website | yelp |
| Alexa rank |
 291 global, 55 in the United States (February 2017[update]) |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Optional |
| Users | 142 million unique visitors per month |
| Launched | 2004 |
| Current status | Online |
| Written in | Python, Java and a custom framework |
Yelp is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Francisco, California. It develops, hosts and markets Yelp.com and the Yelp mobile app, which publish crowd-sourced reviews about local businesses, as well as the online reservation service Yelp Reservations and online food-delivery service Eat24. The company also trains small businesses in how to respond to reviews, hosts social events for reviewers, and provides data about businesses, including health inspection scores.
Yelp was founded in 2004 by former PayPal employees Russel Simmons and Jeremy Stoppelman. Yelp grew quickly and raised several rounds of funding. By 2010 it had $30 million in revenues and the website had published more than 4.5 million crowd-sourced reviews. From 2009 to 2012, Yelp expanded throughout Europe and Asia. In 2009 it entered several negotiations with Google for a potential acquisition. Yelp became a public company in March 2012 and became profitable for the first time two years later. As of 2016, Yelp.com has 135 million monthly visitors and 95 million reviews. The company's revenues come from businesses advertising.
According to BusinessWeek, Yelp has a complicated relationship with small businesses. Criticism of Yelp focuses on the legitimacy of reviews, public statements of Yelp manipulating and blocking reviews in order to increase ad spending, as well as concerns regarding the privacy of reviewers.
Two former PayPal employees, Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons, founded Yelp at a business incubator, MRL Ventures, in 2004. Stoppelman and Simmons conceived the initial idea for Yelp as an email-based referral network, after Stoppelman caught the flu and had a difficult time finding an online recommendation for a local doctor. The co-founders' former colleague from PayPal and founder of MRL Ventures, Max Levchin, provided $1 million in initial funding. MRL co-founder David Galbraith, who instigated the local services project based on user reviews, came up with the name "Yelp". According to Fortune Magazine, Yelp's initial email-based system was "convoluted". The idea was rejected by investors and did not attract users beyond the cofounders' friends and family. Usage data showed that users were not answering requests for referrals, but were using the "Real Reviews" feature, which allowed them to write reviews unsolicited.
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