Yelp has done a great job proving user-generated reviews are valuable. It looks like they may have done too good a job. As a startup, one of the questions a VC will ask you is, why wouldn't Google do this themself?Now both Google and Yahoo! are yelpifying their local search results. Yahoo! does well in providing users with yellow-page style merchant results. Google does everything search well. Both giants have been paying attention to Yelp and are adding the ability for users to provide and update merchant information, as well as comment and review merchants.
Kudos for Yelp for building a robust, loyal and passionate audience. With both Google and Yahoo! in the game, it will be a race to see if Yelp can outrun these giants. The more agile startups won the first round in the new Web 2.0 world. YouTube won in videos, Facebook & Myspace won in social networks, and Flickr and Photobucket won in photos. The giants are making a comeback. Technorati in blog search is going through tough times. As Google flexes their muscles, hot web 2.0 companies like digg and Yelp may find rougher seas ahead. If Yelp and digg do get overwhelmed by the likes of Yahoo and Google, it could signal an end of the web 2.0 boom. The web 2.0 concepts such as "user-generated content" and "social networking" have made the web more useful, personal, and interesting. We are reaching a stage where web 2.0 features are no longer strong differentiators, and instead are becoming commonplace. Yelp and digg can still win due to their active and vibrant communities, but from a technology standpoint, Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft are closing the gap.
Kudos for Yelp for building a robust, loyal and passionate audience. With both Google and Yahoo! in the game, it will be a race to see if Yelp can outrun these giants. The more agile startups won the first round in the new Web 2.0 world. YouTube won in videos, Facebook & Myspace won in social networks, and Flickr and Photobucket won in photos. The giants are making a comeback. Technorati in blog search is going through tough times. As Google flexes their muscles, hot web 2.0 companies like digg and Yelp may find rougher seas ahead. If Yelp and digg do get overwhelmed by the likes of Yahoo and Google, it could signal an end of the web 2.0 boom. The web 2.0 concepts such as "user-generated content" and "social networking" have made the web more useful, personal, and interesting. We are reaching a stage where web 2.0 features are no longer strong differentiators, and instead are becoming commonplace. Yelp and digg can still win due to their active and vibrant communities, but from a technology standpoint, Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft are closing the gap.
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