Google is in speaks to obtain Yelp, a web local search and business review supplier, in a deal that might be worth a lot more than US$500 million, according to unconfirmed accounts first reported by TechCrunch. Google and Yelp didn't reply to the E-Commerce.
In the last few months, the consultations appear to have become more major. Yelp has allegedly raised $31 million in venture capital and is predicted to realize about $30 million in money this year.
For Yelp, the deal is about investment for expansion and finding a good strategic fit with a company with traction, Venkat Venkatraman, a business lecturer at Boston College, informed the E-Commerce Times. "In that sense, Google is a good fit," he revealed. For Google, the purchase would provide options in a search advertising class that's quickly growing: local and hyper-local advertising and related shopper reviews accessed both thru PCs and mobile devices.
Solid Presence Yelp has a sound reputation as a repository of local enterprise info and reviews. The social piece is crucial too Venkatraman asserted. "Google hasn't had much traction with its own social network initiatives, and this is a logical part of its evolution particularly as a technique to make its Android OS create traction as a significant alternative choice to the iPhone.”As Facebook and Twitter become more central to folk's search and influence behaviour, Yelp could play a very important complementary role to Google's own social media content that'd be different from simply highlighting Twitter or Facebook results, noted Venkatraman. Likely what Google intends is to show Yelp results on its lists much as it is now doing with the new "latest news" feature.
"This purchase is proof that Google is taking much more notice to local search and also to the concept of web 'word of mouth' referrals." so far, Google has been essentially totaling user reviews of local companies from across the Web. "They permit users to scribble their own reviews, but it's not a notable feature," David Erickson, director of e-strategy at Tunheim Partners, said to the E-Commerce Times. "Acquiring Yelp will strengthen their local economy reviews by harnessing a keen community -- that's Yelp's sole purpose, after all -- and a great amount of information which will give them a better indication, based totally on total user reviews, of what's more quality "content." A mixed Google -Yelp will give Google another edge over rivals Yahoo and Bing, particularly as mobile search and mobile advertisements start to develop more traction. "I imagine Yelp info will play a massive role in Google's mobile properties from search to maps to apps like the Places Directory," Erickson recounted.
