This time last year in tech - Yelp shows growing losses (5/2/2012)
http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/05/ahead-of-its-ipo-on-th-nyse-yelp-shows-growing-losses/
The tech industry is known for it’s volatility. Within the space of a few months tiny startups burn bright while big stars go supernova. I thought it’d be interesting to look back at tech journalism exactly 1 year to this day, and see if it there’s anything to learn.
So, after Yelp INC went public, “shares ended up 64% from their opening price at $15”, despite worries about monetization and scary names like Google, Facebook & Foursquare stealing “the local advertising pie.” Not too much hype, but probably a good thing.
A year later, Yelp isn’t looking too bad. Google (Plus) is probably their biggest threat to local; the social aspect is still a bit of a ghost town, but the Search generates a huge amount of traffic and it links local stuff to Maps, which we all know isn’t going anywhere.
But hey, their reviews are up 49% and so are uniques, meaning the loop of content and people to look at the content stays intact. Facebook’s giraffe search is obviously looking to disrupt this ‘recommendation’ space, but apart from obvious creepiness it’s actually their infamous privacy rules that limit the its effectiveness as a transparent, useful search engine. People seem to trust Yelp like you would a kind stranger who begrudgingly offers you honest advice. There’s something simple and refreshing about that.
Stay tuned for their Q4 2012 results released tomorrow!