Yelp keeps Deal business running, CEO says in exclusive interview
Austrian IT-Blog www.futurezone.at got an exclusive interview with Yelp-CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, who said that Yelp is not stopping it´s deals business, as other media reported recently. He´s not convinced of the push emails Groupon is doing and said that he found a more elegant way to sell coupons to customers. Stoppelman also tells new facts abut the “Instant Personalization”, which Yelp and Facebook partners on. He states that about 100 users are opting out of the “Instant Personalization” on a daily basis. Read more about his opinions on the ongoing troubles with Google, the new competitor Foursquare and his investment in Palantir Technologies here (german language):

http://futurezone.at/digitallife/4845-yelp-deals-sind-definitiv-nicht-tot.php

For all you non-german speakers, here´s the link to the Google translation of the interview:

53 million users, 20 million Reviews: Yelp is primarily in the United States to the fixed points of the social web. The evaluation portal expands in 2011, especially in Europe, has its own community manager in Vienna and employed in this country competes mainly with Tupalo. With online coupons, the company founded in 2004, has discovered a new source of revenue besides online advertising. Rob Krolik, although one with an experienced financial manager has hired as CFO, prepare half the rumors of the IPO, trade media are currently not fully convinced of the idea of ​​couponing. The Yelp HQ in San Francisco (just around the corner resides the short message service Twitter) is presented Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman the issues of future zone.

In recent days, there were more reports that his deals Yelp veers off-again deals. Is that true?
No. A small strategic decision has since transformed into a huge story because the media now appear widely on the idea that someone is a bad business deal business. We had 30 people who sold these deals, and we have reduced to 15, which deals exclusively sell and no ads.

But this means that the sending of offers via email, as it makes Groupon not work so well. Facebook also has stopped.
It does work, there are hundreds of companies offering this. But it really does not fit on Yelp. Groupon has "Groupon Stores" tried to copy us, but that also did not work. Groupon comes as an email to you, but the users come to Yelp. And there they can still buy vouchers, which brings us to the business owners and traffic and revenue. This is a more elegant solution, deals are definitely not dead

It is yet another feature to which there was about at Facebook Four Square and big hype, but does not want to really stand out: check-ins.
Check-in at Yelp bring an extra level of authenticity for the reviews, write the user about the premises. The introduction of functional activity has been even more users to follow. Make check-in additional data in order to find some popular restaurants. But Burton has believed that they build the next Facebook, a social network for mobile phones, but that's not the case. I do not believe that check-ins are something that everyone will benefit once the time.

Foursquare penetrating ever further into the social sector review. You see the New Yorker as competitors?
You obviously want to turn into a local leader, but that is hard for them. Because the core of the service is checking in, and those are not very interesting data. Foursquare has not yet proven that they can influence people in decision making, and currently there is no one who has such deep data shops and restaurants such as Yelp.

Yelp has a different, much larger rival Google. The search engine has recently local ratings from third parties, including Yelp, removed from Google Places. Yelp meets the tough?
To be clear: 2006 Google Yelp has licensed content to integrate them into what was then Google Local. We have allowed for some time, but then we have found that they are building a website that more and more like our looks. That is why we have opted out of the agreement and continued to grow organically. Then they have continued our reviews indexed for Google Places and recently stopped.

So that was in your best interest?
Yes and no. We are now out there, but in the Google search, we are now ranked as sometimes below their own products. From a consumer perspective, one could say that this is not optimal, not to show the best content and Google's own products against competitors to prefer. We do not like.

On the other hand, you are dependent on as a partner of Google, since Google Maps is integrated with Yelp. Could you change partners, to about Bing Maps?
We have an agreement with Google related to maps and prefer not to change, because we like maps. We will use it as long as long as Google, it makes available.
Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman the company's headquarters in San Francisco

Change of subject: The most valuable user content, the Yelp, are the reviews. However, you can buy positive reviews put five dollars on the Web. How do you fight this?
Sure it happens, that's just one of many way to get positive reviews and manipulate Yelp. We fight against this problem since our inception. That is why we have developed a filter so that only trusted content is displayed on the website. Bottom of a page users see a number that shows how many reviews are filtered.

How does the filter?
Haha, that would like to know all the spammers, that's the secret ingredient of Yelp. In principle, we have to solve the same problem as Google: You evaluate all the links on the Web, and some of them have been manipulated in order to bring certain websites higher in search results. For Yelp is a little harder because we are dealing not with links but with texts.

What happens to a business that appear on the entry Yelp many fake reviews?
We are not talking publicly about the internal operations of scoring, but there are definitely incentives for local, they do not cheat.

For more than a year, Yelp is a partner of Facebook in the "Instant Personalization" to the Yelp page automatically personalized based on the personal details to logged in Facebook users. What brings the Yelp?
Two points: first, to log on Yelp has become very simple, so we get more users. On the other hand, we can you so that you have not Logged in you, show reviews, which have posted your Facebook friends. This is a bonus for the user.

I can imagine that not all users want this feature, since their unsolicited data between Facebook and Yelp are transmitted. How many users turn the "Instant Personalization" on Yelp again?
Not very many, only a very small percentage of turns from the back, not even 100 users per day.

The personalization of Web content is increasingly being criticized about in the book "The Filter Bubble" by Eli Pariser. How far would go in the personalization of Yelp?
I think the criticism comes as a bit too far. We live in a world of information overload, and when I get presents relevant data for me, I am a happier users. If Groupon me a deal for zuschickt Beinenthaarung, I will not buy the deal. If I live in a bubble filter, in which I'm not getting this deal, I do not care. I prefer living in a filtered world than in one where I am bombarded with irrelevant information. This also underpins the success of Google.

You can also watch with Yelp consumer trends?
I do not invest much time in such analysis, but what you could see in San Francisco, is the cupcake explosion. Also booming "Frozen Yogurt" shops and food stalls offering quality food. Local organic food and vegan restaurants are also a growing issue.

Yelp has recently launched its iPad app. They already work on a version for Android Tablets?
The more we wait, it still lacks an outstanding Android-Tablet that can capture the market. Currently dominates the iPad or any other tablets.

They have also invested in the start-up Palantir Technologies, Data Mining technologies such as for the U.S. government to combat terrorism and cyber crime is available. Are you afraid of a cyber war?
Some other former PayPal employees (Stoppelman was co-founder of PayPal, note) as Peter Thiel have invested in Palantir first, I have come later. But I do not spend much time with this company, and I do not know much more than you have just said about it. They have also sold data analysis software to the world of finance and hedge funds. But I have not been investing for fear of a cyber-war.