Yelp has 121,000 local advertisers

"[Y]esterday Yelp reported Q1 earnings that were better than expected. The company said it had 121,000 local advertiser accounts, representing 34 percent annual growth. It also cited a 76% percent year over year advertiser repeat/retention rate."

Source:  Screenwerk blog, 6th May 2016

180 UK Airbnb landlords list five or more properties in London

"Airbnb is a website that's fast becoming the bane of the hotel industry. The Silicon Valley startup, founded in 2008, lets people list their spare rooms – or even their entire home – for holiday leases online, opening up thousands of new places to stay in cities across the world.
It's one of the most frequently mentioned examples of the "sharing economy" the internet is powering; instead of companies and professionals leasing out houses and hotel rooms, individuals can make a bit of extra cash by sharing their home.
But the site's listings may not be what they first seem. Data from the site analysed by the Guardian suggests that professionals and buy-to-let investors with empty properties have carved out a huge presence on the site. The rise of these semi-professional landlords is causing concern among hoteliers and is potentially an extra headache for those struggling to get on the capital's crowded housing ladder.
The analysis of more than 13,000 Airbnb listings in London – by far the site's biggest UK market – shows more than 6,600 are leasing out an entire home or flat, rather than a spare room. More than 1,500 people listing properties on the site have multiple listings, with 180 listing five or more properties or rooms across London.
Some of the site's super users have dozens of properties across the city at once: one, who went by the name Petra, had 127 active listings on Thursday. The account did not return requests for comment.
The study also suggests many listings on the site – which vary from a £20-a-night spare room staying with a family in Newbury Park to a £900-a-night warehouse in Shoreditch – are rented out frequently, rather than just once or twice a year when the resident is away.
Using the number of reviews as a minimum for how often a property has been leased (visitors don't have to leave any feedback, meaning the actual number of stays may be higher) shows that more than 3,100 of the London listings have had more than 10 visits, while 1,600 have had more than 20 stays in the short life of the UK arm of the site."

Source:  The Guardian, 20th June 2014

Yelp's platform is generating over 10,000 food orders a week

"Yelp reported significant revenue growth vs 2012. The company announced $70.7 million revenue for Q4 2013. That represented 72 percent growth vs. the same period a year ago. For the full year, Yelp said that revenues hit $233 million, compared with $137.6 million in 2012.
Other numbers presented today:
53 million total reviews (30 percent of new reviews can from mobile devices)
120 million monthly uniques
53 million mobile uniques
67,000 active local business accounts
The company also said that the Yelp Platform is “now generating over 10,000 food orders each week.” For Q1 2014 the company expects to make between $73.5 million and $74.5 million. Full year 2014 revenues are projected to be $353 million to $358 million."

Source:  Yelp's Q4 2013 results, reported on the Screenwerk blog, 5th February 2014

3 million taxi journeys in London have been made using the Hailo app

"Three million taxi journeys have been made in the capital using smartphone app Hailo, the London-based tech start-up announced today.
Investor Sir Richard Branson also predicted that the number of cabbies using Hailo — which number 42,000 worldwide, including 13,000 in London — would double over the next year."

Source:  Evening Standard, 23rd September 2013

Earlier - 40% of London black cab drivers use Hailo (Feb 2013)

59% of Yelp's searches are on mobile

"Yelp mobile:  Yelp mobile continues to grow rapidly.  In the second quarter, approximately 40% of local ads were shown on mobile devices, and approximately 59% of searches were on mobile, including mobile web and app.  Additionally, Yelp launched a number of mobile upgrades including the Nearby feature which suggests businesses and activities based on location, behavior, friends' activities, and other data."

Source:  Press release from Yelp announcing Q2 results, 31st July 2013

Earlier - 45% of searches on mobile in Q1

45% of Yelp's search queries come from mobile devices

"Yelp said that 36% of ads shown in Q1 were on mobile devices. The Yelp app was used on “10 million unique mobile devices” monthly in Q1. Although there are many more PC users globally (102 million monthly), approximately 45% of Yelp’s search query volume is now coming from mobile."

Source:  Yelp Q1 2013 results, reported by Screenwerk blog, 1st May 2013

Local businesses that advertise on Yelp receive an average of $23,000 in extra revenue

"The Boston Consulting Group, a leading advisor on business strategy, recently surveyed 4,800 business owners to learn the economic impact Yelp has on small businesses. The results are eye opening: small businesses with a free business owner’s account saw an average of $8,000 in annual revenue from Yelp.
Let that sink in for a minute. That’s $8,000 gained just by claiming their free business account on Yelp. Clearly, local businesses are benefiting from a Yelp halo effect that translates into very real profits.
Even more interesting, the survey revealed that Yelp advertisers benefit nearly three times as much, generating average annual revenues from Yelp of more than $23,000.
For certain categories, the returns were even higher. Breaking out the numbers, we saw a number of categories doing exceptionally well advertising to purchase-minded Yelpers:
Home -- $54,000*
Automotive -- $39,000*
Local services -- $36,000*
Hotel and travel -- $36,000*
Shopping -- $24,000*
Health & Medical -- $20,000*
* Average annual revenue from Yelp
Considering that our typical local advertiser spend is $4,200** annually, that’s a pretty good ROI for these savvy businesses."

Source:  Yelp's blog, 19th March 2013

90% of national advertisers on the xAd US mobile network take part in 'conquesting'

"I had an interesting catch-up call with xAd this morning. We discussed a number of trends and metrics that the company is seeing in display campaigns running on its network. One of them, which really surprised me, was that “9 out of 10″ of its national advertisers are engaged in “conquesting.” That’s where geofenced messages are shown around competitors’ locations.
Marketing VP Monica Ho told me that national advertiser campaigns on the xAd network often feature one type of ad creative to reach people around the companies’ locations and a different approach and ad creative targeting consumers around competitors’ locations.
This can be highly effective, especially if the campaign creative is really strong."

Source:  Screenwerk, 6th March 2013

The number of local businesses advertising on Facebook has doubled since January

"The following new numbers were pushed out today by Facebook’s PR firm to coincide with Dan Levy’s session at the BIA event in LA. Levy is Facebook’s point person on SMB initiatives now.
Here are the new figures:
The number of Local Business Pages advertising on Facebook has nearly doubled since January
Active Local Pages have increased over 40% since January
150M people visit Facebook Pages every day, and news feed is not the only way they’re getting there; in the US, nearly half of these visits are happening on mobile
Over 300,000 Pages have promoted over 2.5M posts since Promoted Posts for businesses launched in June; over 25% of the businesses are new advertisers on Facebook
75% of daily Promoted Posts advertisers are repeat customers
Since we launched the Pages manager app six months ago, over 3M Page owners are using the mobile admin app to advertise on the go"
Source:  Screenwerk, 6th December 2012

Yelp bought Qype for $50m

"Yelp Inc. (NYSE: YELP), the company that connects consumers with great local businesses, today announced it has acquired Qype, Europe's largest local reviews site. Qype was acquired to accelerate Yelp's international expansion, bringing more than two million reviews and 15 million unique visitors per month across 13 countries.
[...]
Under the terms of the acquisition agreement, Yelp acquired all of Qype's shares, for approximately €18.6 million and 970,000 shares of Yelp's Class A common stock, for a total purchase price of approximately $50 million USD. Qype is headquartered in Germany, with operations also in the United Kingdom. The acquisition will be recorded in Yelp's fourth quarter and 2012 year-end financial statements."

Source:  Press release from Yelp, 24th October 2012

The impact of online restaurant ratings

"It is something every restaurateur and hotel owner knows: good reviews boost takings while terrible ones can close you down. And, in an age when everyone can be an online critic, ratings have never been more important. But until now no one could be sure just how important the online star ratings system employed by sites such as Toptable and Tripadvisor could be for a business's fortunes.
Work by two economists at the University of California, Berkeley, Professors Michael Anderson and Jeremy Magruder, published in this month's edition of the Economic Journal, represents the first attempt to gauge the relationship between online star ratings and customers' purchasing decisions. The pair focused on the effects of positive online ratings on 300 San Francisco restaurants that were then collated to form a star system on Yelp.com, a popular US ratings site.
They found that a restaurant with a rating improved by just half a star – on a scale of 1 to 5 – was much more likely to be full at peak dining times.
Indeed, an extra half-star rating caused a restaurant's 7pm bookings to sell out on from 30% to 49% of the evenings it was open for business.
Significantly, the two economists found that the increase in trade happened without any change in prices or the quality of food and service, confirming that it was the reviews that brought in the new customers.
The economists write: "The findings of this study demonstrate that – although social media sites and forums may not generate the financial returns for which investors yearn – they play an increasingly important role in how consumers judge the quality of goods and services."
The economists conceded that, while restaurants with strong reviews on the site did better business than poorly reviewed restaurants, establishing cause and effect was difficult.
"After all, restaurants that get good reviews are those that appeal to consumers and they would probably do well even in the absence of any reviews," the pair write. However, they are confident the research is robust. They note that, when Yelp.com computes a business's average rating (which ranges from 1 to 5 stars), it rounds off to the nearest half-star.
So, two restaurants that have similar average ratings can actually appear to be of very different quality to online viewers. For example, a restaurant with an average rating of 3.74 displays a 3.5-star average rating, while a restaurant with an average rating of 3.76 displays a 4-star average rating.
This, the economists claim, allows them to make important comparisons between restaurants that have different ratings – for example, 4 stars versus 3.5 stars – but are of nearly identical quality (for example, a 3.76 average versus a 3.74 average). Their conclusion? That half a star makes all the difference.
The economists write: "Differences in customer flows between such restaurants can therefore be attributed to the ratings themselves rather than differences in the quality of food or service."
The study collected reviews and daily reservation availability for 328 restaurants in San Francisco. It found that moving from 3 stars to 3.5 stars increased a restaurant's chance of selling out during prime dining times from 13% to 34%. Moving from 3.5 stars to 4 stars increased the chance of selling out during prime dining times by 19 percentage points.
The pair conclude that changes in consumer preferences "occur even though restaurant quality is held constant. This study demonstrates that these reviews have become a salient factor in consumer decisions."

Source:  The Observer, 2nd September 2012

Full research paper here

Google Maps features over 1 million public transit stops in over 500 cities

"Since 2005, we’ve collaborated with hundreds of transit authorities around the world to make a comprehensive resource for millions of riders to find out which bus, train, subway or tram can take them to their next destination. Today, Google Maps has public transportation schedules for more than one million transit stops worldwide, in nearly 500 cities including New York, London, Tokyo and Sydney.
Public transportation information is especially useful when it’s in the palm of your hand. Today we’re releasing an update to the Google Maps for Android app (version 6.10) which makes this transit information even more useful. We’ve made some changes to the Transit Lines layer, so that you can select a specific mode of public transportation (train, bus, tram or subway) to display on the mobile map, hiding the other modes. This is helpful in areas where there is a tight concentration of several types of public transit."

Source:  Google blog, 15th August 2012

Zaarly's has 500,000 members, who have completed $30m worth of tasks

"Most people who have heard of Zaarly know it as a service that allows users to posts tasks for others to fulfill, such as babysitting, odd jobs, errands and the like, as well as the price they're willing to pay. Now, the San Francisco-based startup is opening up its service to retailers and publishers, allowing visitors to the Los Angeles Times, Ikea Hackers, Everyday Health to post tasks to Zaarly without ever leaving those sites.
The service, "Zaarly Anywhere," is being pitched as an opportunity for publishers to earn revenue from the inspiration they create. Zaarly's half a million users have already completed $30 million in requests and some of these projects were no doubt inspired by content created by a publisher or online retailer."

Source:  AdAge, 17th July 2012

5m guest reservations have been made on Airbnb

"Airbnb, the online marketplace where you can rent out your house or spare room to travelers, announced today it has reached a milestone of five million guest reservations overall. The company also celebrated its strong international growth, with property listings in more than 19,000 cities in 192 countries around the world.
In terms of reservations alone, 2011 was a great year for Airbnb. The company launched in 2008 and it took about three years to reach one million bookings. In the last year alone, more than four million reservations were made, bringing Airbnb’s total to a cool five million.
The company also brought in some serious funding in 2011. Last July, investors gave Airbnb $112 million at $1.3 billion valuation, bringing the company’s total funding to $119 million dollars.
[...]

The online listing and booking service is paying off for many in a big way; earlier this week we reported that New Yorkers are making an average of $21,000 per year by renting out their spaces to travelers. The legality of renting out spaces for short periods of time is questionable in some cities, but people have flocked to the service none the less."

Source:  VentureBeat, 26th January 2012

Groupon has 83m subscribers across 43 countries

"Groupon, a three-year-old Chicago-based start-up, is by some measures the fastest growing firm in history. It notched up revenue of $94m in 2008, its first year of business. In the first quarter of 2011, revenues were $644.7m, according to information filed with US regulators.
The company sells coupons offering discounts, taking a cut in any money the business makes. It now has 83m subscribers across 43 countries.
In a letter to potential investors, Groupon's co-founder and chief executive, Andrew Mason, warned future growth could come at the expense of profit. Last year, the company lost $450m, compared with $6.9m in 2009 and $2.2m in 2008."

Source:  The Guardian, 2nd June 2011

Yelp has 17m reviews and 50m monthly visitors

"Today the company has surpassed 50 million monthly unique users (as reported by their internal Google Analytics), up from 46 million the month before. And they have a total of 17 million reviews for venues around the world. CEO Jeremy Stoppelman says that the service is seeing a faster rate of growth for both contributions (reviews) and users than it has historically— in Q1, users wrote 2 million reviews, while most quarters average 1 million. In other words, even if some of these other services are gaining traction, it isn’t hurting Yelp."

Source:  Techcrunch, 4th April 2011

Groupon is growing at a rate of 1 million subscribers a week

As stated in this interview by Groupon founder and CEO Andrew Mason
Source:  Bloomberg TV, 16th September 2010

Groupon (Est. 2008) has 230 websites in 29 countries and 15m subscribers

"The most successful is Groupon (a combination of the words “group” and “coupon”, which buyers print out to pay for their service). Although the firm launched only in late 2008, it already operates some 230 local websites in 29 countries and boasts 15m subscribers. Flush with money from investors, it has embarked on a global land-grab, buying Groupon clones in other countries, such as Germany’s CityDeal.
Groupon is more about people than technology. It grew out of The Point, a Chicago-based website that offers tools to organise collective action. The firm employs a worldwide sales force of nearly 2,000 to identify interesting local merchants and 150 writers to describe the offers. It wants to be the company that finally allows small businesses to participate in e-commerce, explains Rob Solomon, its president."
Source:  The Economist, 9th September 2010