Yell has acquired UK local reviews website trustedplaces.com, letting consumers recommend a local business through its Yell.com website for the first time. The combination of Yell’s database of over two million businesses with TrustedPlaces’ technology for generating recommendations from local consumers represents a major shake-up of the fast-growing local reviews market. It will drive strong […]
Yell has acquired UK local reviews website trustedplaces.com, letting consumers recommend a local business through its Yell.com website for the first time. The combination of Yell’s database of over two million businesses with TrustedPlaces’ technology for generating recommendations from local consumers represents a major shake-up of the fast-growing local reviews market.
It will drive strong benefit to Yell’s 399,000 mainly small business advertisers, through generating additional leads and providing a richer online interaction with existing and potential new consumers. Initially, TrustedPlaces reviews will be added to Yell’s business listings, leading to full integration under the Yell.com domain.
21/05/2010
Mark Canon, president of new media at Yell in the UK, said: “This represents a significant growth opportunity. We all know that recommendations help local businesses to attract new consumers, so Yell.com and TrustedPlaces are a perfect fit.”
The company also expects that the techniques and technologies that have made TrustedPlaces successful in the UK will be shared with other Yell Group operating companies in the US, Spain and Latin America.
Under the deal, Sokratis Papafloratos, chief executive and co-founder of TrustedPlaces, is joining Yell as head of social products in the UK.
He said: “The internet gives customers more influence in the reputation of a local business than ever before. This exciting partnership gives businesses the opportunity to harness the power of recommendations like never before.”
TrustedPlaces was launched in late 2006. The private equity backed startup now attracts around 700,000 unique users a month looking for recommendations on local businesses across a range of key categories.
These cover, for example, Restaurants, Bars and Pubs, Hotels and Travel, Beauty and Spas, Shopping and Home Maintenance and Repairs, which includes services such as plumbers.
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