In one of the first major launches of a social network in Australia since Foursquare, Yelp today officially launched it’s Australian presence at www.yelp.com.au.
To mark the occasion, CEO Jeremy Stoppelman met with local bloggers and social media marketers in Sydney to talk about the history of Yelp, some of the benefits to users and local businesses, and what lies ahead.
Some quick out-takes from this morning’s session include:
- More than 1,000,000 Australian businesses are already listed on Yelp.com.au and indexed in their mobile app
- Currently businesses from Melbourne and Sydney are included on Yelp Australia
- Roughly 80% of comments from Yelp users are positive
- The name Yelp comes from a combination of “Yellow Pages” and “help” – although they almost went with “Yocal”
- Businesses can use a toolkit to promote themselves and get setup on Yelp, and offer incentives and special offers to people who checkin
- Yelp users are fiercely competitive when it comes to earning a “First Review” status by being the first to review a business
Yelp is looking for a Sydney community manager, so if you’re interested and know someone who’s an expert on everything Sydney, check out the job posting on Seek.
Stay tuned to the #YELPAU hashtag today to follow the reaction to Yelp’s arrival in Australia.
[ photo via @camakos1 ]
