Yelp has bought Qype for $50 million. The U.S. local listings and reviews service Yelp is expanding with its European equivalent.
“With its strong local content in key markets like Germany and the United Kingdom, we believe that Qype will help Yelp become the de facto choice for local search in those markets,” said Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman. “Type’s established European sales force will also bring more local business owners into the Yelp ecosystem, which in turn will bolster our mission to connect people Yelp CEO with great local businesses all over the world.”
Qype has entries for Germany, the U.K., France, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, Poland, Spain, Italy and Brazil. Services like this have largely supplanted traditional Yellow Pages directories’ classifieds business.
Google’s integration of Google+ and its local listings is going to be a significant challenge to dedicated local reviews services. Yelp, however, is going to work with Apple, and Qype will expand their offerings into new regions.
Source: PaidContent.org
