Yelp, the community-led local search site, today announced the availability of Yelp UK (http://yelp.co.uk). Now people in the UK can use Yelp to read and write reviews about great businesses in their neighborhood. Locals are able to share their opinions on everything from curry houses to spas to mechanics. Additionally, small business owners can set up a free business owner’s account to attract new customers and communicate with current ones.
"London is the heart of the English-speaking world and one of the world’s great cities, and we have always intended have a UK presence," said Jeremy Stoppelman, co-founder and CEO of Yelp. "For the past three years, Londoners have been asking us to bring Yelp to the UK and we’re excited to have finally taken this step. We are committed to making Yelp London as vibrant and useful as Yelp in San Francisco or New York."
In the past month, more than 100,000 people from the UK visited Yelp.com to research travel destinations across the Atlantic. With more than 4.5 million reviews written by yelpers, the site has become the fastest growing and deepest source for information on the best neighborhood businesses in the US and Canada.
"Yelp has been a leader in the developments that might together be called ‘local 2.0’," said Greg Sterling, analyst Sterling Market Intelligence. "It helped reinvent the local segment by making community a more central part of the experience."
Yelp UK follows the August 2008 release of Yelp Canada (http://yelp.ca).
