This new free tool does the math by multiplying customer leads sent from Yelp each month by the business’s average revenue per customer lead,” explains Yelp in a blog post. We’ve also included the average spend per customer for each business category for reference, based on the BCG study.”

“We think this new tool will be helpful to business owners for two reasons,” the company adds. “First, it helps quantify the revenue opportunity Yelp is already sending to each business. Second, it establishes a revenue baseline for prospective advertisers, from which they can later evaluate the impact of their investment in Yelp Ads.”

Business owners can use the tool when they log in to Yelp.

This isn’t the only new calculation tool out there available for businesses. Google just launched one too. This one helps you calculate the value of mobile for both online and offline conversions.

Cumulative reviews grew 45% year-over-year to over 36 million by the end of the year. Average unique monthly visitors grew 31% year over year to about 86 million. Active local business accounts grew 68% year-over-year to approximately 39,800.

Yelp also announced that in January, it surpassed 100 million uniques for the first time, and put out an infographic about it.

CEO Jeremy Stoppelman said, “2012 was a tremendous year for Yelp. We completed a successful IPO, launched new products to improve the Yelp experience for consumers and business owners, expanded into new markets while increasing our presence in existing ones, and completed our first acquisition. We believe 2013 will be a tipping point for our brand in Europe as Yelp continues to become a trusted local resource. Our mobile strategy will remain a top priority as engagement increases, and we will continue to focus on the business owner, creating more ways to measure the value of Yelp leads.”

Here’s the release in its entirety:

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 6, 2013 /PRNewswire/ – Yelp Inc. (NYSE: YELP), the company that connects consumers with great local businesses, today announced financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2012.

SOURCE Yelp Inc.

“That’s an all-time high for traffic to the desktop and mobile site and a clear indication that people are looking for local businesses and finding them on Yelp,” said CEO Jeremy Stoppelman in a blog post. “While that number is huge, it doesn’t even include the 9.4 million unique mobile devices that used the Yelp mobile app in January alone.”

“Even more staggering than 100 million unique visitors using Yelp.com in January are the millions of contributions Yelpers made to the community in the same time frame,” he added. “The 4.6 million calls and 5.7 million directions generated through the Yelp mobile app and nearly 2 million bookmarks created by Yelpers are the connection between searching for a specific local business and making a spending decision.”

According to Stoppelman, who cites a recent survey, business owners on Yelp report that the average customer across all categories spends $101.59 in their first visit.

The company has put out this infographic to accompany its impressive traffic news:

Participating restaurants’ health scores will be displayed alongside the other business information like hours, price range, etc. If a user hovers over the score, Yelp will display an info box that tells them what it is they’re looking at.

“Yelp works with local governments to show health inspection scores, ranked on a scale of 0-100,” it says.

You can click on through to access a more detailed report, which includes a list of the specific violations, the date in which the inspection occurred, and whether it was a routine inspection or another kind. You can also look at all of that information for previous inspections (but only in San Francisco currently).

This new metric is enabled through Yelp’s new “open data standard” called the “Local INspector Value-entry Specification,” or LIVES for short. They say that LIVES was developed with the encouragement of the White House.

“Public/private partnerships like this don’t necessarily provide a direct contribution to Yelp’s bottom line, but evidence suggests the LIVES open data standard will have a positive impact on society,” says Yelp.

In the future, LIVES could be used by other city governments to follow suit with the inspection ratings on the site – if they so choose. Of course, governments are not always keen on opening up their data to the public.

“We hope other cities will join San Francisco in fully embracing this new open data standard,” says Yelp.

The first two cities to partner with Yelp in the venture are San Francisco and New York, but Yelp expects more to roll out in the coming months.

[Photo courtesy Don McCullough, Flickr]

The reviews in question indicate that Perez found her jewelry missing, and that “Dietz was the only one with the key.” One could see where a consumer might steer clear of a contractor with such a review. The problem, however, is that Perez has so far not been able to prove that Dietz stole her jewelry, and it’s basically one person’s word vs. the other’s. In addition to ordering her reviews changed, the injunction prevented Perez from being able to make similar claims on other sites.

Do you think Perez’s negative reviews should be allowed to remain online? Let us know in the comments.

The case goes on. However, since Perez was ordered to change her reviews, the ACLU and Public Citizen appealed the Fairfax County Judge’s decision in the name of free speech, and it went to the Supreme Court of Virginia, which overturned the temporary inunction, ruling:

“Upon further consideration whereof, the Court also finds that the preliminary injunction was not justified and that the respondents have an adequate remedy at law.

“This order shall be certified to the said circuit court.”

In other words, the court found that Perez shouldn’t have to change the reviews as long as they have yet to be proven libelous, and being sued for damages was enough. Whether or not Dietz gets his victory, remains to be seen, but in the meantime, it looks like Perez’s words will be allowed to remain in tact. If they are found to be libelous, they would be required to be removed from the sites. That just has to be proven first, and in the meantime, it may still be costing Dietz some business.

Interestingly, there is currently only one review listed for Dietz Development on Yelp, and it simply says: “I read about how these people sued a woman for giving them a negative review on Yelp. Scary stuff.”

The review is accompanied by a single star rating, and it is the first thing you see when you search ro “Dietz Development” in Google:

It’s unclear why Perez’s review is not currently showing up on Yelp, in light of recent legal events. It is also interesting that while Yelp is only showing this single review (which, by the way, really isn’t about the business itself), it has 8 other reviews marked “filtered,” which it does not show unless you click the link, which also requires you to enter a CAPTCHA. Reviews in this section are mixed. Some are clear responses to the lawsuit, like:

“They do shady work and then sue people if they post a negative review about them. Not cool.”

“I hired Dietz Development to build me a room/addition to my house for $20,000 and it would only take 2 weeks….somehow, they did a demolition job instead and dynamited everything, so now I have no house, just a hole in the ground! Plus the final bill was $30,000 (and it took them THREE weeks, not two!!!) Hey, at least my jewelry isn’t missing.”

One simply says, “Called to get a quote, the person on the phone was very rude, I wish I had gotten his name. I did not use them based on customer service.”

The other half of the reviews are quite positive, each with 5-star ratings. One user says, “Having SEEN the work this contractor does and MEETING him in the flesh, I can say you can expect top notch service from Dietz Development. Pay no mind to hateful hipsters who post negative reviews of a company they have no knowledge of.”

Then, there are 65 reviews that Yelp says have been removed for violating content guidelines or terms of service. I would imagine that a number of people have dropped by the page to say something in response to the suit.

Yelp’s filtering of reviews is automated. CEO Jeremy Stoppelman talks about it here. Here’s a video about it:

Public Citizen, which has maintained an archive of court documents related to this case, called the Supreme Court’s decision “a positive move for free speech on the Internet”. In a press release, the organization wrote:

Public Citizen argued that the contractor could get damages if, after a full trial, a jury agrees that Perez made false claims about him that meet the standard for libel. Because such a process has not occurred, forcing Perez to remove her comments amounted to censorship.

“The decision confirms the importance of not shutting down public discussion on the Internet just because someone doesn’t like what’s being talked about,” said Paul Alan Levy, an attorney for Public Citizen. “Review sites like Yelp are vehicles for the free flow of ideas by helping consumers make informed decisions on how to spend their hard-earned dollars.”

This is far from the first time a business has sued a consumer for negative reviews on sites like Yelp and Angie’s List. The outcomes have varied. As Bob Sullivan at NBC’s Red Tape points out, “An Oregon judge dismissed one lawsuit filed by a dentist earlier this year. Months earlier, a similar lawsuit filed by a church pastor was also dismissed. On the other hand, a case filed by a neurologist in Minnesota after negative comments was initially dismissed, but reinstated by a state appeals court earlier this year. And there are dozens of other ongoing cases — many involving health care — including one involving a Chicago plastic surgeon suing former patients for $100,000 after they criticized his work online.”

“Still, the threat of a libel lawsuit has become a more common tactic by businesses trying to dissuade consumers from making critical comments in public forums,” he adds. “A Red Tape reader in Ohio complained last month that she was threatened with such a lawsuit after she placed a sign on her front lawn criticizing a home alarm company.”

As far as review sites go, the companies behind them have protections against being held accountable for what users write in their policies, and in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Liz Gannes at All Things D shares this statement from Yelp:

Consumer freedom of speech provides an important public service, protected by law. Yelp provides a valuable contribution to this dialogue by providing a two-way platform for consumers to share their experiences and for businesses to respond to their customers. Courts have consistently ruled that consumers have the right to share their truthful experiences. As a result, businesses that choose to sue their customers to silence them rather than address their comments, rarely prevail and often bring additional unwanted attention to the original criticism.

To that point, TechDirt’s Mike Masnick makes an interesting point about Dietz’s suit: “Whether or not the original allegations were true, now he’s made it clear that he’s willing to sue over reviews as well. It seems like most people might see that and decide to hire a contractor who not only has good reviews, but doesn’t have a history of suing his customers over their online reviews.”

As we can see from the reviews currently on Yelp, consumers will see that he has sued.

Reactions to the Dietz/Perez case from WebProNews readers have been mixed, but as business owners, many have sided with Dietz. Online reputation is indeed a serious issue for businesses. There’s no denying Dietz has a valid point about that. Negative reviews can hurt businesses financially, and if there are false accusations about your business out there, you obviously want to get them cleared up. It will be interesting to see how swiftly the courts are able to get the whole case sorted out. Regardless of which side is right, Dietz stands to lose business as it goes on.

Do you think the courts got this one right so far? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Should courts be able to make people change what they say online? Tell us what you think.

On the flipside, however, as a business, should you not have legal recourse for accusations you believe to be false, in order to protect your business’ reputation, and avoid losing potential customers? It’s a tricky debate, and any legal rulings could have far-reaching implications for future cases. On the one hand, ruling against the reviewer risks opening the floodgates for such suits which could ultimately cost average consumers not only their voice, but unaffordable legal fees. On the other hand, ruling in favor of the reviewer could leave room for all kinds of smear campaigns from disgruntled consumers or even ex-employees of businesses who did not leave on the best of terms. It could, as one business claims, cost said business a great deal of money in lost customers.

Now, let’s look at what we’re dealing with here. Jane Perez was sued by Dietz Development, a building contractor, who claims to have lost business because of her negative postings on sites like Yelp and Angie’s List. He sued for $750,000, and claimed that he lost $300,000 because of her words.

What was so bad about the reviews? Perez reportedly indicated that the company had caused damage to her home, trespassed, and even stolen jewelry. According to reports, the judge granted a temporary injunction, and ordered Perez to change parts of the Yelp review – specifically the part about jewelry theft, which had said, “I found my jewelry missing and Dietz was the only one with a key.” She was also reportedly ordered to nix a part mentioning a previous lawsuit that Dietz had filed.

Mail Online talked to Perez’s attorney, who is quoted as saying, “Obviously this is very chilling to free speech because folks are going to be very concerned and afraid to voice their opinions about businesses…We believe that these sites are the forum where we should be encouraged to write about our experiences with businesses.”

The Dietz party maintains that its reputation is at stake, and that accusations are false. Mail Online also quotes Deitz’s lawyer as saying, “A bad review is one thing. But, it was a bad review that accused him of theft. And in this residential construction, commercial construction business – that’s a devastating accusation.”

You can read the entire 27-page legal document here, courtesy of The Washington Post.

It’s not really about this one case though. It’s about underlying theme, which is also woven throughout a growing number of similar complaints, not limited to Yelp, but to the web in general. We live in an era when anyone with a computer or a mobile phone can easily jump on Facebook, Twitter, or countless other sites, and say whatever is on their mind in any given moment. Not happy with the way your burger was put together at McDonald’s? You may wish to reconsider calling the worker who gave it to you names, as there is always a chance that the corporation that employees them decides it doesn’t like the way you’re representing their business.

Sometimes name calling is name calling. Sometimes accusations are accusations, but the lines aren’t always that clear, and sarcasm and snark don’t always play as well as we hope they do when in written (or typed) form. Believe me. I’ve had plenty of sarcastic comments in articles throughout the years that simply didn’t land. A scathing metaphor about a person or business risks being taken as fact, and if the person or business on the other end of that scathe, decides to pursue legal options, well, they may just have a case.

Social media, by the way, is working hard to eliminate online anonymity. In many cases, it won’t be hard for a complaint to put a name to the comments.

As far as Yelp reviews go, there are plenty of business breaking the “rules” too. There have been enough businesses buying positive reviews on Yelp that Yelp had to start slapping alerts on business profiles who had been “caught red-handed” (Yelp’s own terminology). So, that’s one way businesses had of countering bad reviews that Yelp has essentially taken away (granted, with good reason).

Some businesses, rather than suing or paying for good reviews, are simply having fun with the bad ones. I prefer this approach. San Diego’s Craft & Commerce is recording their bad Yelp reviews, and playing them for customers while they’re in the bathroom. Seriously. Awesome idea.

Unfortunately, it’s quite likely, especially in light of the Perez case, more companies will take the legal route, rather than the bathroom humor route. Of course, you do have to get the customers in the door before you can get them in the bathroom.

On a semi-related note, there has been a lot about Google’s handling of reviews in search results of late, as the company faces potential antitrust lawsuits from the FTC and EU. Yelp has been a big opponent of Google for some time.

This whole thing seems to be validation that people are finding Yelp reviews just fine, regardless of how Google is treating its own search results. Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, a regular critic of Google’s business practices, was recently quoted as saying that Google has some “evil” business practices. He thinks Google shouldn’t be putting Google reviews ahead of other reviews (like Yelp’s).

Yelp, by the way, gets somewhere around 84 million visitors a month, and has 22 million reviews. So many people use it that its reviews are often the basis of lawsuits.

What do you think? Should the courts be determining what people are saying in online reviews? On social media? Comment here.

But for a restaurant owner, I’m sure the terrible Yelp reviews are more memorable than the good ones. One restaurant is getting proactive by putting the bad reviews on display in the most clever place possible – the crapper.

San Diego’s Craft & Commerce is taking a fun approach to negative reviews. They’re recording them, and playing them for patrons to hear when they’re going #1 or #2. You know what they say: if you can’t beat them, associate them with human waste.

Craft & Commerce has a 4-satar rating on Yelp with over 900 reviews and boasts a Michelin-award winning chef – so it makes sense that they allow themselves the room to poke fun at themselves.

But if you ever visit the restaurant, here’s are some of the reviews you might hear while taking a pee:

What a disaster. Don’t think it was a typical night and the cocktails/mixology was as advertised but the kitchen was full of smoke and after waiting for an hour and a half we left without eating. BTW the ladies room was having serious issues as well. Sorry, truth hurts!

On the surface, this is creative vibrant pub with loads of potential. What i found, was that if im not a hipster, neck beard vespa rollin’ type, I gets no love here. Terrible service, me and all my friends from work were blatantly dissed just because we opted to buy drinks instead of food and drinks. This ain’t Cuba!
F$#% yo couch.

3 of us walked in for dinner last Sunday. The menu print is too small to read in the dim light. No vodka. Great burger, but they don’t serve ketchup. This place takes it’s identity and itself too seriously. How can you have a burger and fries with no ketchup? They could make their own if they think Heinz is cheesy. Drinks are too froufrou. No vodka soda? You’d gain 10 lbs drinking all the sugar drinks. Would not go back.

And they would probably sound something like this:

[Foodbeast via Fark]

Sara Forden, Jeff Bliss & Brian Womack report:

Google has been engaged in settlement talks with the FTC for about a week, including an effort to define whether there’s a market where Google has a monopoly, one of the people said. The Mountain View, California-based company, operator of the world’s most popular search engine, is concerned that entering a formal settlement agreement with the agency may hurt its business prospects, the people said.

Google competitors are still complaining about Google’s choice of providing its own results. At a Business Insider conference today, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman said that Google has some “evil” business practices, according to a report from CNET. Shara Tibken reports:

Stoppelman said that any disruptive businesses, like Uber and Airbnb, are guaranteed backlash, and government and business entities shouldn’t necessarily be allowed to limit those businesses. However, Google’s practices are likely “worth taking a look at,” he said.

“If you happen to be the gateway for the vast majority of users on the Internet and you restrict information and put your house property ahead of everyone else, you potentially harm consumers,” Stoppelman said. “We can all agree that’s probably not a good thing.”

Well, we can probably all agree that harm to consumers is not a good thing, but I’m not sure there’s as much agreement as to whether or not Google’s practices are actually harming consumers. Last time I checked, it’s still rather easy to enter Yelp.com into a web browser’s address bar if one wants to see Yelp reviews. In fact, I’m pretty sure that most modern browsers enable you to set Yelp.com as your homepage if you want that to be your gateway to the Internet. I’m quite certain that Google even provides a wonderful gateway to Yelp.com should a user search for Yelp or Yelp reviews.

Does going to Google.com and seeing reviews from Google hurt consumers more than going to Yelp.com and seeing reviews from Yelp?

“Specifics on menu items, like description and price, will match up with Yelp’s user generated photos and reviews mentioning that particular dish,” explains a Yelp product manager in a blog post. “Feeling indecisive? Pick something with the “popular” tag – items Yelpers can’t stop talking about – and you’re guaranteed a good meal.”

The feature is starting to roll out today in the U.S. Yelp is quickly expanding its operations in Europe, so I would not be surprised to see the feature launch there in the near future.

Interestingly, Yelp says this the first time it has rolled out a new feature on its website, mobile website and mobile app all at the same time.

That “Best of” box is now the subject of a new lawsuit. Village Voice Media Holdings, the once-publishers of alternative weekly newspaper The Village Voice as well as well as other papers in Denver, Houston, Dallas, Miami, Seattle, and more, has filed a suit against Yelp. They claim that Yelp is willingly infringing upon their trademarked “Best of” marks and “taking advantage of Village Voice Media’s goodwill and valuable reputation.”

Village Voice Media is seeking damages and a permanent injunction against Yelp, barring them from using the “Best of” phrase on their site.

VVMH does have over a dozen registrations for various “best of”s, for instance “Best of Denver,” “Best of Houston,” “Best of Phoenix,” and “Best of San Francisco.” In all, they cite 18 different trademarks covering 10 different cities. These registrations were made starting back in 1997, up until 2012.

According to Paid Content, this isn’t the first time Village Voice Media Holdings has gone after an entity for the use of “Best of.” Last year, they took on the Time Out New York magazine for their publication of a “best of NYC” issue. VVMH was hit with a countersuit, which claimed that the phrase “Best of” is generic.

You can check out the full lawsuit below:

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