Yelp just announced a pretty significant milestone. It now has over 100,000 developers using its API to integrate its data into their products. Regardless of whether or not consumers actually turn to the Yelp app or Yelp.com to find business information, they’re going to be exposed to it one way or another through third-party apps and services.
“Developers and partners of all shapes and sizes, from tiny startups to Fortune 500 companies are using the Yelp API to help their users make better decisions within their own apps,” a Yelp spokesperson tells WebProNews. “Our goal is to make sure that every developer can get what they need in terms of local search and data to build, launch, and improve their apps.”
“Consumers rely on Yelp’s trustworthy ratings, reviews, and accurate business details to make important decisions every day – finding a place to eat, selecting a handyman to help them fix up their home, or uncovering the best place to buy a gift,” said Mike Ghaffary, VP of Business and Corporate Development at Yelp, in a blog post. “These days, you can also find the same great Yelp content in Apple products; Volvo, Mercedes Benz, and Toyota vehicles; third-party apps such as Eat24, Microsoft, Trulia, and Yahoo; and a variety of cutting-edge startups like AddressReport, DuckDuckGo, and Wildcard, just to mention a few.”
Yahoo, Microsoft, and Apple are obviously big ones, particularly when it comes to searching for information. These companies all have a common enemy in Google, and Yelp has helped the others boost their local search offerings to better compete. Search “mexican restaurants in lexington” on Bing, and guess what’s front and center at the top of the page.
Last year, Yahoo began supplementing its own local results with those from Yelp. As we saw, some businesses were frustrated with the Yelp reviews appearing on Yahoo, and that’s a reminder to businesses that they have thousands of places where there business info may be appearing.
Apple has Yelp integrated into iOS and OS X in various apps and operating system features.
Other integrations Yelp chose to highlight are Trulia and AddressReport. Trulia uses it in the home search space. It gives home buyers an idea of the types of businesses that are in a given neighborhood.
AddressReport provides information on specific addresses including what is nearby, and uses Yelp reviews for sections like “Where you’ll dine”.
“Yelp is committed to providing a robust and unparalleled local search experience via the Yelp API,” Ghaffary said. “Our goal is to make sure that every developer can get what they need in terms of local search and data to build, launch, and improve their apps. Whether tinkering with a side project, launching a new startup, scaling a company, or working at a large public company, Yelp will be a resource for all developers.”
It sounds like Yelp has plenty more to come in terms of what services will be able to do with its data. The company says it will be launching “off the shell” tools so anyone can use applicable Yelp data in their experiences even if they’re not technical-minded. I guess we’ll stay tuned for that.
Images via Bing, Yahoo, Yelp
