Will Yelp succeed in Australia? That’s the million dollar question. Yes they are late to market. But Yelp has global scale and the credibility of being around for an aeon in terms of “social sites” – established in 2004. Knowing what Australian’s are like, we do care about telling our friends/acquaintances/anyone about great customer experiences as much as punishing the the businesses that treat us badly.
I personally used Yelp in NYC when I visited earlier in the year, and found it invaluable because it turned up the best listings as part of a local Google search. The reviews pointed me to the kind of places I was interested in seeing. My gut feeling is that Yelp will succeed here if the social community gets on board and starts writing. It’s all about the quality of the reviews and the local knowledge.
Great summary, Tip! It will be interesting to see how the community is activated here!
Thanks Gavin. What's interesting is that the Yelp site is busy being populated with reviews. Every time I visit the numbers keep going up. I've added a tweet from last night from @ozdj – it seems we're not as review fatigued as he suggested.