Last week TechCrunch was reporting that Google was in talks to buy restaurant review monster Yelp for $550 million. Turns out the match wasn’t meant to be: TechCrunch is now reporting that the deal is dead. Citing that it was Yelp who walked away from the table indicates this could go a few ways.
The most likely scenario is what Mike alludes to in his post: another partner has come up and offered a more compelling alternative than being swallowed by the big G. This could come from so many places, from rivals like Apple and Microsoft to struggling platforms like Yahoo!. There is certainly no shortage of companies who would like to, or already, work with Yelp’s data. Of course for Google the Yelp model is a perfect fit, mountains of data that people want with the option for Google to sell the top spots. Just like with Adwords, local businesses could pay to outrank one another.
Of course Yelp may just be having a little fun with the deal. After all, Google does seem to be on a holiday spending spree lately. In the last few weeks they’ve picked up AdMob, Gizmo5, Teracent and AppJet, in total somewhere around a billion dollars in acquisitions. Perhaps Yelp is just holding out for a bigger payday. With over 8 millions reviews and complete domination here in the States I wouldn’t blame them. Like when you buy a car or take a new job, it always makes sense to walk away from the first offer and see if they’ll chase ya down.
Personally after 4–5 years of building a successful startup I would eagerly be looking for the exit. If that exit just happened to be lined with millions of dollars that wouldn’t hurt. Best to get out before one of the location-based social apps like Foursquare or Gowalla makes Yelp as outdated as a phonebook.
Last week TechCrunch was reporting that Google was in talks to buy restaurant review monster Yelp for $550 million. Turns out the match wasn’t meant to be: TechCrunch is now reporting that the deal is dead. Citing that it was Yelp who walked away from the table indicates this could go a few ways.
The most likely scenario is what Mike alludes to in his post: another partner has come up and offered a more compelling alternative than being swallowed by the big G. This could come from so many places, from rivals like Apple and Microsoft to struggling platforms like Yahoo!. There is certainly no shortage of companies who would like to, or already, work with Yelp’s data. Of course for Google the Yelp model is a perfect fit, mountains of data that people want with the option for Google to sell the top spots. Just like with Adwords, local businesses could pay to outrank one another.
Of course Yelp may just be having a little fun with the deal. After all, Google does seem to be on a holiday spending spree lately. In the last few weeks they’ve picked up AdMob, Gizmo5, Teracent and AppJet, in total somewhere around a billion dollars in acquisitions. Perhaps Yelp is just holding out for a bigger payday. With over 8 millions reviews and complete domination here in the States I wouldn’t blame them. Like when you buy a car or take a new job, it always makes sense to walk away from the first offer and see if they’ll chase ya down.
Personally after 4–5 years of building a successful startup I would eagerly be looking for the exit. If that exit just happened to be lined with millions of dollars that wouldn’t hurt. Best to get out before one of the location-based social apps like Foursquare or Gowalla makes Yelp as outdated as a phonebook.
