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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Facebook is testing a new rating and review service [marketwatch.com], and that has Yelp [wikipedia.org] investors twitchy:

Facebook wants to tell you about local businesses, including ratings and reviews from your friends and others who have taken advantage of their offerings. If you're thinking, "That sounds a lot like Yelp," you're not alone.

Yelp Inc. shares dove as much as 9.2% Tuesday after Search Engine Land detailed [searchengineland.com] Facebook Inc.'s new desktop Services offering [facebook.com], which appeared with no announcement or fanfare from the world's largest social network.

"We're in the early stages of testing a way for people to easily find more Pages for the services they're interested in," a Facebook spokesman said in an email.

The push to direct its more than 1 billion users toward local businesses is nothing new for Facebook, which launched a service called Places in 2010 with a similar aim. The difference now is the amount of data Facebook has after years of allowing users to check in and rate local businesses, a wealth of info that has been hard for other Yelp rivals to amass. "With 50M Facebook Business Pages, and a global monthly active mobile user base of $1.5B+, Facebook represents a formidable competitor for anyone in local, especially given the ~60%+ engagement of mobile daily active users," Yelp bull Darren Aftahl, of Roth Capital Partners, wrote in a note Tuesday, as reported by Barron's [barrons.com].

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Facebook is far from the first to challenge Yelp. Alphabet Inc., then operating as Google, attempted to acquire the company years ago [twitter.com], then instead acquired Zagat and put now-Yahoo Inc. Chief Executive Marissa Mayer in charge of building a direct competitor, which now is part of Google's dominant search and map offerings. Angie's List Inc. has focused on local services and managed to go public, while startups like Foursquare have challenged Yelp in other areas.

Related: California Outlaws Contracts that Forbid Consumer Reviews [soylentnews.org]
Yelp Will Provide Information in a Defamation Suit [soylentnews.org]

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