The "Yellow Pages of the 21st Century"

Yelp. You've probably heard of it and used it. A long-winded article about it here: http://www.inc.com/magazine/20100201/youve-been-yelped.html

Ironically, the founders called it the "Yellow Pages of the 21st Century" during their pitches for investment. Ironic because just like Yellow Pages, Yelp must now find ways to innovate beyond their current business model. Keep in mind Yellow Pages was actually a very innovative idea at the time - and to this day they quite literally have been printing money. But, as consumer lifestyles have changed Yellow Pages has not kept up with their customer base or users. Revenues will continue to fall and users will move on to services like Yelp. But, Yellow Pages should have beaten Yelp to the punch and even Google for that matter. They had the "directory" market share first but they also had their blinders on and were not agile enough to see the opportunities online.

I'm watching Yelp closely to see if they continue to innovate. If they don't, turning down that reported offer of $500 million was a huge mistake. And, someday someone will say in a pitch for money "we're like the Yelp of the future."