Bing has done a deal with Yelp in which the latter’s reviews and content will be heavily integrated into Bing Local pages. According to the press statement put out by Yelp this morning, “Yelp will surface content including, review snippets, photos, business attributes, and more, to Bing users in the U.S.”
The content appears on Bing Local pages with the branding “powered by Yelp.” It is a deeper integration and partnership than what’s generally available to third parties through the standard Yelp API. I suspect that Microsoft/Bing was feeling pressure given Google’s recent incorporation of Zagat ratings into its Google+ Local pages and Apple’s local search announcements on Monday (also involving Yelp).
I was unable to find a live example of the integration but Yelp provided the following screenshot.
This deal and the Apple affirmation of its relationship with Yelp should give the company (and its stock) a bit of a boost.
As an aside I saw the first live Bing “Snapshot” content this morning as I searched on Bing for examples of these new Yelp-powered pages. Snapshot is a rich content area (column) to the right of the main search results. Below is a screenshot, containing reviews, a map and a link to interior images of the restaurant.
Interestingly Microsoft is using the term “Street View” for its link to street-level imagery. The actual Microsoft product name is “StreetSide.” I wonder whether Google will try to claim a trademark or otherwise prevent Microsoft from turning the phrase into a generic term.
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