YellowPages.com yelp’s into local user reviews, ratings

AT&T, owner of YellowPages.com, today announced it has rolled out User Reviews to its national site, enabling consumers to share opinions on local and national businesses from caterers and pool cleaners to jewelers and pet groomers.  From AT&T: The service allows consumers who register with the site to rate businesses from one to five stars, with five stars representing an "exceptional" rating. Site visitors can also write original text recapping their experience with businesses.

Charles Stubbs, president and CEO of YELLOWPAGES.COM, AT&T, "Our new User Reviews service adds richness and depth to the comprehensive database of local business information already available at YELLOWPAGES.COM, and gives our users another element to consider when choosing the businesses that best meet their needs. This service also delivers terrific value to our advertisers. We've designed a service that allows them to interact directly with reviewers by responding to postings — putting them in the driver's seat in managing their businesses online image."

Clearly this is a move to compete with other local reviews sites like Yelp (cn review). Where Yelp seems to target the younger set, my bet is that YellowPages will try to reach the more mainstream, non-Web 2.0'ish crowd. It will be interesting to watch if businesses try to spam their reviews like is done many times on TripAdvisor.

Really the big question is whether AT&T can create a community. Yelp and TripAdvisor have very strong communities. This is absolutely critical for a reviews site. Users spend hours creating reviews and are willing to do so when they know that the community will benefit. Will YP be able to create this same type of environment or will there be a sparseness of reviews due to lack of community? I think it's a good first step for the new mega giant of the telecom world. I think a more friendly, welcoming design would help to create the community I mentioned above.