December 22, 2009

Google, as relentless as The Borg,

made news once more this week with its courtship of Yelp, offering $500 million for its local search and review platform, and for its sales force of 200 people.

Yelp is now balking. They and their VC investors are thinking they are selling too soon or too cheaply. The sheer size of the local advertising / local search market has to give them pause — tens of billions of dollars are at stake, as local newspapers and local radio, and local TV whither before the digitization of everything.

By Marshall Brown | Permalink | Comments (0) |