Andy Sack, the blogging CEO of Judy’s Book posted today about what Yelp did to whip Judy’s Book. Because lets be fair - it was a whipping.

Three main points, each very interesting on its own:

Catered to a younger audience
While this is an easier route, it means some heavy skewing. And you can already see the effects of that. A lot of the reviews are written specifically to get ‘coolpoints’. A lot of the reviews read like stories, of which 1% can be considered a ‘review’ and the other 99% a journey of epic proportions. The other issue at hand is the fickleness of that crowd. Friendster felt it, and everyone is wondering if Facebook is going to feel it. Then again, maybe it is only the younger crowd that will ever really contribute (in large masses) to sites like Yelp. This isn’t to rag on Yelp, just that I think that strategy can be dangerous. But it might be the only one.

Focused on restaurants
This just makes sense. There is no activity (outside of their house) that a person does that is more varied than eating out. You can find a favorite cafe. A favorite club. But even with a favorite restaurant - you look. You flirt, and you tempt. We can have a monogamous relationship with almost anything (again applying to outside of the house) except eating at a restaurant.
So umm - back to the topic. More than Yelp being smart, I have to ask - what the hell was the competition doing? Catering to plumber reviews?

Out-marketed
This is where Yelp does deserve its dues. The site is exceptionally well put together, and has great cheeky humor spread throughout the site. Judy’s Book felt motherly, Insider Pages felt corporate, and Yelp felt friendly. Well done Yelp, well done!

Andy’s final point is interesting - can Yelp (or InsiderPages or anyone else for that matter) properly monetize social directories? Personally - I don’t see why not. If MySpace or Facebook (Friendster is suppoused to break even within the next few months) can do it, why not Yelp or IP? The audience at MySpace is highly fragmented and relatively cash-poor. The people on Yelp are local (and thus far better targeted) and are interested in going out (and spending their relatively cash-rich wallets). Someone give me a good counter-argument.

Then again, our own iBegin is trying to be search-first, social-network second. That in itself is a different ballpark, with headaches galore. I will talk about some of the challenges in upcoming posts.