The German startup community has been notorious for blatant clones of popular sites developed elsewhere (my personal favorite is Freundefeed). One startup that is sometimes associated with this trend (perhaps unjustly) is Qype, a Yelp-like site for reviews that has established a strong presence throughout Europe. CEO Stephan Uhrenbacher says that he wasn’t aware of Yelp’s existence when he launched Qype, but at this point it doesn’t really matter – Qype is on fire, and is on its way to becoming the dominant local review site in a number of countries, including England, France, and Germany.
Uhrenbacher says that Qype sees 6.3 million monthly unique visitors across The UK, France, Spain, and Germany (where the site was originally founded and receives around half its traffic). The site also recently launched a localized version for Brazil. But while Qype is multilingual, it treats each localized version as its own site – you’ll never run across a review in French if you’ve specified your preferred language as English.
So does Qype have any plans for coming to the US after its European (and more recently, South American) expansions? Uhrenbacher says that in order to take on Yelp the site would need to bring something different to the table, which could possibly be its multi-lingual capabilities. He also says that Qype is less city-centric than Yelp (I’m not entirely sure what he means by that – I’ve always found Yelp to work well in smaller towns). But for now, he says there are many more uncontested markets to expand to, so we probably won’t be seeing Qype on US shores for some time, if ever.
By mid December the site plans to launch its geo-location enabled iPhone application, which will allow users to immediately detect what restaurants and shops are nearby and view recommendations on them. The site closed an €8 million round in September, and has raised €13m to date.
Qype may be the the site to beat in Europe, but it is by no means the only competitor in that space (others major players include Trusted Places, Tipped and TouchLocal in the UK). And there’s always Yelp, which may have some international aspirations of its own. That said, Qype seems to be on a roll – after making some key talent acquisitions earlier this year, some European rivals were driven to ask the press for advice, which is rarely a good sign.
germans are badasses with them just ripping off copycat sites
I think you mean 6.3 million monthly unique visitors, not 6.3.
I was going to say that, 6.3 sounds like the traffic I get on my Blog LOL (right now anyway)….
Yep, sorry about that. Fixed it.
Hey now, if those 6.3 unique visitors are very active…that’s about 2 people per country.
although .3 people would then mean what?
forgot to mention, Yigg.de the Digg copycat
Studivz.net which is Facebook-ish
And there’s a Threadless.com rip out there yet I forget the name.
Please don’t provoke the Germans.
Just a quick reminder (see #5): http://www.tech...but-dont-exist/
Although StudiVZ might seem as a huge rip-off (they even called their software fakebook early on), they did something Facebook itself obviously wasn’t capable of. They not only translated the GUI into German but they also translated the whole service and its marketing to the German market.
Saying that Qype is a rip-off of Yelp is like saying German yellow pages is a rip-off of American yellow pages. There simply aren’t too many innovative ways of tackling local reviews, so why not go for a proven model?
>>There simply aren’t too many innovative ways of tackling local reviews, so why not go for a proven model?
Oh, bullshit.
There’s a difference between what you’re talking about and watching some German hack job copy you, feature for feature, day after day, month after month… You do the design work, the A/B testing, the user research… they just sit back and fast follow you on a 3-month delay. It’s very very blatant sometimes. I’ve even seen a German copycat get caught lifting code. This is what these douchebags do. I don’t know if Qype was conceived as a copycat to Yelp but it looks like they’ve learned the game good and quick.
Well, you better live with that. I am not saying that is right but this kind of thing is happening in most industries everywhere. It happens in Silicon Valley just as it happens in Berlin or London. You just have to be faster and more original than the copycats.
“You just have to be faster and more original than the copycats”????
What kind of German bullshit is this???
Total lack of originality and talent, laziness motivated by the widespread European anti-American attitude. Shame on you all!
Exactly. This is like saying it’s immoral for Ford to make a change to a car if it’s become popular in Japanese cars — unless it’s patented or otherwise legally protected you have an obligation as a self-interested company to incorporate those features that have proven successful for your competition.
somewhat off topic, but I thought the uniques number was outrageous, so thought I’d check it out, but compete and quantcast focus on the US, and google trends doesn’t have actual numbers (just a graph, which really isn’t that useful).
Anybody know of a european visitor stats site?
Well, you better live with that. I know you means that is very archaic journey.
Great to hear that there are services coming out of Germany that are doing well – whether it’s a rip off or not, I don’t know since I don’t have any background info on it. Nonetheless German startups tend to quickly stick their heads into the sand when the going gets tough and they also struggle to find funding even at the best of times. So great job on tackling something this big with such success.
who cares? german copy cat, twitter has many clones, youtube has many clones, myspace has many clones… thats what happens when someone sees someone else make money, they say “I can do that”…. GREAT NEW
…at least we invented the car.
oh, and who copied that one?
oops.
@jason Good post and well deserved for Qype, which is very far from being a Yelp clone.
Thanks for updating the post to include TrustedPlaces. The link is broken though.
“on its way to becoming the dominant local review site in a number of countries, including England, France, and Germany”
A quick comparison with Cityvox, French biggest player, shows there is still a long way ! :
http://trends.g...=all&sort=0
Everyone ragging on the Germans for ripping sites off… But the problem is that many Americans are so USA-centric, that they don’t consider that little features like language support (for example) are essential…
@Jason Kincaid, re: “But while Qype is multilingual, it treats each localized version as its own site – you’ll never run across a review in French if you’ve specified your preferred language as English.”
I think Qype is missing a chance here. The site would be even better if it offered Pan-European discussion groups for international exchange.
So if a US based company rips of another US based company’s business model it’s ok but if a non-US company does it’s not ok? I don’t see the connection between nationality and business models. I use Yelp and Qype. I must be insane.
Qype may already be getting many mkore hits than yelp. Out of those millions of hits yelp gets, much of it is to their talk threads.
Daimler Benz invented the automobile. Does this mean that cars produced in Detroit are clones and GM is a copycat? Although Qype and Yelp are portals for reviews, they are very different in their philosophy and features.
You forgot to include http://www.thebestof.co.uk in your list of major players. The site gets 1.5 million visitors a month, is run by a team of 300 franchisees based in each local area and features 60,000 businesses, along with details of local events.
I think Qype has a great site for reviews but the other piece is getting advertisers and SMB’s to embrace the medium. Firms like ReachLocal UK http://www.reachlocal.co.uk are also on fire in Europe and word is that Qype and RL are in active discussions on a European partnership…..