Citysearch
 | |
| Type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry |
Internet Local Search, Advertising |
| Founded | La Crescenta, California, U.S. (1995) |
| Headquarters | 8833 W. Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, California, U.S. |
| Area served | United States |
| Key people | Jason Finger, President |
| Products |
Citysearch.com, Pay For Performance Advertising |
| Parent | IAC/InterActiveCorp |
| Website | citysearch.com |
Citysearch is an online city guide that provides information about businesses in the categories of dining, entertainment, retail, travel, and professional services in cities throughout the United States. Visitors to each of Citysearch's local city guides will find contact information, maps, driving directions, editorial, and user reviews for the businesses listed. Citysearch is headquartered in West Hollywood, California and is an owned and operated web site of CityGrid Media, which is an operating business of IAC (NASDAQ: IACI).[1][2] Original office was in Pasadena, California.
Citysearch was founded in September 1995 by Jeffrey Brewer, Caskey Dickson, Brad Haaugard, Taylor Wescoatt, and Tamar Halpern. Charles Conn was then recruited to lead the new company. The idea, initiative, and seed capital came initially from Bill Gross.[citation needed]
In 1999, Citysearch acquired the competing Sidewalk.com website from Microsoft,[3] and merged the two sites together. In 2007, another competitor, Insider Pages was acquired.[4]
In June 2010, Citysearch LLC rebranded as CityGrid Media. The flagship product of CityGrid Media is CityGrid, a content and ad network for local. CityGrid Media also owns and operates leading local consumer properties which include Citysearch, Insider Pages, and Urbanspoon.[5]
While many local search sites have mushroomed over the past few years, Citysearch's biggest competition comes from the fast growing Yelp, Inc. Yelp has been growing at 80% while Citysearch has remained flat.[6] Local search engines from Bing, Google and Yahoo are also widely used alternatives to finding local businesses on the internet.
Best of Citysearch
Best of Citysearch is a feature that gives locals an opportunity to vote for their favorite businesses in popular categories such as Restaurants, Nightlife, Hotels and Services. Citysearch opens up its annual polls with nominations from editors. Throughout the voting period visitors to the site cast votes for their favorite local business. After the polls close, the top ten businesses in each category are revealed to their cities.
Criticism
- In 2005, Citysearch was criticized by a blogger for their alleged inflation[7] of user submitted ratings and reviews. Citysearch has since updated their ratings system. Citysearch has also stated that they have the right to refuse to post or to remove any user review that violates the terms of use. Reviews that are subject to removal include unacceptable content such as profanity, personal information, promotion of illegal activity and harmful content.[8] In November 2007, Citysearch partnered with MerchantCircle,[9] a company that conducts automated telemarketing to small businesses to sell them online advertising packages.
- Users have criticized Citysearch for deleting and censoring genuine reviews, but taking little to no action against fake reviews.
- After registering, Citysearch offers no apparent option for closing one's account.
- Citysearch is also criticized because they allow negative reviews even if the reviewer has not utilized the business being reviewed. They then refuse to remove the content or delist the individual being defamed.
Top Citysearch Sites
References
- ↑ "Citysearch". CrunchBase.
- ↑ "CityGrid Media". CrunchBase.
- ↑ "Microsoft Sells Off Sidewalk Sites to Rival CitySearch". BNET. 1999-07-20. Retrieved 2008-07-03.
- ↑ "Troubled Insider Pages Acquired By CitySearch". TechCrunch. 2007-03-01. Retrieved 2008-07-03.
- ↑ "Citysearch Recasts Itself As CityGrid Media". TechCrunch. 2010-06-02. Retrieved 2010-06-02.
- ↑ http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/02/yelp-is-growing-80-percent-a-year-while-citysearch-remains-flat/
- ↑ "Normalize Citysearch Rankings With Greasemonkey". DeWitt Clinton. 2005-10-05. Retrieved 2008-07-03.
- ↑ Citysearch Terms of Use
- ↑ Search Engine Watch, Nov 29, 2007
External links
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