Yelp上市可能乘兴而来败兴而归

    英语词汇yelp与名为Yelp的美国商户点评网Yelp不同，它起源于16世纪，最初意为“自吹自擂”。经过多年演变，它的意思逐渐演变，如今已经变得迥然不同：按照《简明牛津英语词典》（Concise OED）的释义，它表示“短促、尖利的叫声，尤其是由于疼痛或受惊所致”。

    眼下，Yelp这家公司正在积极筹备上市，Yelp这个词含义演变所需要经历的时间跨度似乎会小得多。Yelp成立于2004年。它发展迅猛，很快就超越另一家点评网站Citysearch，成为消费者点评饭店和本地商户的首选。据称，它曾拒绝了谷歌公司（Google）高达5亿美元的收购出价，一心要实现自己的首次公开募股（IPO），这将使其市值达到20亿美元。这倒确实让Yelp有了大把的自吹自擂的资本。

    但是，一方面现在的股市动荡不安，另一方面，投资者也开始意识到，这些年轻的社交网络公司可能并不是那么炙手可热的投资对象，因此，IPO的前景可能将并不如Yelp所愿。上周，团购领域的领导公司Groupon和另一家近期上市的点评网站Angie's List的股价双双下挫，这就意味着市场对技术型公司IPO的热情可能正在消褪（而Facebook公司或许将于2012年4月进行IPO，它是属于自成体系的一类。）

    上周三天半的交易中，Groupon的股价下跌了36%，报收于16.75美元，大大低于其20美元的发行价。Angie's List下跌了15%，报收于13.5美元，仅比其11月16日的发行价略高50美分。2011年发行的同类IPO也业绩惨淡，流媒体音乐服务提供商Pandora的股价下挫16%，商务社交网站LinkedIn股价下跌了12%。而相比之下，尽管市场对欧洲的财政危机感到惶惶不安，但纳斯达克综合指数（Nasdaq Composite）仅下跌了5%。

    人们很容易对这些下跌做出过分解读。毕竟，上周由于感恩节放假，交易额规模不大，这也加剧了股价动荡。而Groupon由于突然成为做空者的最爱，它有望成为一支股价特别容易出现波动的股票。如果欧洲的局势能够稳定下来，或者如果另一家网络公司的IPO——比如说社交游戏公司Zynga——能很快强势首发，那么上周的低迷行情就可以被视为IPO市场的一个小小的插曲。

    而在某些方面，Yelp似乎与Groupon迥然不同。媒体对它即将IPO的消息关注有限，而Groupon则是媒体热议了好几个月的话题。Groupon现在给人的感觉就像当年的eBay，一时风光无限，却将很快迎来颓势。而在更大程度上，Yelp是一个稳定发展的组织，它能够持续多年经营。Groupon则是通过预先投资，在几年间实现了飞速发展，而Yelp则按部就班地实现着增长。

    此处是Yelp网站六年前的架构。它现在的样子基本照旧，只是当时仅有数千条评论。而今天，Yelp拥有2,200万条评论。不过，它也是花了好几年时间才发展到这样的规模，其诀窍就是：专注于反映用户和饭店的体验，而不是把力气花在大而无当的评价标准上。Yelp并不是那种迫不及待要赚快钱的公司。

    Unlike Yelp the company, "yelp" the word dates back to the 1500's, when its original meaning was "boasting". Over the years, it came to mean something quite different: "A short, sharp cry, especially of pain or alarm" as the Concise OED puts it.

    That downward trajectory seems to be playing out over a much shorter time span as Yelp the company gets ready to go public. Founded in 2004, Yelp soon sprinted past Citysearch as the premier site for customer reviews of restaurants and local businesses. The company reportedly spurned a $500 million offer from Google (GOOG), only to file for an IPO that could value the company at $2 billion. That wold give Yelp a lot to boast about.

    But that outcome may be derailed by a turbulent stock market and a growing sense among investors that the IPOs of young social-web startups may not be such hot investments after all. Groupon (GRPN), the leader in the group buying market, and Angie's List (ANGI), another user-review site that recently went public, fell last week, suggesting the appetite for tech IPOs may be waning. (Facebook, which may be targeting and April 2012 IPO, is in a category by itself.)

    In the three and a half days of trading last week, Groupon's stock fell 36% to $16.75, well below its $20 offering price. Angie's List fell 15% to $13.50, or 50 cents above its Nov. 16 offering price. Other IPOs in the class of 2011 fared poorly as Pandora (P) stock fell 16% and LinkedIn (LNKD) dropped 12%. The Nasdaq Composite, by contrast, declined 5% in a market jittery about the financial turmoil in Europe.

    It can be easy to read too much into these declines. After all, trading was light ahead of last week's Thanksgiving holiday, adding to volatility. And Groupon, an sudden favorite of short sellers, is looking to be an especially volatile stock. If things settle down in Europe, or if another web IPO -- say, Zynga -- has a strong debut soon, last week's gloom could be seen as a brief aberration in the IPO market.

    And in some ways, Yelp seems quite different from Groupon. Its IPO has received a moderate amount of coverage, while Groupon's was the subject of a passionate debate for months. Groupon feels like an eBay-like (EBAY) trend waiting to peter out. Yelp is more of a steady resource that could last for many years. While Groupon invested up front to grow quickly in a couple of years, Yelp nurtured its growth slowly.

    Here's an archive of Yelp's site six years ago. It looks much the same, only with a few thousand reviews. Today, Yelp has 22 million reviews, but it's taken several years to grow that big, focusing on the experience for users and restaurants rather than spectacular metrics. This is not a company in a rush to cash out.