It’s easy to say from the sidelines, where I don’t have to decide between millions and a potentially bigger vision for my company’s future, but I just don’t see this paying off for them.  As it stands, a few start-up players (like Foursquare/Gowalla) have already leveraged newer technology to start creeping in on Yelp’s turf; to think they’d grow the company to something more valuable than the $550 million that was on the table – in an increasingly competitive space that will be won or lost in mobile (where Yelp is far from entrenched) and an economic climate that has hit their core customer base, local businesses, particularly hard – is a bold bet.

More power to them – anybody who can walk away from that kind of money is clearly either brave or legally insane. In either case, it should make it fun to watch where Yelp goes from here.

[vi:a]