Yell has acquired Trusted Places Limited, the company behind community website trustedplaces.com.

Published: 21 May 2010

Yell has acquired Trusted Places Limited, the company behind community website trustedplaces.com.

The purchase means that Yell will, for the first time, enable consumers to recommend a local business through its Yell.com website.

The company intends to capitalise on Yell’s database of over two million businesses with TrustedPlaces’ expertise in generating recommendations from local consumers. It is being emphasised that the move will drive strong benefit to Yell’s 399,000 mainly small business advertisers, through generating additional leads and providing a richer online interaction with existing and potential new consumers.

Initially, TrustedPlaces reviews will be added to Yell’s business listings, leading to full integration under the Yell.com domain.

The company also expects that the techniques and technologies that have made TrustedPlaces successful in the UK will be shared with other Yell Group operating companies in the US, Spain and Latin America.

Under the deal, Sokratis Papafloratos, chief executive and co-founder of TrustedPlaces, is joining Yell as head of social products in the UK.

TrustedPlaces was launched in late 2006. The private equity backed startup now attracts around 700,000 unique users a month looking for recommendations on local businesses across a range of key categories. The company was founded by Sokratis Papafloratos and Walid Al Saqqaf. In 2007, the startup received funding from HOWZAT Media, the fund setup by Hugo Burge and David Soskin.