Yahoo to Partner With Yelp, Integrate Reviews into Search

If you look up Yahoo on Yelp, we're willing to bet that you're going to see a big ol' five-star rating within the next few weeks.
We kid, of course, but only sort of. In this week's all-hands meeting over at Yahoo, CEO Marissa Mayer let slip that Yahoo will now be partnering up with Yelp to integrate the review site's body of user-generated feedback into Yahoo's primary search results.
The content partnership is likely similar to ones Yelp already has with Microsoft and Apple. For example, take Microsoft's Bing search engine: Type the name of a local business into your browser – we picked Taco Bell – and the listing of nearby locations will often be accompanied with a mix of Bing-based reviews and reviews pulled in from Yelp.
While details of Yahoo's interest in Yelp are scant at the moment, reports the Wall Street Journal, it's expected that this content partnership will go live at some point within the next few weeks. The actual business arrangement between Yahoo and Yelp – especially its cost – is still unknown, and Yahoo representatives aren't commenting on the reported partnership.
It's also unclear just how the Yelp integration might work alongside Yahoo's similar (but seemingly not quite as popular) service, Yahoo Local. Currently, searching for a business via good ol' Yahoo-dot-com brings up Yahoo Local-based listings. Accompanying the addresses, phone numbers, and giant sidebar of related information is a star-based reviewing system as well as a method by which searchers can read (and write) reviews for locations they've checked out.
In other words, will Yahoo's content partnership with Yelp supplement the reviews that already exist on Yahoo Local, will Yahoo replace them – perhaps just on its search listings – or is the company content to have a fairly high-demand review site steal focus from Yahoo's own service?
Yahoo has long had an interest in Yelp. Or, at the very least, an interest in preventing competitors from acquiring the service on their own. Google was allegedly interested purchasing Yelp for around $550 million in December of 2009. According to reports, Yahoo swooped in with a $750 million offer, leading to a bit of fun confusion: As reported by TechCrunch, Yelp's management team had no desire to work with Yahoo. However, the company's board of directors couldn't sign off on a Google acquisition with knowledge of the considerably larger offer on the table.
The result? Yelp continued on as its own company, where it remains to this day – minus the (seemingly) annual rumors that Yahoo might go back and strike up another offer.