The team ran some tests to see how visitors would respond when reviews were put front and center, and when they saw good results, they pivoted from the original business model of friends asking friends for business recommendations and put the reviews at the heart of the experience. But they didn’t stop there. The team then created 20 million profiles for small businesses in the Bay Area on the site and encouraged users to add their reviews. Growth took off. Meanwhile Citysearch is now little more than a footnote, having been folded into CityGrid Media in 2010.
