According to USA Today, over 1 million people are Yelping every month. We posted about Yelp a few months back, but since then, the user-generated review site has exploded.

Unlike City Search or the Yahoo! or Google versions, Yelp has now turned into a social network, with Yelpers arranging to get together to try new restaurants (36% of all reviews are about restaurants), advising newcomers to a city on places to see, clubs to join, upcomming community work...."Hey, we're working on the food kitchen on 46th this weekend...anyone wanna come help out?"

Stephanie Ichinose, Director of Communications, marvels, "We've become much more than a local resource -- we've tapped into a community's voice!"

Adds Russ Williamson, the Marketing Director for NYC, with a laugh, "But we are NOT a dating site!" though they are not blind to the fact that locals with similiar interests are getting together.

City dwellers are getting to know each other through their reviews. As Russ points out, "There are personalities behind each review -- you hear the tone and start identifying with people behind the reviews. Then you trust their judgement."

Which brings up the question of spamming and companies trying to do their own grass-roots marketing. Even with thousands of reviews a day, Stephanie and Russ agree that their "controls" in place are working, and since the community "takes ownership of the site," they are very good at sniffing out false posts.

No surprise to us here at Popgadget, but women were the early adapotors of Yelp. The founders found women to be "more adventuresome, social and active." Now the demographic is more 50/50 .