Online reviews site Yelp is expected... (Associated Press) 
 
 San Francisco-based Yelp Inc. late Thursday priced its initial public offering of stock at $15 a share. Yelp's stock closed 64 percent higher at $24.58, a day after Yelp priced its IPO at $15 a share - above its indicated range of $12 to $14. San Francisco-based Yelp said it was selling 7.1 million shares in the offering, so the company will raise about $106.5 million in the IPO. Yelp said in its first IPO filing in November that it expected to raise $100 million. That's a lot for a company that hasn't turned a profit since its 2004 founding. The company makes money from advertising. Yelp's main revenue stream is selling advertising to local and national businesses. In 2011, Yelp recorded a loss of about $17 million but saw revenue jump 74 percent to $83.3 million. "Their unique visitor growth accelerated in the past year and they are forecasting solid growth over the next few years," Sinha said. AMAZON OF LOCAL ADVERTISING 
 
 The San Francisco-based company was started eight years ago in 2004 by former PayPal engineers Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons, when Stoppelman needed a doctor and online searches turned up only generic lists on health insurance websites. I wanted a doctor that fit my needs, not just any doctor," Stoppelman wrote. That's because Yelp said it was "filtering" about 5 million reviews and had removed about 1.8 million reviews. Yelp.com attracts 66 million monthly unique visitors and is home to 25 million reviews as of the end of 2011, according to its regulatory filings. Yelp had 66 million unique visitors and was used in 5.7 million unique mobile devices on a monthly average basis in its latest quarter. Another reviews site, the contractor-focused Angie's List (ANGI), shares jumped 33% when it started trading in August. Groupon stock's soared as much as 56 percent on its opening day, but has since fallen below its offer price of $20. On Thursday, though, Groupon's stock was trading slightly below its IPO price of $20. (But) at some point in time, people are going to get tired of them losing money all the time." One example: a restaurant owner posting a 5-star review to boost her own company's rating. In its initial filing back in November, Yelp said it had 22 million reviews on its site.
– Yelp shares hit the stock market today and soared, despite mixed reviews of the consumer review website's long-term prospects. The initial public offering of 7.1 million shares had been priced at $15 a share, which was above the target range of $12 to $14 it set last month; that valued Yelp at around $900 million, CNN notes. But shares were up 62% in early trading, at $24.60, Reuters reports, valuing the company at around $1.43 billion. That's 17 times its revenue in 2011. The 8-year-old website hosts some 25 million reviews of restaurants and other businesses, and lures close to 66 million visitors a month, but has never turned a profit, and is more than $40 million in debt. Analysts expected the stock to jump on its first day of trading, but with sites like Facebook and FourSquare seeking more money from local advertising, they are wary of recommending Yelp as a long-term investment. The president of IPOdesktop.com tells AP he is a "little bit skeptical" about Yelp's future prospects. "Sooner or later people will be wanting them to make money," he says. "They won't go away," but "at some point in time, people are going to get tired of them losing money all the time."