Yelp passes 100K registered developers for its API, plans ‘off the shelf’ tools so anyone can use its data

Today Yelp, with its extensive trove of local restaurant and merchant listings, announced that over 100,000 registered developers hook into its API.

To give even more people access, the company plans to roll out easy-to-use tools so anyone can leverage its data.

Yelp has an extensive store of detailed restaurant and retail information as well as customer reviews — a valuable tool for an application that wants to make consumer recommendations. For example, Trulia, a real estate website for buyers and sellers, uses Yelp’s API to give homebuyers a digital sense of the neighborhood (like how many restaurants, boutiques, and bars are in the area). Other major brands that leverage the API include Apple, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, and Yahoo.

Lately, the company famed for its rants and raves has been pushing its technology in front of more eyes. In October 2014, the company launched a new mobile app that lets business owners monitor and respond to reviews of their establishment in real time. And last month, Yelp teamed up with Hipmunk so that users can book hotel rooms directly from a review page. And the company plans to continue growing its audience.

Yelp will be rolling out a new set of tools for non developers. In a blog post, the company writes:

“Whether tinkering with a side project, launching a new startup, scaling a company, or working at a large public company, Yelp will be a resource for all developers. In addition, for those who would love to use Yelp content but may not have the technical prowess to build something from scratch, don’t worry. We will be launching ‘off the shelf’ tools so that anyone can get the Yelp data they need to power their experiences.”