How it started
History
In 2004, Andy Sack (Founders Co-op, Kefta, Abuzz, Firefly Network) and Chris DeVore (Founders Co-op, Sapient Corporation, Adjacency) founded Judy's Book with a US $2.5 million seed funding that they were able to raise. The social networking-based local search tool allows small businesses to promote themselves and users to browse through listings to locate businesses and professionals in their area and rate and review their experiences.
Marketing tactics
In 2005, in an effort to get the website off the ground, the company offered iPods to anyone who submitted 50 reviews of local businesses. While the then-owners and founders of Judy's Book, Andy and Chris, refused to reveal how many people won iPods or how many reviews were submitted, Sack announced that their marketing efforts were successful as the website saw a 50–60% increase in reviews and member registrations every month.
In 2006, the website gave out $100 gift certificates every day from February 16 until March 5 to the person who had written the most reviews that day.
Also in 2006, in an attempt to further increase traffic to the website, Judy's Book announced that it was partnering with Local.com. All reviews written on Judy's Book were included in Local.com's search results.
From Wikipedia’s article on Judy's Book, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2