????在面向消費者的互聯網行業中，大魚和小蝦一直長期并存。人們談得最多的要么是谷歌（Google）和Facebook這樣的大企業，要么是炙手可熱的小創業公司。這類小公司人手不多，但個個是精兵強將，手握類似于Pinterest或Tumblr這樣的明星產品。

????然而，在這兩大陣營之間，還有一個小型群體，它們規模太小算不上巨頭，成立時間也足夠久，不算是初創企業。它們中的佼佼者創立于五至十年前，在過去幾年里上了市。其中有一些，比如社交游戲公司Zynga，目前日子并不好過。而另外一些，比如點評網站Yelp、旅游網站TripAdvisor、流媒體音樂網站Pandora和 訂餐平臺OpenTable，卻在2013年悶聲發大財，日子過得頗為滋潤。不過今年夏天市場關注的焦點還是集中在Facebook、雅虎公司（Yahoo）和谷歌身上。它們近期的營收表現非常搶眼，股價也紛紛上揚，今年至今已分別上漲了28%、40%和41%。

????盡管這些巨頭的股票表現強勁，但另外幾家中型網絡公司的業績卻更勝一籌——在某些方面可以說是遠為出色。OpenTable的股價今年上漲了42%，TripAdvisor上漲了81%，Pandora今年更是實現了翻番，漲幅高達104%。最讓人驚嘆的是Yelp，它的股價漲幅高達173%！上市不過才16個多月，Yelp目前的股價已經漲到了51.50美元，是開盤價15美元的三倍還多。

????要想研究那些成熟的中型企業是如何在這個競爭激烈、不斷變化的市場上實現快速增長的，Yelp是個絕佳案例。在6月結束的財季中，這家公司報告稱營收達到5,500萬美元，這個數字只是Facebook的 18億美元和谷歌的140億美元營收的一個零頭。但它體現的是同比69%的增幅，遠高于Facebook的 51%和谷歌的18%。

????更讓投資者倍感鼓舞的是，在這個財季，Yelp在不影響營收增長的情況下成功地減少了支出。公司花錢的兩個大頭——銷售和營銷的費用從去年占營收的62%下降到了56%。與此同時，產品研發成本則從13%增加到了15%，原因是公司雇用了更多工程師開發Call to Action這樣的新功能。這是一項廣告功能，能幫助零售商在Yelp上提供電影票或折扣券。

????總的算來，營運成本已降得足夠低，因此Yelp每股損失僅為1美分。這當然不是眾多投資者要求的利潤，但已經比去年同期要少損失兩美分，也比華爾街此前預期的每股4美分損失要好得多。而且，公司上一財季的營運現金流已回到正的510萬美元的水平，而去年同期還是負的240萬美元。

????換言之，就算大幅壓縮了成本，同時投資于新的增長領域，Yelp仍然保持了強勁的增長勢頭。地方性廣告——優化的公司簡介和站內廣告——占Yelp總營收的81%，并仍保持了每年77%的增幅。Yelp早在2005-2006年就進入了舊金山市場，在這種Yelp較早涉足的市場中，本地廣告營收仍增長了43%。對一家如此年輕的網絡公司來說，這種增長率實在是可圈可點。

????In the consumer-web industry, the landscape has been largely divided between the big fish and the small fry. The most-discussed companies have either been giants like Google (GOOG) or Facebook (FB) or red-hot startups with lean staff and viral offerings such as Pinterest or Tumblr.

????In between these two camps, however, is a small crowd of companies that are too small to be giants and too old to be startups. The best of them emerged five or 10 years ago and went public in the past few years. Some, like Zynga (ZNGA) are having a rough go of it. But others, like Yelp (YELP), TripAdvisor (TRIP), Pandora (P), and OpenTable (OPEN), are without much fanfare having a great year in 2013.

????Much of the discussion about consumer-web stocks this summer has focused on Facebook, Yahoo (YHOO), and Google. All of them have impressed with strong earnings in recent quarters, and their stocks are up, respectively, 28%, 40%, and 41% in the year to date.

????As impressive as those stock performances are, several mid-sized web companies are doing better -- in some cases much better. OpenTable is up 42% this year. TripAdvisor is up 81%. Pandora has more than doubled this year, rising 104%. And most impressive, Yelp has gained 173%. After a little more than 16 months, Yelp is trading at $51.50 a share, more than three times its $15 offering price.

????Yelp is a good case study in how established but mid-sized web companies are navigating growth in a competitive and evolving market. The company reported $55 million in revenue in the June quarter, a fraction of Facebook's $1.8 billion and Google's $14 billion. But revenue grew 69% from the same quarter a year earlier, faster than Facebook's 51% and Google's 18%.

????More encouraging for investors, Yelp managed to lower expenses this quarter without hurting that revenue growth. Sales and marketing, the company's biggest expense item, fell to 56% of revenue from 62% a year earlier. Product development costs rose to 15% from 13% as the company hired engineers to work on new features like Call to Action, a promotion feature that lets merchants offer movie tickets or discounted deals on Yelp.

????All told, the operating costs were low enough that Yelp posted a loss of one cent a share. That is still not the black ink many investors demand, but it's two cents lower than a year ago and much better than the consensus 4-cents-a-share loss that Wall Street had been forecasting. And the company's cash flow from operations swung to a positive $5.1 million last quarter from a negative $2.4 million a year ago.

????In other words, Yelp's expansion isn't losing momentum even as the company tightens up its costs and invests in new areas of growth. Local advertising -- enhanced profiles and in-site ads for merchants -- makes up 81% of Yelp's total revenue. It's still growing by 77% a year. In the early markets like San Francisco that Yelp first launched in in 2005 and 2006, local ad revenue is still rising 43%. For a web company Yelp's age, that growth rate isn't bad.