Karen, you are making a very good point regarding Amazon getting in bed with Yelp.

As an Amazon user I would be very comfortable paying locally with AmazonPay.
Amazon would benefit not only by introducing the Starbucks experience for all local merchants and ripping a transaction fee on each sale, but also getting into the local search / yp budgets. It just makes sense...

Not to mention all the data that can be mined for different purpose, including supply/demand opportunities.