The analysis of the spectrum of Yb III has been extended allowing us to establish 11 new energy level values. In addition, radiative lifetimes of two excited states of Yb III have been measured for the first time using time-resolved laserinduced fluorescence following two-photon excitation. The good agreement between experimental results and semi-empirical calculations performed with the relativistic Hartree-Fock method including core-polarization effects allows the determination of transition probabilities for 15 lines.