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Yahoo Local Aims To Search Your Backyard
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
Search portal Yahoo Inc. on Tuesday unveiled in beta a local version
of its search engine. Among the capabilities of Yahoo Local are
the ability to find a city's or town's businesses and services around
an address or zip code. Searches can be refined by distance, rating,
and category, officials with the Sunnyvale, Calif., company said.
The new service starts with Yellow Page listings, and then integrates
other information, such as store hours, accepted payment methods
and products offered. Yahoo Local also includes professional restaurant
reviews, photos, and menus, as well as information about movies,
tickets and hotels.
The service's electronic maps enable consumers to see where businesses
or points of interest are located in relation to each other. Reservations
can be made through Yahoo Local for some categories, such as hotels
and restaurants.
In a related announcement, search engine Ask Jeeves said it has
licensed local content from CitySearch. Emeryville, Calif.-based,
AskJeeves plans to offer local-search services in a month.
While only a fraction of the overall advertising marketing, revenues
from local-search ads is expected to reach $824 million in 2008
from $502 million this year, according to JupiterResearch. Total
online ad spending is expected to reach $15 billion by 2008.
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