• Forbes, Wednesday, January 27, 2010 2:44 PM

Giving local information and review sites a run for their money, AT&T is mixing up the market with buzz.com -- a new social recommendations site designed to help people hunt down the best local businesses using recommendations from friends and family. AT&T is as unlikely a player as you might think.

The phone carrier was an early pioneer in local search and advertising with the Yellow Pages, and later YellowPages.com. AT&T came up with the idea for buzz.com about a year and a half ago, David Krantz, president and chief executive of AT&T Interactive, tells Forbes.com. Through Yellow Pages, AT&T already had an abundance of information about local businesses and a large local advertising business. The company apparently realized, however, that it could attract more visitors and more advertisers if it could make its local business searches "deeper and more relevant," says Krantz.

Read the whole story at Forbes »