• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, August 18, 2005

Yahoo! on Wednesday introduced an updated version of Yahoo! Local with several new features such as interactive maps that highlight local businesses.

The service, which can be found at local.yahoo.com, now helps users map out and search particular neighborhoods within a city, learn about current local events, and get recommendations from people within the communities, and provides links to other Yahoo! services such as classifieds, movies, and local traffic conditions.

The most significant ingredient of the redesigned site is its use of information contributed by users, according to Brian Gil, senior product manager at Yahoo! Local.

"Searching the value of the user-contributed content is what we're really excited about, and what will make this a great service at the end of the day," said Gil.

There's also a "Top Searches" section available by city to keep users up to date on what people are searching for in a particular area. Users can now subscribe to receive local recommendation updates directly to My Yahoo! or other feed-readers via RSS.

The local search and classified online advertising market--which The Kelsey Group predicts could reach $5.1 billion by 2009--has attracted fierce competition from Yahoo!'s rivals like Google and Amazon.com's A9.

"As both users and advertisers turn to the Internet to find one another, local becomes increasingly significant," said Kelsey Group's program director Greg Sterling. "Yahoo! is thinking broadly and creatively about both sets of interests, and has established a leadership position in the arena."