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Digital Frontiers: Yahoo! Local is out with a vengeance!

Well, another search juggernaut has laid down its claim in the local search gold mine. Yahoo! Local is out in beta (http://local.yahoo.com). It is pretty bare bones at the moment, but the search results are good and useful. One can sort by top results, alphabetically, by distance from your home, or by reviews - mostly self-published rankings from users. The result sets have good background information to help you make your decisions, a bit of that "nuance" of subjectivity I've written about at length before. So is this the category users have all looked for? I asked Paul Levine, general manager of Local Services, for some thoughts.

CMS: In the midst of the search hype, local search seems to offer the most potential and has the least to show for it. What makes this hard technologically? PL: Local search has improved as a category over the past year, but I think the most interesting innovations are still ahead. The two biggest challenges are to aggregate comprehensive and accurate content, and to present in a way that is simple and intuitive for users. With Yahoo! Local we've made some advances on both these dimensions that you can't find elsewhere. With respect to content, our product is the first to integrate structured business information, local web content, and user submissions - all in a single experience. We've also enhanced our SmartView visual search capability significantly.

CMS: What is at the essence -- necessity -- of a great local search product? PL: The keys to success are precision, comprehensiveness, and an intuitive interface. We listen intently to our users, and have built some of our best and most innovative functionality based on user feedback and research. Our new SmartView visual search tool was built in this way, and has garnered extremely positive feedback. We allow users to select a restaurant, then plot the 10 nearest ATMs and parking lots. It's chock full of content, very easy to use, and you can't find it anywhere else but on Yahoo!.

CMS: Advertising Age recently argued that the Yellow Page companies are the best positioned to win this space -- and that the true killer application will be some partnership between search engines and Yellow Pages. What do you think? PL: Yahoo! has long been the leader in online Yellow Pages, and our search and local strategies are closely aligned. In fact, we were the first search engine to integrate Yellow Page listings into search results, in early 2003. Much of our innovations have come from combining the best elements of search and Yellow Pages to create a winning user experience.

CMS: What will Yahoo local look like in three years? PL: I think you will continue to see strong integration of Yahoo! Local with Yahoo! Search and other key properties across our network. One key advantage that Yahoo! Has, is deep local information in areas such as jobs, travel, real estate, personals, and others. Over time we have the opportunity to make that local information available to users through a single, easy-to-use interface. Additionally, I think you'll see more users accessing Yahoo!'s local information over mobile devices, as mobile apps become more commonly used.

CMS: What keeps you up late at night? PL: As the number one destination people go when looking for local information, Yahoo! is in a great position to address millions of users' local needs. I'd say if there's anything keeping me and my team up at night, it's trying to think of all the different ways we can help these people find local information easier, faster and more precisely than ever before. We are constantly focused on creating the best and most innovative local search experience for our users, and it's this dedication to innovation that will keep us on top in local search.

Local search and services is at its infancy. We'll all be watching all the players creating these important new worlds! Many thanks for your time.

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