Yahoo announced yesterday that it had prevailed in an appeal of a $2.75 judgment in Mexico obtained by former joint venture partners. Those former partners, Worldwide Directories and Ideas Interactivas, sued Yahoo for breach of contract and damages. The case arose from the termination of a contract between Yahoo de Mexico and Ideas Interactivas. In roughly 2002, the companies agreed to jointly produce online and print directories: "Yahoo! Paginas Utiles." The project was initially successful and the parties sought to expand the deal to other countries and regions, including Central America, [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Legal | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search

Search is a "core priority" at Yahoo, but the company isn't planning any significant investments in local search in the near future. That's some of what new CEO Marissa Mayer revealed today in her first earnings call since she joined the company this summer. Mayer spoke several times about Yahoo and search in general, saying it's one of the "core daily habits" of Yahoo users -- a fact that makes search one of her core priorities as CEO. But that future focus on search won't apparently include Yahoo's local search products. Why? Because local search is, proverbially speaking, a tough n [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Top News | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Search

Yahoo's Build Your Own Search Service (BOSS) has recently expanded to include geolocation data from two Yahoo services: Placefinder and Placespotter. BOSS is Yahoo's Search API, available for a fee based on usage. From the blog post, it sounds like Yahoo is closing down Placefinder and Placespotter as standalone, free services, and is incorporating them into the paid structure of BOSS. Placefinder provides geocoding and reverse geocoding, which enables developers to convert an address to its latitude/longitude or vise versa. Placespotter provides related location information Yahoo BOS [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Yahoo: APIs | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Search

Microsoft and Nokia announced the fruit of their recent mapping collaboration today. Each company has a blog post describing what's changed and improved (Bing, Nokia). The effort comes out of the companies' strategic partnership in mobile. As part of that arrangement Microsoft is relying heavily on the Nokia-Navteq mapping and data infrastructure. Nokia for its part has made Ovi Maps much more Bing-like in appearance. Essentially the UI has been simplified, colors have been muted and there's an improved "visual hierarchy" at each level of zoom. It's challenging for me to specifically tell w [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Maps & Local | Microsoft: Bing Maps & Local | Microsoft: Bing Mobile | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | Yahoo: Maps & Local

Russian search giant Yandex announced that it will be licensing data from Nokia-owned Navteq to offer better and more comprehensive maps coverage around the world: Yandex . . . has purchased a license for digital maps supplied by the leading global location content provider, NAVTEQ. These digital maps will be used in the development of a detailed world map for the Yandex.Maps service. NAVTEQ has provided Yandex with maps from all over the world, including highly detailed maps of Europe, North America, Australia and developed countries in Asia. These maps show intercity motorways, urban tra [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Microsoft: Bing | Search Engines: Other Search Engines | Search Engines: Yandex | Yahoo: Maps & Local

Former Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz will be remembered mainly as a cost cutter who outsourced numerous functions to third parties. A partial list of those includes outsourcing Search to Microsoft, Shopping to PriceGrabber, Real Estate to Zillow and Maps to Nokia/Navteq. And now, the new Nokia-powered Yahoo Maps (NokiHoo) have just gone live in the US and Canada: maps.yahoo.com; espanol.maps.yahoo.com; ca.maps.yahoo.com and qc.maps.yahoo.com. NokiHoo maps are also available in other places around the world, such as Europe, but Yahoo doesn't have the data or has incomplete data outside of the ar [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Top News | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Partnerships

Yahoo has rolled out a restaurant Quick App, part of a larger program of making more structured content and transactional capabilities available in SERPs. Examples of Quick Apps are reflected in the screenshot below: Netflix, OpenTable and Sketch-a-search. These "apps" allow users to do a number of things from within the search results. For example, Sketch-a-search allows users to launch a window and search for restaurants by drawing a custom geographic area on a map. The Restaurant Comparison Quick App builds a grid display of similar restaurants (or geographically relevant [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search

Yahoo is making a big push today for its new local search (edit: see below) interface, which offers a somewhat dramatic change both in the content it includes and how it's presented. Greg Sterling actually covered most of this a couple weeks ago here on SEL, but here's a quick recap: The new desktop beta offers a stream-like display of local news, deals, events, and other content that comes from Yahoo editors, local websites and blogs, and community members contributing directly to Yahoo Local. A lot of that content is new to Yahoo Local; some of it expands on Yahoo's recent focus on De [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Top News | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Mobile & Go | Yahoo: User Interface

Most businesses tend to focus on the big channels when it comes to local SEO efforts. While it makes sense to optimize your Google Place Page and pay attention to your presence on other big local search services (e.g. Bing Local, CityGrid, DexKnows, Insider pages, Local.com, Merchant circle, Superpages, Yahoo Local, Yellow book, Yelp, YP.com, etc.), because of the fragmented nature of local search, there are plenty of other services that generate great local traffic and can provide you with SEO benefits. Here's a brief overview of some "off the grid" opportunities. Facebook Places. So Fa [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Foursquare | Google: Maps & Local | Gowalla | Local Search | Microsoft: Bing Maps & Local | Search Engines: Location / Checkin Services | SEO: Local | SEO: Mobile Search | Twitter | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yelp

It has been quite some time since Yahoo updated its pioneering and once-dominant local destination, Yahoo Local. Now the company is testing a simplified UI that streamlines the user experience and offers new content (including deals) in a number of cities. Below are screens showing the current and new Local UIs. First the existing site and then the new beta site for Local: Overall the new site is less cluttered and more attractive visually. However it is also "missing" some features that are present today. The first thing you notice about the new Local UI is that it's essentia [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Top News | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Mobile & Go

Yahoo announced a new set of quick search apps today. The one I like the best is this Sketch-A-Search App, but they also released OpenTable Quick App today and will be releasing a Restaurant Comparison Quick App soon. Let me take you through the Sketch-A-Search App which is live today on Yahoo Search. The Sketch-A-Search App lets you draw an outline on a map and confine local results to be within that outline. Ask.com had a similar tool ages ago named Ask City’s Shape Search Tool but since Ask dropped their maps program, the feature died with it. It all starts with a search with loc [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Search

In conjunction with an appearance at the Web 2.0 Summit today, Yahoo made several announcements of new products with a local focus. Here's a look at what Yahoo is rolling out now and planning to introduce down the road. Yahoo Local Offers Deals and coupons are a pretty hot item these days in the local space; credit Groupon and others for that. Yahoo announced its horse in the deals race: Yahoo Local Offers. It's an aggregator that "will make it easy for millions of consumers to find, right on Yahoo!, the best local deals and savings in their area." Groupon, in fact, is one of the ini [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Mobile & Go

Yahoo announced that it has acquired an Indonesian site called Koprol. Think of it as a kind of cross between Twitter and Foursquare, with more emphasis on the latter. (Yahoo had been rumored to be in talks to buy Foursquare. This move may reflect its inability to close that deal.) It touches local, mobile and social -- but it's mostly about mobile. Here's how Yahoo describes Koprol: Koprol allows people to connect and share photos, reviews and additional information about locations in real-time using just their mobile phone browser, making the service accessible to a large [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Yahoo: General | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Mobile & Go | Yahoo: Outside US

Yahoo and Nokia made their anticipated partnership announcement this morning in New York. The public elements of the deal include the following: Nokia will be the exclusive, global provider of Yahoo!’s maps and navigation services, integrating Ovi Maps across Yahoo! properties, branded as "powered by Ovi." Yahoo! will become the exclusive, global provider of Nokia’s Ovi Mail and Ovi Chat services branded as "Ovi Mail / Ovi Chat powered by Yahoo!" Nokia and Yahoo! plan to work on ID federation between their services, beginning by making it easy for people to use their Ovi user [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Mobile & Go | Yahoo: Partnerships

Yahoo is introducing a useful new capability in search and Yahoo Local: the ability to search for specific meals or menu items and find them at local bars and restaurants. Yahoo says it's extracting unstructured data from restaurant menus online and making them searchable: By using Yahoo!’s search science to extract structured content – in this case, menu items – from a bunch of different unstructured web pages and matching them to specific restaurants, Yahoo! Search now returns results of restaurants near you that serve the dish you crave when you enter the name of that dish in our s [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Top News | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Mobile & Go | Yahoo: Search

At the Where 2.0 event in San Jose yesterday afternoon, Danny Sullivan moderated a panel entitled "The Big Picture from the Big Players." In addition to Danny it featured Blaise Agüera y Arcas (Microsoft), Tom Wailes (Yahoo!), John Hanke (Google, Inc.), Dylan Swift (Yelp). The session sought to cover a lot of ground in a very tight 35 minutes. Danny initiated the compressed session by asking the time-honored question about local online marketing and small business: "Why aren't local businesses getting it?" Interestingly most of the panelists disagreed with that chara [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Foursquare | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Microsoft: Bing Maps & Local | Search Ads: Mobile Search | Search Engines: Deals & Coupon Search Engines | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | Top News | Yahoo: Maps & Local

Earlier this evening Yahoo announced that it had deepened its relationship with Twitter and would be integrating Twitter's feeds and content across its network: The partnership integrates Twitter’s real-time social experiences with Yahoo!’s global network of nearly 600M people. Together with the recently announced Facebook integration, this relationship is a key part of advancing Yahoo!’s social strategy, transforming it into a highly customizable social experience that lets people unify their activity from their many social experiences across the Web. The integration also provides Y [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Mobile & Go | Yahoo: Partnerships

Yesterday Yahoo hosted a press event called SearchSpeak that sought to dispel the "misconception," in the words of new Search Products SVP Shashi Seth, that Yahoo was no longer investing in search. As Seth took the stage to begin his presentation the power in the room went out. Not a very auspicious start to the day, it seemed symbolic of Yahoo's new difficulties and challenges in search. Attempting to generate enthusiasm, he pressed on without slides: despite the popular misconception, Yahoo is not out of search, echoing statements made by CEO Carol Bartz and others on past company earning [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Top News | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Employees | Yahoo: General | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Search Monkey | Yahoo: Shortcuts

While analysts and practitioners have been prognosticating the imminent arrival of local search for the last several years, 2009 was finally the year that proved us right. A number of innovations and developments in mobile search, such as the widespread adoption of the iPhone, the release of Android, and a burgeoning number of location-based apps like Foursquare have certainly helped fuel local search's rise. But local has gained mind share among SEO's, marketers, business owners, and perhaps most importantly, searchers, in its own right as well. Let's take a loo [...]

Related Topics: AOL: MapQuest | Channel: SEO | Google: Maps & Local | Microsoft: Bing Maps & Local | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing | SEO: Local | Top News | Yahoo: Maps & Local

Ratings and reviews have long been important to local search. Quantity used to be all that mattered - businesses with more reviews and ratings could rank higher than those without, even if the reviews were unfavorable. Google has joined Bing (and Yahoo to a lesser degree) with today's announcement that it's emphasizing the content and sentiment of reviews and ratings on its place pages. Here's a look at how Google spotlights review content on the Wild Ginger Asian Restaurant place page: Google is pulling reviews from a variety of sources, classifying them, and then providing a review [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Place Pages | Microsoft: Bing Maps & Local | Yahoo: Maps & Local