MSN Overhauls City Guides, Integrates With Live Search
May 11, 2009 at 1:23pm ET by Matt McGee
MSN and Live Search probably don’t get enough attention in the local search field, but the reality is that there’s a solid core of usage thanks to the default experience offered on many PCs — Windows OS and Internet Explorer. (On a purely anecdotal level, an old blog post I wrote about adding a business to Live Local Search is the 3rd most popular article on my blog in 2009, and MSN/Live sends it the most traffic.)
With that in mind, Live Search’s recent announcement that they’ve overhauled MSN City Guides is worth paying attention to.
The new city guides integrate Live Search and Live Search Maps, which should give greater visibility to local businesses that both rank well in Live Search and score well when reviewed by users. Other new additions to the city guides include video from MSN Video, better localized filtering of events and information, and one-click directions to businesses and other locations.
To a large degree, MSN is playing catch up to sites like Citysearch and Yelp (not to mention MapQuest, Google Maps, and Yahoo Local), but MSN has a large default user base that could help MSN City Guides become a bigger player in the local search field.
Postscript by Barry Schwartz: The official Virtual Earth Blog has now posted about this update at their blog.
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