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Amazon Echo Now Offers Local Search With Help From Yelp

Voice assistant offers basic business information via audio, additional details in its mobile app.

Matt McGee on October 27, 2015 at 8:45 am

From Siri to Google Now and Cortana, local search has always been a killer use case for search/personal assistant technology. And now Amazon’s Echo is playing in that space, too.

Echo has already had an extremely limited local search toolset — owners could ask for local weather forecasts or local traffic information between two points. Now, owners can also get information about local businesses with the data that Echo provides coming from Yelp.

Here’s a search I did looking for a plumber in Richland, Washington:

After you do a voice search, the Echo/Alexa mobile app will show you the search results with additional information including Yelp’s star ratings. I have a screenshot of that, plus two more video examples of Echo’s local search capabilities in action, in my article today on Marketing Land:

Amazon Echo Gets Smarter With Local Business Listings From Yelp

About The Author

Matt McGee

Matt McGee joined Third Door Media as a writer/reporter/editor in September 2008. He served as Editor-In-Chief from January 2013 until his departure in July 2017. He can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee.