Participation is key and it’s what’s guiding their strategy. Enabling users to find use share and expand. They want to tap into the vast amount of content that’s already out there or, things that are in people’s minds. Imagine, only 30% of the commercial operations in the US have a web presence enter an opportunity (hint).

Yahoo!’s vision for local – enrich people’s lives by enabling them to find, use, share, and expand all human knowledge.

-a platform for user generated content – allow usres/consumers to add to and create content. Yahoo! Has built the container enabling users to contribute.

-Provisioning for ratings and previews

-Eg. Yahoo! Answers – tool being built by users

-Yahoo! Video – upload, tag videos

-Moving forward we’ll see more integration of flickr and maps

-Much energy and innovation with maps is focused on trip planning and helping peple get information about going from point A to point B

-Of interest from the labs geo-referencing content.

-See zonetag.research.yahoo.com

Where’s the business around this? The 25 million US businesses that aren’t online is a vast, untouched market. (eg. Local fetured listings)

Recall, free APIs – flash and AJAX flavors. Divinci Code and Baskin Robins have recently held commercial promotions built on Yahoo! Maps

API pros

• Global coverage
• Support for open standards (geoRSS)
• Complimentary content APIs – flickr, traffic, events, local search
• No commercial restriction!!

A reminder, see the new blog at http://www.ysearchblog.com

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Anything Geospatial: Tracking developments affecting GIS, geospatial technologies, location-based services, mapping, google earth and google maps. Published by the creator and editor of GISuser.com & LBSzone.com

Interchange’s advanced local-search platform is expected to enhance the quantity and quality of search results for consumers visiting ivantage’s network of sites, shoptropolis, by enabling advertiser listings to appear in response to a wide variety of local-search queries.

Interchange’s local-search platform provides enhanced local-search functionality including the ability for consumers to conduct natural language searches using the company’s Keyword DNA technology.

Interchange’s Assured Response module allows consumers to access more than 10 million local business listings using billions of keyword combinations.

“ivantage provides the consumer with the ability to quickly and easily access businesses in their local communities,” said Jim Terry, ivantage founder.

“Interchange’s local-search technology is proving to be key to a great consumer search experience by providing a wide range of relevant search results for businesses, products, and services at the local level.”

The partnership also allows ivantage’s shoptropolis sites to utilize local and national paid-search advertisers from Interchange’s Advertiser Network to enhance their paid-search advertising channel.

ivantage will feature the sponsored listings of local and national advertisers from Interchange’s Advertiser Network in response to searches for local businesses and the services they provide on its site, thereby enabling ivantage to more efficiently monetize their search traffic.

In addition, Interchange technology will be used to enhance the overall search experience for consumers searching for local businesses and services on the shoptropolis network by providing access to additional targeted business listings.

“Our partnership with ivantage is another example of our commitment to the local-search industry and our mission to both simplify and improve the consumer search experience,” said Heath Clarke, Interchange CEO.

“We intend to continue to serve this market with our proprietary local-search technologies and partnerships with leading industry sites.”

Earlier this year, Interchange acquired the Local.com domain name in order to develop a worldwide local-search destination site that will incorporate a local content and search syndication model.

Interchange’s current local-search assets, including the Local Direct search and advertising platform, the company’s recently released SMS LOCAL wireless directory assistance service, and the company’s planned WAP-based mobile search service, will be united under the Local.com brand.

ivantage operates shoptropolis, a comprehensive network of community-based shopping portals. Shoptropolis incorporates over 2,000 city related sites throughout the U.S. that focus on consumer content and information at the local level.

Shoptropolis sites offer convenient ways for consumers to find businesses in their area with easy to use tools and navigation.

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On-line USA is utilizing Local Direct to provide more relevant traffic for advertisers, deliver a better search experience for site visitors and increase the quantity and quality of search results on its sites.

On-line USA is a subsidiary of On-line UK, Ltd. and includes over 140 distinct sites in the U.S. On-line UK has over 1000 registered domains and over 600 sites worldwide.

“Interchange’s unique natural language search functionality perfectly complements our user-friendly local-search sites. We are committed to delivering a comprehensive and reliable range of local portals with a strongly branded, easy to use interface. Interchange’s technology has allowed us to reach this goal and provide unparalleled search capabilities to over 140 sites in the USA,” said Andy Harcombe, On-line UK CEO. “We are pleased to be working with Interchange on this exciting project.”

Interchange combines its paid-search platform with one of the world’s most accessible local business databases and its patent-pending Keyword DNA technology to create one of the most comprehensive local-search solutions available. The complete Local Direct service portfolio is available to Internet Yellow Pages and printed Yellow Pages (IYP/YP) partners as well as other portals and websites seeking a local paid-search solution.

As part of the project, On-line USA is taking advantage of Local Direct’s Assured Response, which allows sites to enhance their listings with Interchange’s Keyword DNA technology. Keyword DNA creates a unique keyword profile for each advertiser listing, making them easily accessible through natural language keyword search. Assured Response is designed to provide a better search experience for site visitors by increasing search relevancy and accessibility of each business.

“Together Interchange and On-line USA are breaking new ground in the local-search arena,” said Gregory Parker, director of strategic alliances for Interchange. “This partnership creates immediate revenue opportunities and provides a leading-edge local-search solution for over 140 city sites throughout the U.S.”

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