Sunnyvale, California — Yahoo! is venturing to go beyond basic city guides, and the Sunnyvale, Calif., company on Wednesday added local news articles, deals from neighborhood merchants and event listings, currently being tested in beta mode in over 30 locations in United States.
Yahoo! Local is intended to bring together event information, local blog content and more. It is part of an effort to transform the area into more of a community hub than a phone book. Basically anyone can publish on a particular Local guide, but it will be monitored by Yahoo! editors.
The Yahoo Local Beta unleashed in 30 localities across the country, Yahoo said, the company apparently focusing on California, Michigan, and New York. The neighborhoods Local is supporting include San Francisco, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Brooklyn, plus Birmingham, Ferndale and Royal Oak; the latter three are in Michigan.
“Today, we are thrilled to announce the new Yahoo! Local available in limited beta,” Matt Idema, the Yahoo vice president responsible for Local, wrote in a blog post. “With rich hyper-local content, this new product provides people a truly personalized experience across desktop and mobile (currently available via the mobile web on iPhone and Android), enabling them to discover and contribute to the best local news, deals, and events nearby, all in one place.”
If you are going to be looking up restaurants and event info, you are most likely going to want to access that content from a smartphone. So for those on-the-go, these sites have been optimized for Android and the iPhone. Yahoo states that the effort includes content drawn from “the best local blogs and newspapers, as well as its own editors and the Yahoo Contributor Network, built on its acquisition of Associated Content earlier this year. Yahoo will also plug in nearby deals through its recently launched Local Offers program centralizing deals from partners including Groupon, LivingSocial, Gilt City and BloomSpot.
“At Yahoo!, we are all about coupling the massive power of the web and the ever-expanding capabilities of connected devices to create engaging and personally relevant mobile experiences for our users,” says Irv Henderson, VP of Product Management for Yahoo Mobile and Connected Devices. “But we also know that sometimes, even when you have the world at your fingertips, it is what is right outside your door that matters to you most.”
“With rich, hyper-local content, Yahoo! Local offers a uniquely personalized experience via the mobile web on iPhone and Android, enabling you to discover the best local news, deals, and events in your neck of the woods, all in one place,” adds Henderson.
The Local site appears much like a local blog, with three categories: “news,” “deals,” and “activities,” with a “top picks” category apparently pulling the best or most relevant. Content is culled from local publishers, including community reporters, plus Yahoo editors. Yahoo said it would allow any publisher into its feed, a plus for the publisher but also for Yahoo, which can feature more content.
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Bundling the so-called hyperlocal elements is designed to make Yahoo a more appealing destination for local advertising from neighborhood merchants. Mobile phone users may find the service helpful if they happen to find themselves in a neighborhood looking for things to do or a restaurant for dinner.
Naturally, the product will be extended into more markets over the coming weeks, Yahoo said. The hyper-local experiment now in beta expands to more than 30 localities and cities in the U.S., including San Francisco, Palo Alto, Mountain View, and Sunnyvale in California; Brooklyn, NY; and Birmingham, Ferndale and Royal Oak in Michigan. Users can get access here using a PC, iPhone or an Android phone.