martinibuster - 5:55 am on Aug 17, 2005 (gmt 0)

So Yahoo Local Beta was unveiled according to this news report [today.reuters.co.uk]. The url is at [beta.local.yahoo.com...]

I was suspicious and slightly bored by the concept, but when I looked at it, I found it... impressive. It's taking the concept of your local independent weekly, and organizing all the local info into an easily scanned dashboard.

The layout is different than what I expected. It aggregates several categories of info I am interested in, and even gets granular to the neighborhood level.

The difference between this and CitySearch is that CitySearch is highly utilitarian, it's designed as a tool. I Generally come across CitySearch while searching on a search engine, or when looking for restaurants in a certain area.

The Yahoo Local site is a destination in itself, whose format allows me to discover things I might want to do that I may not have thought to look for... I think it's the aspect of discovery that I find interesting. CitySearch offers great information, but I really like the way info is presented at Yahoo. You can even download feeds for Events and Local Favorites so that you're never out of touch, nice...

Major Categories
What's Happening Locally
Users' Favorite Restaurants
More Local Favorites
Traffic
Wi-Fi Hotspots
Neighborhood Maps
Weather