Yahoo Aims For Better Local Business Results

Yahoo's got something to offer people who are tired of typing cities' names and zip codes into search boxes.  Today, the company announced improved local business results that will allow users to find nearby places without first providing tons of details.

Nitzan Achsaf, a senior product manager, explained all of the details on the Yahoo Search Blog.  He wrote, "For example, if you are in the Palo Alto area and search for 'evvia,' Yahoo! Search displays the local shortcut for the restaurant, including address, phone number, and reviews."

The same trick applies to searches for broader business categories.  And Achsaf also noted, "[W]hen you search for business categories or business chains, you can now filter the results further by neighborhood or nearby cities in one click.  If the location is a major city, you can filter the results by neighborhood.  Otherwise, you can refine the results by nearby cities."

 

Although these changes may not be flashy, they should prove useful to a lot of folks on a regular basis.

People on the corporate side of things are liable to appreciate the tweaks, too, as they almost work out to free advertising.

Have You Read This?

> Kaufman Bros. Analyst Upgrades Yahoo

> Yahoo Rolling Out Something Kind Of Like Real-Time Search

> Yahoo Time Spent Stats Up After Ad Campaign

Facebook Sends Cease And Desist To Friend-Seller

uSocial is a controversial advertising company that specializes in social media.  For a fee, it promises to get stories on the front page of Digg, direct followers to a Twitter account, and/or find someone Facebook fans (among other things).  But Facebook's put at least a temporary stop to the sale of friends.

The BBC reported this afternoon, "Facebook sent Cease and Desist letters to USocial claiming that the way the marketing firm operates violates its rights by sending spam, using web tools to harvest pages, getting login names and by accessing accounts that did not belong to the marketing firm."

As a result, "USocial defended itself against Facebook's claims, saying that it did not spam users or use web tools to gather information about profiles. . . .  However, in response to the legal letters, USocial said it would delete the login information it had collected and broadly stop offering to sell Facebook friends."

This is an interesting development insofar as, three months ago, Twitter also tried to crack down on uSocial.  Its back-channel methods apparently didn't succeed, but now that Facebook's established a precedent, we might see another attempt.  Delicious, Digg, and Reddit could well join the fight, too.

Of course, the hubbub around such a scuffle would act as free advertising for uSocial and might spread the notion that these social media sites can be gamed, so it's also possible that absolutely nothing will occur.

Have You Read This?

> Facebook Puts Privacy Policy In Users' Hands

> Facebook Blocks Popular iLike App

> Want More Facebook Friends?