Yahoo Local Offers Reviews, Favorites

Yahoo on Wednesday unveiled a local version of its search engine that will allow the user to search based on a certain geographical location to find restaurants, movies and events, and even include user reviews among the results.

Yahoo's Paul Levine said that the future success of local search services does not only depend on the quality of the results, but also "in combining those results with community-generated content."

A recent study by the Kelsey Group indicated the local search and advertising industry could reach $5.1 billion by 2009, and search companies including MSN, Google and Amazon's A9.com are rushing to stake a claim to the growing market.

Generic searches of neighborhoods on Yahoo will show businesses and events for that location, along with recommendations of local favorites. Performing a more specific search within a locale, such as "Chinese food," will bring up a list of nearby establishments complete with user reviews.

Local search provides a new method for search engines to generate advertising dollars by allowing companies featured in the results to sponsor their listings and make them stand out over competitors.

However, local search engines have not always proved to be a lucrative business. Microsoft in 1999 sold its MSN Sidewalk service to competitor CitySearch after it did not meet the revenue goals of the Redmond software giant.

The Yahoo! Local service is available immediately from local.yahoo.com and from the search engine's front page.