The location-based search market sure is heating up, what with our parent company AOL launching a new Local Search beta and Yahoo! putting Local Search in your car and all. Some interesting tricks not many of these services can claim, however, include being able to pinpoint your exact location based on your computer's IP address, and shaking hands with various web services such as Fnadango, Google Maps, Match.com and even gas price finders. Local search company Loki, however, does get to brag about these features and more, including a brand-spanking new Firefox extension for Mac OS X and a mobile phone client.
One problem, however, is that we can't get the shiny new Mac client to work just yet. Installing and re-installing in Firefox is yielding no results, and none of Loki's featured sites or channels are kicking into gear. Since Loki has a ton of other unique features like one-click SMSing your friends with your current location and GeoTagging your Flickr pics, we definitely tried to get it up and running for the Mac users in the crowd, but perhaps you'll have better luck.
Still, Loki's approach to local search is a unique one that we hope the larger players are paying attention to. Local search at a map site is great and all, but not having to manually tell other sites like Fandango, Match.com and the hordes of other location-specific sites where we are all the time is sweet music to our automation-tuned ears.
[via Webware]
