Have you ever been so impressed with the coffee/beer/waitstaff somewhere that you wanted to tell the world? PlaceShout is a website designed to allow you to give your favorite places a little Internet shout out and help you find new places in your area that are worth a visit.
Traditional review sites that have lengthy reviews of establishments. But PlaceShout is all about brevity, with a maximum review length of 100 characters. You can navigate the site by searching for a particular item: For instance: "Coffee in San Francisco" or you can view areas by map and look for reputable establishments near you.
When you pull up a particular location's rap sheet you can see everything that has ever been said about them. Much like comments on Digg, comments on the site can be given a thumbs up or a thumbs down. A particular comments amount of votes determines what order it is seen on a places review sheet. For instance if someone says the grilled cheese at Earls Sandwich shop is the bomb, and you think its the worst thing to ever be put on sliced bread you can give their comment a thumbs down and move it down on the list.
PlaceShout is a relatively new kid on the block, so there's not an overwhelming amount of reviews out there to peruse for a lot of cities, you can currently add reviews however for anywhere. The cities with the most reviews are Ann Arbor, MI at 260 and San Francisco with 234.
If you want to check out reviews of places in your area some good similar sites to check out are JudysBook, InsiderPages, and Yelp.
Local search needs a lot of help, and it's only begun its long journey to power local searchers to find their destinations. There is Google Local, Ask Local, Yelp, and Yellow Pages. Now India joins the game with a new social search platform called AskLaila.
The name might not be striking for residents, but the startup is currently focusing on dishing out local searches for Bangalore citizens, covering reviews, local service ratings, shopping destinations, restaurants, events and lifestyle results. AskLaila plans to get the service out to another 22 cities in India, and has a financial backing to get the job done in the next little while.
What service do DLS readers use for effective local search results?
Ever wonder who owns the patent for local search? Of course not, because being able to search for local restaurants, transportation, or classified listings online is kind of too obvious to be patented, right?
Apparently not. Local.com has picked up a patent for local search. Patent 7,231,405 refers to a process for "indexing and retrieving web-related information by geographical location."
Does this mean that Google, Yahoo!, Craigslist, and pretty much any other service that provides the ability to filter search results geographically will have to license technology from Local.com? Nope. The patent refers to one method of conducting location-based search.
Still, it sounds about as patentable as saying Download Squad would like exclusive rights to a certain method for using email tips, RSS feeds, and common knowledge to write blog entires about news and information about software and web services.
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.
This blog's parent company has launched the second public beta of its local search page, which makes use of MapQuest and CityGuide. Essentially, it's AOL's response to Yahoo! Local or Google Maps.
The update includes:
Better fallback for locations that cannot be mapped
Improved driving directions widget
More content for "top tier" cities. In other words, when you search for items like "restaurants," in larger US cities, modules will pop up with "city's best" and the like
A number of bugfixes, including improved printing
Overall, the interface is well organized and easy to use, if rather familiar. It's nice to see AOL bringing together technologies from different sites like MapQuest and City Search to make local web search a little smoother.
One fascinating aspect to online social communities is the ability to meet people around the globe who share your interests. In many cases, you're introduced to people you never would have met under other circumstances.
But the truth of the matter is most of us don't even know the people in our own neighborhoods. Of course, you could walk out the front door and ask to borrow a cup of sugar from the house across the street or better yet, bring them some fresh baked cookies. But where's the fun in that?
Fatdoor is a new social community site (with an awful name) that lets you find people, businesses, and organizations in your area in a Web 2.0 way. In other words, you get a map. And user reviews. Not sure if that restaurant on the corner is any good or if there's a cheaper grocery store nearby? Fatdoor lets you rely on the wisdom of the masses, if you believe there is such a thing, and if enough folks from your neighborhood have signed up.
You can write information about yourself, about your friends and neighbors, and about local institutions. In other words, this startup will either be an excellent replacement for the phone book, or it'll become the online equivalent of a stall in the men's room.
While Fatdoor has launched in alpha, not all neighborhoods are covered yet so you might receive a message alerting you that your neighborhood is in invitation only mode when you attempt to sign up.
Yahoo! is teaming up with Dash Express, makers of the first internet connected automotive navigation system, to bring users Yahoo! Local Search straight from their GPS. Is this a new feature for the GPS industry? It could be! So how does it work? Users simply enter their local search terms for products, services, or businesses into the Dash Express, and Dash instantly pulls in the results. The results are sorted and presented in an address card format to users. When a local result is then chosen from the list, the Dash Express instantly routes the GPS to the destination. This sounds like an extremely useful application, I cant wait to see it in action, its bound to take the GPS market by storm.
Dash Express will be available in the spring of 2007 in California only, then released out to the rest of the nation in the fall. No word on the cost of the unit. If you are attending CES this year, you can also check them out in Las Vegas at booth #9841.
It's always difficult to find truly great local businesses. For a lot of businesses, recommendations and word of mouth is how they generate the most business. That's where InsiderPages comes into play. On InsiderPages.com people can share reviews of local businesses in their area like Auto Repairs, Plumbers, and Realtors, so they can find services they can trust, and truly be happy at the results. The site is very simple to use, and there are currently over 500,000 customer reviews from across the US. Check it out when you need your next service.
Microsoft has a job opening for a Google Compete Lead. What exactly does this person do? Well, this person drives the competitive landscape on Microsoft's Google Compete initiatives across all of the MSN organizations.
This MSN position requires the individual to maintain a close relationship with the Google Compete team, and gain competitive intelligence for Google's local and regional initiatives.
The Google Compete lead will be responsible for market share wins and revenue within this market area, including the deployment of incentives and contests to drive results toward Microsoft and away from Google.
Well, it sounds like Microsoft is getting a tad scared in the search market by developing this position. It is totally understandable that MSN has to have a position dedicated to gaining competitive intelligence against Google, and try to bribe individuals into using a less superior search application. Its nice that the position is spelled out so nicely, and directly takes aim at Google on a local and regional stance. It just proves that Google is a far superior search market leader.
Have you ever been so impressed with the coffee/beer/waitstaff somewhere that you wanted to tell the world? PlaceShout is a website designed to allow you to give your favorite places a little Internet shout out and help you find new places in your area that are worth a visit.
