Yahoo enhances local search features

• As previously reported, Yahoo's efforts come as competition for local search, and the potential $3.4 billion market it brings, heats up with Google and America Online.
• With its latest offerings, Yahoo Local is adding features such as user recommendations and the ability to search for restaurants, movies and events within a neighborhood, rather than having to cull through listings for an entire city.
• Users may access their My Yahoo accounts to read updated user recommendations for local restaurants and events, but also can receive the updates via RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds.
• "The future of local search lies not only in offering highly comprehensive and relevant local search results, but in combining those results with community-generated content," Paul Levine, Yahoo Local general manager, said in a statement.
• The service also includes real-time updates on local event information and, based on a person's search history, will offer recommendations relevant to local community listings.
• Competitors, meanwhile, have been hard at work developing their own local search services.
• Earlier this year, Google launched features such as editorial reviews of local businesses that included their hours of operation and Wi-Fi accessibility.
• AOL touted the capability to buy movie tickets and make dinner reservations at local restaurants, and it plans to offer a local search tool accessible via mobile phone later this year.
• Delving deep into the local search scene has not always been lucrative.
• The battle for local search users harks back to the late 1990s and the fight between Citysearch and the former MSN Sidewalk from Microsoft.
• MSN sold its Sidewalk search service to competitor Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch in 1999, after finding it difficult to generate revenue from local searches for restaurants and events.