A few years ago, the location of businesses became a big question mark, as well as a strategic issue, as people wanted to shop or dine nearby. These “geo-fencing” issues were especially important for Yellow Pages companies.
Since then, search has become more the norm, along with GPS-based phones, which have location baked into them. What …

HopStop, a directions portal that competes in the segment against an ever-building Google Maps, today announced its plans to fight the Big G, including new markets, content partners and features. The 20-person site, which gets about one-third of its traffic from destination and SEO traffic, and one-third from affiliate partners, has added 20 markets and …

It’s hard work distilling 20,000 people, hundreds of sessions, droves of start-ups, seemingly endless parties and even a Mike Tyson cameo into a cliffs notes recap of SxSW Interactive. Not that anyone is shedding any tears for me. America loves lists (or so I’ve heard), so here are “the big ideas” that have my brain buzzing …

In the “Field of Dreams” “if you build it, they will come” spirit, when Marissa Mayer takes the stage, thousands are sure to follow. Google’s VP devoted much of her keynote at SxSW Interactive to evolutions in Google’s mobile mapping products (Maps Navigation, route-around traffic and Latitude, among others).
Mobile mapping shares close synergy in the …

Google today announced a rather significant change to its local search results and ranking algorithms. Dubbed Place Search, this provides more detailed information about places that match your search query and location (inferred or explicit).
This means a few things. First, it’s the official end of the famed 7 pack (formerly 10 pack) that Google launched at the beginning of …

Sorting content by neighborhoods and ZIP codes can boost usage considerably, as HelloMetro recently discovered. The 10-year-old city guide gets more than 6 million monthly unique visitors and has 1,500 local sites. In a case study published today, it said it received a 10 percent jump in traffic after it started using a neighborhood and …

As the demand for dependable call-tracking tools intensifies in the SMB marketplace, WebVisible — the Irvine, California-based local online marketing provider — has unveiled upgrades to its portfolio of services to enable more focused ad geotargeting and greater call-tracking capabilities for businesses.
WebVisible has boosted its Geneva Platform to serve locally targeted ads for its clients across all …

U.K. directory publisher Yell is launching an overall redesign to its online directory today that follows the trend of building an immersive online Yellow Pages experience. The new site includes 3-D maps and street cam. Working with partners C3 and Tridoo, Yell has built lifelike 3-D images of four of Britain’s largest cities — London, …

Jon Brod, executive vice president of AOL Ventures, Local & Mapping, gave attendees at Marketplaces 2010 a glimpse into the direction that AOL is moving in its local strategy, specifically with Patch.com, MapQuest, its content management system Seed, its LocalFund investment arm, the relaunch of CitysBest and the forthcoming launch of Patch.org.

Earlier this year Brod …

EveryScape, a Massachusetts-based company that offers an immersive local search experience, has secured a new $6 million funding round. We see this as a sign of confidence that the model EveryScape is pursuing — creating a virtual local search experience where you can find a local business, walk in the door and virtually browse and …

Yell.com has decided to forgo partnering on maps with Google, Microsoft or other potential competitors in favor of building its own propriety map product. The U.K.’s largest directory publisher unveiled a beta version of the Yell Maps product this week.
Yell is positioning its map product as designed for the specific purpose of finding local businesses. …

Mapping has become less about radius of where you are and more about what people define as local, how far people are willing to travel and the importance of certain events or locations in their community. While the advertising paradigm has focused on ZIP codes/postal codes, consumers identify more with neighborhoods or specific areas of …

Selling advertising on customized Google Maps is becoming increasingly common, with agencies such as LAT49 showing the way. Ads have been sold on maps for hiking, jogging trails, local transit and other categories.
Now Wedding Mapper is taking the same concept to weddings, where it allows couples to map out a wedding trail of airports, receptions, …

MapQuest launched a feature that lets those celebrating Easter find the closest Easter egg hunts. These include formal hunts for the general public (search technology hasn’t reached the point of indexing private backyard events).
It’s an interesting integration of local event based data and online mapping. Lots of other possible holiday-based integrations come to mind. Check …

Local SEO guru Andrew Shotland just alerted me to the fact that Google is now serving the local “10 pack” in searches that don’t include geographic modifiers (original discovery by Google Maps expert Mike Blumenthal).
For those unfamiliar, the 10 pack is the block of 10 local results that occupies the top results in searches where …

MapQuest announced a series of tools today that let advertisers place themselves along the routes that are generated when users plot driving directions.
These are new features to MapQuest’s existing Business Locator, which let users choose different types of businesses that are visible along their routes. This will include coffee shops, grocery stores, gas stations and …

MapQuest today announced a new feature for its MapQuest 4 Mobile application, which will let users save and share personalized maps and routes. Known as MyPlaces, the feature will be part of the free MapQuest 4 mobile download on select BlackBerry models (more devices coming soon).
The main point is to drive usage by extending the MapQuest …

The Los Angeles Times today debuted “Mapping L.A.,” an online effort to map 87 distinctive neighborhoods in the sprawling Southland. For the paper, the designation of neighborhoods goes beyond civic duties. Not only does it intend to base news stories around them, but also hyperlocal marketing, advertising and blogging effortsl.
The initial cut of Mapping L.A.’s …

One of the homespun stories of interactive local media is the rise of HelloMetro, a city guide company that started in 1999 as an entrepreneurial effort in Louisville, Kentucky, and has since grown to include 15 staffers, including five direct salespeople.
The company, which has hundreds of Hello(City name) city guides, made $7.5 million in 2008. …

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg posts on the Official Google Blog today about a new partnership between the city and Google to launch a series of local search tools.
This will include a City Guide site, NYCgo.com, with mapping and local search powered by Google Maps. The site will feature lots of mashups for finding …