It’s only in beta – and the only version that’s currently available is geared towards the Indian market – but a potential replacement for Yahoo Local has been spotted. Called “Our City,” Yahoo describes it as “a dynamic representation of content created by you and everyone else,” adding, “[t]here is a lot to Explore and Share.”
At the bottom of the main page, a legal notice names several other companies that may have become involved in the project (voluntarily or not): “Yahoo! Our City may have links to certain applications like flickr, Yahoo! Video, Upcoming, del.icio.us etc., which are U.S. products governed by U.S. laws.”
All of that comes together to form a site that offers the normal range of topics – news, travel, videos, weather, events, and blogs, among others. It looks very nice, though. As Om Malik noted, “If they can roll this out across the world, I think they easily best Google’s local efforts.” (Malik also gets a hat tip for, as far as I can tell, being the first to cover the story.)
“how much traction [could] they get with it?” he asked in the comments section. “not sure – but my first impression – clearly not a business viability case – is that the packaging is pretty good, and they have gotten the elements right.”
Search Engine Land’s Greg Sterling also had high hopes for Our City, although he took a moment to consider one alternative. “Done poorly, of course, it could also be a mess,” Sterling wrote, softening the comment by following up with a smiley face.
It seems that Yahoo has a potential winner with this one. And yet it remains to be seen if Our City will ever focus on a metropolis other than Bangladesh.
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Doug is a staff writer for webproworld. Visit webproworld for the latest eBusiness news.