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Google Maps recently introduced MyMaps, a feature that enabled users to create their own maps for things such as restaurants in Chicago, Pubs in New York and so on. It seems that the maps created by the users are now integrated into Google Maps itself.

Some example searches include: Read the rest of this entry »

Tellme Networks has announced the launch of a new service that enables users to find business information on the go. The service is plain vanilla 411, but allows users to access information through voice, SMS, or Web (TellMe client required).

Users could request information by responding to voice prompts and Tellme returns business listings based on the users location. Dial 1-800-555-TELL to use the service. TellMe also provides detailed maps of the location. TellMe was recently acquired by Microsoft to enter the Free411 market. The price tag was rumored to be around $800 million. Tellme claims to answer 80% of the automated 411 calls in the U.S., serving 40 million users each month.

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YourStreet, a service that has just launched, will be bringing a social network to your street. The service empowers homeowners, buyers, sellers and renters to learn and share inside knowledge about their local neighbourhoods. The service is really similar to Australian based StreetAdvisor that launched in March. At the moment I do not see much of a difference between the StreetAdvisor and YourStreet, but that might change in coming days and months.

YourStreet employs a variety of social networking tools to facilitate and encourage conversations between the local residents. The user generated Market Monitor charts tracks the neighborhood´s real estate market. Visitors to the site rate their local markets on a scale of 0 to 10 and these votes are averaged together to produce a continually updated chart of consumer opinion for each neighborhood. This will place YourStreet on a collision course with Zillow, which also provides users with real estate valuations. YourStreet also provides users with Wikis and forums to share in depth information and analysis about the locality. Users could also share photos of the locality to provide a visual snapshot of the neighborhood.

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There has been a lot of innovation and development going on in the local search lately, with almost all the big players coming up with something. First Ask City launched major usability enhancements which enabled users to specify their search area by drawing an arbitrary line or shape on the map, then AOL came to the party with their own local search engine, then Microsoft Live Earth became a lot livelier with 3D maps, and now its Google to the party with the release of 2.5D maps.

The new map view does not rotate but gives a good idea about the height and dimension of the building, from the way Google has shaded the buildings. The new feature is available for around 35 cities in U.S. and Japan and is yet another step towards convergence of Google Maps and Google Earth. Google Maps team has also recently released My Maps, a feature that allows users to create their own maps, which many term as the Google Maps mashup killer.

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Google, just released a new telephone service in the US, called Voice local Search. This service is a replacement of the traditional 411 service and gets multiple listings like the ones you get in Google Local. The service could be accessed by calling 1-800-GOOG-411. People using the service from a mobile device can also have listings sent to them via SMS, including telephone number and full address. Users can also get connected to businesses. The service is completely managed by voice recognition softwares and the results are quiet stunning. The service does not support residential listings at the moment, however I expect that to come soon. A cheat sheet of shortcuts is here.

411 is a huge market worth around $7 billion, with around 2.6 billion calls made in U.S. each year. Jingle Networks, the operator of 1800free411, was the first entrant in this market to offer the service for free and within no time captured 6% of the entire market, serving around 17 million calls in Feb 2007.

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Google has announced the launch of a new service, My Maps, that will allow users to create their own Google Maps Mashups.

The newly offered MyMaps allows users to plot anything from Presidential Elections 2004 to Journey Trips around the World. Users can also attach Youtube videos to the maps. Microsoft has already been offering a similar service for a while now.

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Topix.net which changed the the face of online journalism is doing it yet again with the relaunch of their service under the newly acquired domain name of Topix.com. This time they are targeting social journalism through the release of a new product that will allow readers to write, edit and share local news articles directly on Topix.com.

The news was broken by USA Today whose parent company Gannett McClatchy partly owns Topix together with Tribune. Topix covers local news already, which at the moment is auto generated. But this will going to change once and for all and from tonight Topix will become a socially edited online news paper. Topix allows users to comment on stories and its from these comments that the initial editors will be selected. It wont be long, when we will begin to see other goodies like localized news RSS, tagging, News from friends and so on.

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MSN Live Earth has released a major upgrade of Live Earth. The upgraded service now includes 3.8 terabytes of digital imagery that just lets you switch into bird´s eye view and feel as if you are the bird itself.

The official announcement is pending because they havent got the entire US covered as yet. However the cities that got covered include Chicago, Ventura County California, Broomfield, Pinellas Florida and Charleston South Carolina. However even after everything they haven’t yet learned to support other browsers. When you try to view the maps in 3D an annoying message pops up saying that this feature could only be viewed in IE 6 or 7. That was enough for me to leave the site, so I couldn’t provide you with the 3D review, may be someone else having more patience will do so.

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StreetAdvisor will be launching today to enable people to easily get access to and review their neighbourhood and more.

StreetAdvisor is based in Australia and aims to become a highly targeted social network for your neighbourhood and streets. It will allow the community to share the essence of their locality by allowing them to share information like street noise, public transportation info, street and night life, gossips and stories of the community. Other social network goodies like ranking, reviews, street maps etc are naturally included.

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Dogster, a social network for dogs has launched Dogster Local. The service lets users search, list, rate and review pet-related places, businesses and services in the locality. Think of it to be a Yellow pages for Dogs.

The service has 70,000 listings, 10,000 reviews and 1,000 till now. Users could browse the locality on Yahoo Maps, rate the pets, mark them as favorites and for those who know what it is, hCard microformat is also supported. This seems to be a winner investment by Brad Feld.

Oodle, a vertical search engine for local classifieds has raised $11 million from JAFCO Ventures. Previous investors Greylock Partners and Redpoint Ventures also participated in the round.

Oodle is amongs the top contestants in the local classifieds market segment and claims to have more than 20 million listings from 75,000 sources in US and UK. Oodle has managed to accomplish this by direct postings and syndication partnerships with sites like Yell.com, Engage.com, Local.com and others.

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