Whether you’re a home owner, seller, or buyer, odds are you’ve asked yourself “what’s this house worth?” Earlier this week Yahoo! Real Estate launched a new and improved home values search mash-up that allows consumers to search 70M+ U.S. residential properties and receive instant home valuation estimates.

In addition, Yahoo! Real Estate joined up with Yahoo! Answers and Yahoo! Local to round out the home values research process. First, the updated Home Values center surfaces the most relevant home value related questions and best answers from Yahoo! Answers. Second, Yahoo! Real Estate leverages Yahoo! Local search to connect users to top rated appraisers in the area.

We hope you like this combination of valuation data, community insights and local next steps. You can find more information on the new features here. Check it out and let us know what you think!

Brian Rothenberg
Product Manager, Yahoo! Real Estate

Congratulations to the Yahoo! Real Estate team on their newly updated Home Values center that launched today! They’ve used the Yahoo! Maps AJAX API as well as the Yahoo! Local search API to create a cool mash-up that provides users with a more comprehensive view of home valuations, community insights, and local connections.

Searching for a particular home’s value takes you to an expanded results page that features estimated home values from Zillow.com, as well as two newly formed relationships with eppraisal.com and reply.com. This allows you to get multiple home value estimates from leading providers in order to give users a more complete view on a home’s potential value range. The real estate team also expanded their Zillow relationship to include home data (such as beds, baths, square feet), sale history and tax info, as well as recently sold comparable homes that are plotted on the map. Additionally, you can view nearby similar homes for sale from Y! Real Estate to better understand the ‘ask’ side of the valuation process – what are sellers asking for similar homes right now?

To tap into the knowledge of the Yahoo! community, the real estate team joined up with Yahoo! Answers in order to surface home values related questions and answers directly on Yahoo! Real Estate. You can browse the top home values questions and best answers, view more home values Q&As, search Y! Answers for any question/answer, or ask the community a question of your own. Using the Yahoo! Local search API, they also surface local valuation professionals to help you connect with top rated real estate appraisers in your area should you choose to get a professional home appraisal.

Check it out and let us know what you think!
Brian Rothenberg, Product Manager, Yahoo! Real Estate

This quote from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address has always struck me. These ten words capture the essence of democracy in a way that my high school U.S. History textbooks never could. I was reminded of this quote this week as the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, asked the Yahoo! Answers community for their insights on climate change — “Congress is working on legislation to address global warming — what would you like to see included?”

Ten years ago when the World Wide Web was just taking off, pundits declared that it would change our world. And many of their predictions have been correct — commerce, news and information, communications, politics — they’ve all been affected and in many ways transformed by the Web. The Speaker engaging the Answers community for input on active legislation is simply more evidence of the Web’s transformative power. And it brings us one small step closer to the vision Lincoln outlined.

While we don’t yet know how this data will be used by the Speaker and her staff, we hope you’ll take the time to share your thoughts on reversing global warming.

Nathan Gamble
Yahoo! Search

We just rolled out a new search index last night. So, as usual, you may see some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages that are included in the index throughout this process. This update should be complete very soon.

Thank you to all that have submitted spam reports through Site Explorer. These reports are continuously being included in our index updates. We’ve received some very high-quality feedback and have found these useful to keep spam out of our results.

Keep the feedback coming.

Priyank Garg
Yahoo! Search

Today we’re rolling out a brand new Yahoo! Maps that has its own proprietary platform to call home. Bringing the Yahoo! Maps platform in-house gives us numerous advantages, including; global scalability, having more direct control over upgrades, easier integration of new features and user feedback, and a greater ability to improve accuracy.

The advanced functionality introduced with this new platform addresses suggestions, feature requests and bug fixes reported through the yws-maps group. Your ongoing feedback is truly appreciated, as it plays a crucial role in our development cycle.

Some of the front-end improvements you’ll immediately notice when test-driving the improved Yahoo! Maps include:

• Ability to get driving directions within 34 European countries from the U.S. Yahoo! Maps site, including
  • Western Europe – Complete coverage
    Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, France, and Italy
  • Eastern Europe – Comprehensive coverage
    Albania, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, The Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia/Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Turkey
• A fresh new look and feel to our maps design that is distinctively Yahoo!
• Terrain overlays that provide added dimension and information at the medium and higher zoom levels.
• Neighborhood and building footprints for NYC and San Francisco show greater context at the zoom level. Additional cities are planned for rollout in 2007.
• Search for directions using only a point of interest (e.g., Empire State Building, Eiffel Tower).
• Redesigned interactive print page makes it easier to print and read driving directions.
• For users of our dial-up Maps, we have added many of the most popular features from our broadband version (new maps design, multi-point driving direction, one box address entry, integration of Yahoo! Local data), without sacrificing speed or performance.

Stay tuned for related news over the course of 2007, as we start to work with many of our European teams to introduce new in-country Maps sites in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. You can already take a look at Yahoo! Maps India, currently in beta, and up and running on our new platform too.

We hope you enjoy exploring the world on the new Yahoo! Maps, both globally and closer to home.

Jeremy Kreitler, Mike Lawless, Gus Maldonado, Mike Heideman, Rodney Fernandez, Ronny Choie, Jane Jao, and the Yahoo! Maps Team.

UPDATE:

Some people may not realize there are two versions of the site. The Broadband version is more feature rich, the Dialup version is most like our traditional website.

Broadband: http://maps.yahoo.com/broadband/

Dialup: http://maps.yahoo.com/dialup/

Yahoo! is expanding its mobile reach to a few more countries. We just launched Yahoo! oneSearch Beta in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. We’re now in 14 countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Canada (launched on 5/3) and the U.S.

Users in these countries can now access News, Finance, Weather, Web, Mobile Web, Flickr, and Image search results on their mobile devices. And, for UK and Canada users, local search results are a part of the oneSearch experience. Accessing all of this information is easy for folks across a number of geographic locations. Folks in the UK, for example, can now look for curry in the West End, while travelers in India can find the temperature in Jaipur. Quick news headlines in Singapore are also just a click away.

We hope you enjoy the product. Let us know what you think.

Paul Yiu
Yahoo! Search

A few weeks ago, Yahoo! launched a brand marketing campaign called, “Be a Better ________” which was designed to inspire people to become better at whatever interests them and, in turn, explore how Yahoo! services can get them there. We hope Yahoo! users are inspired to fulfill their passions.

Here at Yahoo! we’re taking our own advice and, as a result, have created the “Be a Better Planet” program to promote environmental dedication and to help affect climate change. The program invites everyone to participate in making a better planet, by doing one of three things: visiting Yahoo! Green and taking the “Green Pledge” to commit to lowering carbon emissions; contributing to the growing collection of knowledge and advice about environmental issues, by joining the conversations at Yahoo! Answers; or proactively looking for opportunities to live a greener life by performing “green” searches on Yahoo! OneSearch. Based on the total number of points earned for each green action, participants will receive a free energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulb and contribute to their hometown’s overall ranking for a chance to win a fleet of hybrid taxis for their entire city.

For more details on how you can help “be a better planet,” click here.

Anne Edwards
Yahoo! Search

Every year, the Buzz log likes to pay homage to the woman who makes it all happen — Mom. After all she’s done for you, it’s heartening to see searches for Mother’s Day are higher than last year. Even better, you’ve cut back dramatically on looking at those “yo mama jokes.”

Behind all the usual searches for roses, crafts and ideas, we can probe deep within the Search psyche. Where would you guess all the mama’s boys (and girls) live? The nation’s capitol Washington DC leads the states in “mother’s day” queries, which goes to show that even a politician deserves a mother’s love.

On a more regional level, the cities of Austin, San Diego and Houston have been way ahead of the search game for weeks. You know those types — they’ve already hand-picked the hardiest heirloom roses, arranged a family reunion catered by Rachael Ray, and updated the genealogy website complete with mash-ups. The rest of us are sweating over our keyboards, ordering “pajama gram,” “vermont teddy bears,” and “digital photo frames” (the latest gift craze following the “digital camera” trend).

Search is the last refuge for procrastinators, as this week’s surge for “e-cards” attest. The craftier among you have been seeking gifts from the heart and by the hand, such as “homemade mother’s day gifts,” “homemade cards,” and “mother’s day poems” (don’t forget to attribute borrowed phrases). As for the care and feeding of moms, people have that covered with look-ups for “breakfast in bed brunch recipes,” with fixings of “pancakes,” “French toast” and “strawberry shortcake.” Ambitious cooks have been downloading the instructions for “fruit flowers.” Brilliant move as far as I’m concerned, that’s two gifts in one.

Give Mom an extra hug for me!

Vera H-C Chan
Senior editor, Buzz offline

We recently added thumbnails of Flickr images for popular domestic and international landmark searches into Yahoo! Search. Now you can easily find amazing and unique photos of your favorite landmarks. Try it with Empire State Building, Chichen Itza, and Machu Picchu for example.

With the help of Flickr Interestingness, we are now able to surface some of the most beautiful, creative, and popular photos from the Flickr community directly into the search results. Clicking on the thumbnails will take you to Flickr where you can explore further, set up your own account, and share your best shots too. This feature adds to the popular Flickr integration for funny photos and interesting photos on Yahoo! Search.

Whether you are planning a trip to see the Colosseum, Seattle Space Needle, or Pyramids, want to rekindle memories of past trips to the Sydney Opera House, Mount Shasta, or Tower Bridge, or have pride for your local landmark (for me it’s the beauty of the Golden Gate Bridge) we think you’ll be awed by the Flickr community’s photos.

We plan to continue the expansion of this experience and very much welcome your ideas and thoughts.

Carlos Teran
Yahoo! Search

We made the trek up north to the Banff Springs Hotel in Alberta, Canada to attend the WWW 2007 conference this week, which brings together the key folks that are shaping the future of the web.

We’ll be attending various panel discussions and sharing the experience, but we’ll also be a part of the fun. If you’re around, drop by and meet some of the team. Prabhakhar Raghavan, head of Yahoo! Research, Bradley Horowitz, Yahoo! Advanced Development Division and Andrew Tomkins, Yahoo! Research, will be participating in the following discussions:

“Web N.0: What sciences will it take?”
Prabhakhar Raghavan, head of Yahoo! Research
May 10 @ 8:30-10a.m.

“The Changing Face of Web Search”
Bradley Horowitz, Yahoo! Advanced Development Division
May 10 @ 10:30-11:15a.m.

“Tagging and Metadata for Social Information Organization”
Andrew Tomkins, Yahoo! Research (panelist)
May 12 @ 1:30-3p.m.

Hope to see you there!

Melissa Rische
Yahoo! Search