Local Blog Posts

Time is of the essence, so looking for that new restaurant or finding a local spa shouldn't add to your busy day. The Yahoo! Local team had that in mind when they rolled out a new feature to help everyone from the consummate explorer to the geographically-challenged find local businesses quicker and more easily. Now, you can make refinements to your local queries in real-time, directly on the map, based on a specific geographic radius.

So, let's say you want to find some great Mexican food in the San Francisco area. You start by searching 'Mexican Restaurant, San Francisco' and a laundry list of Mexican restaurants pops up. But, perhaps you love the vibe along the water and want to find a restaurant in that specific area. To take your search a layer deeper and save you time, hit the 'Expand Map' in the map window and a circle will now appear. You can then shrink, expand or move the circle around to concentrate on a particular area on the map. Without havng to run your search agan, the map will automatically re-populate based on your modifications.

Give it a test drive and let the team know what you think here.

Yahoo! Search Blog team

The Yahoo! Maps team is happy to announce the single biggest imagery update on maps.yahoo.com since the program inception. While we've steadily added new cities around the world every month (over 500 now) since the beginning, we haven't made as much of a change in the US until today. Our latest release improves both breadth and depth.

Going wide, we've made big improvements in our wall-to-wall coverage of the United States, improving our back-drop data for a number of complete states, including California, Oregon, New York, the Carolina's, and numerous other states in the west and midwest. State-wide, you'll see an improvement in freshness, color and clarity. Here's an example up at McCloud, CA, which is a beautiful part of California near Mt. Shasta.

Going deep, and I think more importantly, we’ve enabled up to 2 extra zoom levels of aerial photography and satellite imagery for the Satellite button for hundreds of cities around the US. Not only can you see more detail, but in many places the imagery has gotten a welcomed refresh as well. To see what I mean, check this out new view of Denver City Hall.

I've always believed that satellite and aerial imagery adds an important context to understanding our maps and driving directions, and with this update, I hope you'll agree with me that this feature is even more useful.

Cheers,

Michael Lawless, Sr. Product Manager, Yahoo! Maps

We’ve been working hard all winter long, and today, we’ve rolled out an update to Yahoo! Maps that delivers a number of improvements including; new neighborhood data,expanded worldwide coverage, and stylistic improvements.

Some of the improvements you might notice as you test-drive our updated Yahoo! Maps include:

• New Neighborhood Data at lower zoom levels with:


• > 300 cities with new neighborhood data added throughout North America, from Palo Alto, to Chicago, to Toronto, etc.


• > 12,000 new neighborhoods added, from "Lower East Side" (New York, Milwaukee, Bridgeport) to "Lower Collegetown" (Ithaca)


• Expanded Worldwide Coverage with much improved coverage, especially throughout Eastern Europe


• New POI information - highlighting Schools, Rest areas, Ski Resorts, etc.
  Additional shaded relief levels worldwide


• City label density increased for better usability


• Style improvements such as Hybrid Road and Label colors adjusted for better legibility


• Lighter map tiles ‚Äì with an average of 30-60% reduction in size

Cheers!

Gus Maldonado - Sr. Product Manager, Yahoo! Geo/Maps

One of the most requested updates at the Yahoo! Developer Network is to upgrade the Maps API's to support Actionscript 3. In fact, over 500 of you have voted for this, and your wish is our command. Starting today, you'll now be able to work with a native AS3 mapping component, brought to you by our own Zach Graves, Yahoo! Maps and the YDN.

Highly compact at only 30kb, this component won't weigh your widget down, and those of you who know AS3 know that a native component handles raster graphics and overlays with ease, greatly improving performance. The new api supports complex custom markers, local search, geocoding, and of course maps, satellite and hybrid out of the box.

Take a look at the YDN release informationwhere there's more info, examples,and a couple of screencasts, and for you developers looking for the Flash edge, you're welcome.

Michael Lawless
Sr. Product Manager - Yahoo! Maps

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, us insiders know that the difference between Hwy 101 and Hwy 280 is like the difference between the mall ring-road on the Saturday before Christmas and the Autobahn. Some of us will go through some awfully long detours just to get to our favorite freeways, but it's not always easy to know the best way to get there. It can also mean that online maps aren't as relevant because you might be coming at your destination from an unexpected direction.

Now following your favorite freeway on Yahoo! Maps is as easy as drag & drop. Once you get your directions to your destination, if you don't quite like what you see, you can pick up your route and drop it somewhere else, and we'll drive you through the area you select in the most efficient manner. If that's still not quite right, you can tug on the route again until it's perfect. Of course you can undo your through-points whenever you like, or go back to your original route. We'll even tell you the difference in mileage and estimated time between your personalized route and our fastest route. This would be great for long trips where you want to see some interesting detours or scenic routes.

In addition to our personalized routes, we've made a few other changes. Searching for businesses on a map just got more informative. Inside the business popups on the map there are now photos and user review quotes, and we've also re-formatted the list view to make it easier to understand your results. Yahoo! Maps is now a bit faster, and we've fixed a couple of our favorite pet-peeves, like being able to save as many addresses as you'd like.

We hope you like the new functionality.

Happy drag & dropping,

Michael Lawless - Sr. Product Manager, Yahoo! Maps

Make your blog posts map-happy with the new Yahoo! Shortcuts for Wordpress (beta). This is the same treatment that you may have seen inside Yahoo! Mail, News, or Travel.

Although Yahoo! Shortcuts will provide Flickr photos for your top terms, financial charts for companies such as Yahoo! Inc., and help you find out more about that HP Pavilion dv9500t you've been looking at, we're especially partial to the Yahoo! Maps shortcut.

For example, if I were to put 701 First Ave, Sunnyvale, CA in the body of my post (as I just did), the plugin will auto-detect that there is mapping context, and give me the option of having an appropriate link. Inside the shortcut (rollover the address above to see it) you can expand to a popup which has links to see a full sized map, get driving directions, and search for nearby businesses.

There's additionaldiscussionon Yahoo! Search Blog, and in Yodel Anecdotal, so follow the links to read more.

Michael Lawless - Sr. Product Manager Yahoo! Maps, and ylocalblog caretaker.

You may have noticed that Yahoo! Local has undergone several front-end enhancements since its big makeover in August 2007. A couple of signficant changes took effect recently, namely, search refinement has been extended to allow users to drill down upon the exact businesses they seek. For instance, should you find yourself hankering for a family-friendly, California restaurant located within 10 miles of your home, you can make use of the Atmosphere, Distance, and Category locators to more readily identify the best options. To tighten results even more, filter by increasing the distance or narrowing to the highest rated restaurants.

In an effort to keep you better connected to new reviews from the people and places you prefer, Yahoo! Local now offers RSS feeds on key areas of the site so you can receive updates as they become available (Hint: look for the radiating RSS symbol ).

From our city guide pages, you can choose to “Add RSS” for recent reviews and stay abreast of users’ varied experiences with local businesses. If you encounter a great review from a particular user, click on a picture or name in order to view that user’s profile page and add an RSS feed to get his or her future reviews. Finally, you can establish an RSS feed to get notified when Yahoo! Local users comment on your reviews. Just navigate to your MyLocal profile page, scroll to the “comments on your reviews” section, and click to “Add RSS.”

Finally, a first review on a business really does get the ball rolling in providing valuable insights to other Yahoo! Local users. In an effort to encourage users to contribute that essential first review, you may have noticed the First Reviewer attributions that now appear on business details pages. It’s your key to finding out who the local experts really are, and to get credit for submitting a review that helps others make decisions.

We hope you make good use of the latest updates and as always, let us know your thoughts here.

Shawn Bolan

Sr. Product Manager, Yahoo! Local

Recently, Harris Interactive conducted a survey for us that studied the “psyche” of the online reviewer. We wanted to determine what motivates people to contribute to online review sites like Yahoo! Local and we found that the majority of online adults feel compelled to offer their opinion in order to help others in their community through knowledge-sharing, followed by a desire to promote the business and help the merchant succeed.

Needless to say, we’re glad that we’re providing a service that helps connect others and offers invaluable advice when making offline purchasing decisions. Four out of five online adults (80 percent) are likely to be influenced by a review, and seventy-one percent of respondents at least somewhat, if not strongly, find online reviews helpful in making purchasing decisions. In addition, one in four adults (29 percent) say their purchasing decisions are either always or often influenced by online review content! That’s a sizeable percentage of the population. You can feel good knowing that the reviews you write on Yahoo! Local are helping others in your community make decisions about which product or service they plan to purchase.

We’re also happy to report that more users are influenced by positive reviews than negative reviews (27 percent versus 12 percent, respectively). These numbers are inline with ones that resulted from a similar study last year and they show that while online reviews are helpful for users, they are also helpful for local merchants.

It’s great to work on such a positive community tool for both local businesses and consumers alike, and these survey results only strengthen our belief in the services we provide through Yahoo! Local. We hope you’ll continue to find the site a helpful resource and we always welcome your opinions to make the service even better!

Frazier Miller - GM Yahoo! Local

August 29th, 2006 was an exciting day for us; it was the day after Flickr first announced their Geotagging feature using the Yahoo! Maps API, and they had exceeded their first month projection of 1 million geotagged photos in a single day. It goes to show that putting pictures and places together go hand-in-hand like peas and carrots, Bonnie and Clyde… You get the idea.

Today Flickr released two new maps-related features. The new Flickr Places pages will take some of the 30+ million publicly geotagged photos already uploaded and organize them into key themes for over 100,000 locations. Each Places page features interesting photos and photographers, related Flickr Groups, and the tags that make that area unique.

The maps page itself gets a great upgrade as well, with an improved world map where people can easily view popular and up-to-date themes. Clicking on any of these hot tags will take you to a selection of current photos from that area, tagged with more detailed information. This will provide a great visual lens into the latest interesting things happening around the world.

These new features further demonstrate our commitment to a global platform and will be available in English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Korean, and traditional Chinese.

Michael lawless

Sr. Product Manager, Yahoo! Maps

As mentioned in the May 8, 2007 post, the Yahoo! Travel team has been working on a map-on-map feature which enriches our Yahoo! Maps by overlaying independent map images to add more details and context to our base maps.

Now, that same team has further developed the map-on-map feature into the sharable application called MapMixer. This means that anyone who has a map in .jpeg, .gif, or .png format can now upload their map onto a background of Yahoo! Map and mix it, blend it, or customize it. The app gives users tools to adjust transparency, pin-point chosen locations for accurate overlaying and placement, stretch, rotate, zoom, and pan.

If you’re planning a picnic at the park for a group of friends, you can mix your own map of the park’s amenities to pick the best spot and give directions to it. If you’re a tour guide, you can upload images of your route and key sights. If you are showing the past as it relates to the modern-day, add public domain historical maps.

There are endless uses for MapMixer. Take a look at what others have done to customize Yahoo! Maps on the Featured Maps page, and then try it for yourself.

Congrats to Adam Chang, Nimit Maru, and the Yahoo! Travel team who put this great service together.

Michael Lawless - Sr. Product Manager, Yahoo! Maps

If you happen to be the proud owner of a shiny new Mercedes-Benz with Tele Aid, then you should be pleased to hear about our new Send to Car feature, which allows addresses and businesses found on Yahoo! Maps to be sent directly to your Mercedes-Benz vehicle through their new Search & Send program.

1. Just enter an address or get driving directions on Yahoo! Maps as you normally would. Click the “Send to Car” link, and select which (if more than one) address or addresses you’d like to download to your vehicle. Edit the title of the address if you’re so inclined and finally, enter the email address of your car and hit send


2. Or, you can send business information directly from their popup window when you use “Find a Business on the Map.” Search for businesses by keyword or by name, such as “dry cleaners” or “Pizzeria Uno” and click “Send to Car” on the in-map popup and follow the same instructions above.

We were pleased to work with Mercedes-Benz as the first automobile manufacturer in our new Send to Car feature, and we think this new bridge between the comfort of your own keyboard and your in-car nav system is the best of both worlds.

Michael Lawless – Sr. Product Manager, Yahoo! Maps

Remember the old adage "you reap what you sow?" Well, it’s nowhere more true than in the neighborhoods in which we live. If you’re like me, perhaps you’re tired of seeing your favorite small businesses close due to competitive pressure from a chain store. Who knows, maybe you could’ve helped save that fave if you gave that merchant some kudos and told your neighbors about your great experience.

Well, now Yahoo! Local will help you do just that. We’ve completely overhauled the site to make it easier to contribute your opinion and through a new, updated algorithm, we’re making sure that search results take your ratings and reviews into account. We want to make sure that people’s contributions to Yahoo! Local count in more ways than one.

An example of this in action is the "pizza" in Chicago, IL results which better reflect what the community says is the best pizza in Chicago (obviously a hotly contested debate, we’re not sure we want to get involved in...):

In addition to the improved accuracy of our search results, some of the other new features we’re rolling-out today focus on more ways for you to find what’s best and closest to you:

• Commenting on User Reviews ‚Äì No longer will it feel like shouting into the wind when you write a review. Now the people who benefit from your tips can reply back. You’ll also be able to track comments on your reviews from your My Local page.


• Weekender ‚Äì Offers a weekly selection of events, movies (including show times and reviews), dining picks, and more to help you plan your weekend.


• More “Local Buzz” ‚Äì Shows the top-moving search terms in your hometown with a new search cloud and exposes the most recent reviews of businesses in your area to see what people are buzzing about.


• Best Local Events ‚Äì Taps into the Upcoming social events database to surface the best events in your hometown.


• Most Popular ‚Äì Highlights the best of a city in the key categories of Restaurants, Health & Beauty, and Home & Garden.


• My Local Improvements ‚Äì A new “save for later” feature so you can quickly archive those hidden gems you uncover along with your recent reviews, tags, and collections.

Got a great idea for what you’d like to see next? Tell us about it on our new suggestion board.

Thanks!

- Brian Gil, Sr. Product Manager, Yahoo! Local

The team here at Yahoo! Local, the source behind the shortcuts that appear at the top of the search results page when you do searches like "New York, NY restaurants," rolled out some new features today. We've been working on some changes to our Local search capabilities to better utilize the millions of user ratings, reviews and other user-generated content from our community, to ensure their voices are heard loud and clear in your search results. For example, a search for "Romantic French Restaurant, SF," will deliver the following leader board:

There are also new opportunities to offer up your opinion and experiences with people in your community with the new Yahoo! Local. In particular, you can now comment on user reviews in addition to reading other people's and be a part of a vocal and active user community. We hope that the additional opinions and reviews will help make everyday decisions like picking a florist, finding a great day spa and zeroing in on the nearest Starbucks that much easier for you.

You can check out more details on the new features -- ranging from new ways to learn about events to new "My Local" functionality -- over at the Yahoo! Local Blog so head there for more detail.

Try it out yourself, update your Yahoo! Local profile and tell us what you think at the Yahoo! Local Suggestion Board.

Brian Gil
Product Manager, Yahoo! Local

As proclaimed yesterday by c|net, "The Webware 100 awards recognize the best Web 2.0 apps." So, it’s my pleasure to share with you that Yahoo! Maps has been named a winner in the Reference category for 2007.

We’ve made a number of improvements in the last few months, including an improved mapping platform, better design, mobile offerings, and new international streets and satellite imagery. While we’re always excited about the direction our product is headed in, we still count on your feedback to make the product more useful and easier to use. We will continue to improve the technology, interface, and features that matter to you most, particularly focusing on being the most accurate mapping service available.

More details on our award win and the other 99 top Web 2.0 apps can be found here.

We hope you’ll continue to help us make Yahoo! Maps the best mapping system out there. If you haven't yet used the Yahoo! Maps and Local suggestion board, check it out.

Cheers!

MichaelLawless, Sr Product Manager, Yahoo! Maps

As many of you know, Where 2.0 was earlier this week and Digital Earth 5 is next week. Bridging the gap, Yahoo! is hosting WhereCamp, a free 'unconference' at the Yahoo! Sunnyvale campus, focusing on all things Map and Geography related. The fun starts Saturday morning at 10am, bring a sleeping bag and spend the weekend if you dare.

Check out more info on Yodel or in Upcoming, or just sign yourself up on the WhereCamp Wiki.

Cheers!

Mike Lawless, Sr Product Manager, Yahoo! Maps

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 ‚Äòask’ side of the valuation process ‚Äì 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

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 ‚Äì 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.

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/

Congratulations to the Yahoo! Travel team on their latest update! Big props for the cool new way in which they have used the Yahoo! Maps AJAX API in their new Travel Guides section. This new feature displays more detailed and thematic layers right on the map, a sort of map-on-map. You can use the standard Y! Map tools, such as Pan, Zoom, and view Satellite Imagery, and Y! Travel adds a slider to control the transparency of the new map overlays.

I’ve had a chance to play with it, and think this is a really great way to add context to your trip. The old Roman Forum map is fascinating, especially used with satellite imagery, and details provided for the Grand Canyon and National Mall will certainly help you get around (or decide where to park!). Here is a screen grab from the Roman Forum, but I think you’ll need to check it out for yourself.

Right now this is just a prototype, and they’re working on getting some more maps to put online, but I think the added value of this kind of integration is readily apparent and I’m looking forward to new map overlays as they become available.

Here are some more map overlays in Yahoo! Travel.

Boston Freedom Trail
Yosemite National Park
Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site
Independence Hall
Gettysburg National Military Park
San Diego International Airport
Philadelphia International Airport

Nice work!

Mike Lawless, Sr Product Manager, Yahoo! Maps

PS Yahoo! Travel is hiring! Check out the jobs available.

Just a quick pointer to some nice work done by our colleagues on the Yahoo! Maps team. The recent collapse of a section of I-580 onto I-80 in Oakland, CA (affectionately known as the MacArthur Maze), got a lot of attention and is definitely a commuter's nightmare right now. To help ease some of the commuting frustrations, the Yahoo! Maps team has removed the connector ramp from the mapping system and is offering some alternative routes to consider for the next few months. Here's a sample route from Walnut Creek to San Francisco.

Raj Gossain
Yahoo! Search

In response to the I-80 and I-580 freeway connector collapse in the San Francisco Bay Area that occurred on Sunday, April 29, we responded quickly by removing these ramps from our mapping system on Monday. As a result, Yahoo! Maps is now offering alternative routes to Bay Area drivers, which are expected to be in effect for several months until repairs are completed.

Further, on published advice from the City of Oakland, yesterday Yahoo! Maps promoted the West Grand Avenue detour as the primary method of getting from the San Francisco Bay Bridge to points east, along 580. We hope this helps in planning your route. As always, our maps are to be used as a guide, so please be sure to follow relevant signs and indicators as you drive. We will be sure to stay abreast of the routing in this area and return things to normal as changes dictate.

Good luck and happy commuting,

Mike Lawless, Sr. Product Manager, and the Yahoo! Maps Team

Based on a lot of user input, the latest update we’ve made to the Broadband version of Yahoo! Maps is to the Driving Directions print page. The new format of the "Printable Version" allows for an interactive experience that simply put, makes them more useful and easier to read.

• Click on the title of the print page or in the "notes" box to personalize it. Instead of "Directions to Sunnyvale, CA" you can change it to "Mike's Surprise Birthday" or add in useful information like a phone number.
• Change the font size of the driving directions between Small, Medium, or Large -- one font size does not always fit all!
• Choose among Map & Directions, Map Only, or Directions only to save space and ink, and you can remove the summary and notes for a more compact set of directions.
• Remove individual steps in your directions, like how to get from your house to the freeway, if they're not important to you.
• Clicking "Show Cumulative Distance" will allow you to get a cumulative mile-post for each maneuver, great for people who use their odometer. Just set it at the beginning of your journey.
• Change your included map layout from one to three panels, including total route, the start point, and the end point.

While we can’t do much to make sure people don’t forget their printed directions before hopping in their car, we can make them more useful to those who do remember! We hope you like the changes, and your feedback is very important to us. Please keep it up and don't forget to use our Yahoo! Local and Maps suggestion board! Mike Lawless, Product Manager, and the Yahoo! Maps Team

Have a suggestion to make Yahoo! Local or Maps better? Use our new Local Suggestion Board to pitch ideas, vote and comment on others, and get notified if we use your idea.

Votinghelps usquickly discover what’s most important to users. In addition to reading feedback from other users, you’ll find responses from Yahoo! employees about the issues. Product teams regularly read and take action on feedback. Though we aren’t always going to be able to act on your input, it’s incredibly helpful to us in making the best sites we can‚Ķ and we’ve even been known to reward great ideas on occasion with awesome prizes.

New ideas are already starting to flow-in! Perhaps you want to vote for user-enhanced driving directions or GPS Aware mobile search, or maybe you’d like to submit a new idea. Either way, we want to hear from you, so Tell Us What You Think and help us improve Yahoo! Local for you and millions of others.

The Yahoo! Local Team

Have you ever considered moving to a new home and found yourself wondering which neighborhoods would have the best schools for your children? We’ve all asked our real estate agents, friends, or coworkers what they’ve thought about the schools in a particular neighborhood.
Yahoo! Real Estate is happy to announce that you can now search for schools in your area (or the area you plan to move into) and evaluate which schools are the best fit for your kids, based on detailed school information, statistics, and parent reviews. Now that’s useful!
Here’s how to start:
-Go to Yahoo! Real Estate
-Click on the “Research Schools” tab

-Enter the city and state or ZIP code for the area that you’re researching in the search box and click “Search.”
-Now you’ll be able to view this region’s schools on the map and in the list. You can refine your search by school district, school level (elementary, middle, and high schools), and school type (public, private, and charter schools) on the left bar.

-Click on a school to get parent reviews and information about its enrollment, student/teacher ratio, and contact details. A neighborhood map shows you the nearest grocery stores, parks, restaurants, or gas stations.

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

It’s time to announce a new feature on Yahoo! Local which empowers you to add your favorite new local business, alert others when an old favorite has closed, and add or change business info quickly. Now you can truly be our eyes and ears in your community!
To quickly add a new favorite business, please fill out this short form:

• In 24 hours it’ll be up on Local for everyone to see. Here’s an example of a recently added business in Redwood City, CA:

If you run across a business which has closed, needs a correction, or which is missing some important info like its web site, please click the "Edit This Business" link beneath the rating to tell us about it.

We’ll add an alert to the listing ASAP and show your proposed changes to other Locals in a pop-up window like this:

That’s it! Quick and easy. And of course, if you happen to know about a business that has been edited by someone in your community, you’ll be able to confirm that the changes are valid by clicking on ‚ÄòYes’ in the pop-up window above.

As always, let us know what you think!

Brian, Ganesh, & The Local Team

The Yahoo! elves have been hard at work in their toy shop for the Holiday season to bring you a nice little integration of Maps, Local, Mail and Search.

Users of Yahoo! Mail (classic version only at this time) can now do more with the content in their email. When mousing over any address or location (including international cities) a quick click on the purple underlined terms will bring up an instant map or satellite image, business information, driving directions and a slew of other options relating to that location. The new Shortcuts lets you do all this without ever having to leave your message or open a new browser window.

It’s a very handy new trick for those that don’t like to do a lot of cutting and pasting.

This not only works for addresses, but there is also additional information available for a variety of other items in the messages (phone numbers, key phrases, email addresses…etc). You can also disable this… but why would you want to?

Happy Holidays

The Yahoo! elves and Jeremy Kreitler

Yahoo! Maps is coming out of Beta today. This means that if you have a broadband internet connection, and if you have Flash 7 (or greater), the Broadband Maps (new) will be the default, and otherwise you'll get the Dial-Up Maps (original). You can always switch between the two by using a link at the top of the page.

Since we released the beta version, we’ve spent our time optimizing the product and responding to user feedback to make it ready for mainstream use. We added the functionality and features our users want most, and the response we’ve received to-date has been very positive. The new Yahoo! Maps gives our users a more expedient method of finding locations and getting driving directions, and is an even more powerful tool within Yahoo! Local.

In addition to releasing the new Yahoo! Maps, we're also rolling out street-level maps for Europe and many cities of new satellite imagery. These are available almost anywhere Yahoo! Maps can be found, whether on Flickr in their photo mapping feature, Yahoo! Travel's Trip Planner product, and of course to our external developer community using Yahoo! Maps APIs. Getting more maps and imagery outside the US is a feature enhancement that has been in high demand.

Just a quick re-cap of what’s in the new Yahoo! Maps.

• The award winning, most interactive, easy to use interface for the new generation of mapping.


• Multi-point routing, (from A to B to C), which is a great way to plan your day, do your errands, visit garage sales or hunt for a house.


• A new mini-map which gives you an overview of what you’re looking at.


• Satellite and Aerial imagery, wall to wall in the USA, and for over 100 cities internationally.


• Full integration with Yahoo! Local, including search and SmartView.


• Saved locations and auto-complete against your saved locations, recent locations and Yahoo! Address Book.


• The ability to return to the old-style Yahoo! Maps for when you’re on a Dial-Up connection.


• Quick access to maps from within Yahoo! Mail using Yahoo! Shortcuts.

Mike Lawless, Product Manager, and the Yahoo! Maps Team

In addition to announcing that Yahoo! Maps is coming out of beta, we've just published a whole new set of maps that cover most of Europe. These maps are available in the new Yahoo! Maps, as well as places where Yahoo! Maps are used most, such as Yahoo! Travel, Flickr, and in our developer API's. Stay tuned for more International Maps updates in the coming months, but below is a list of the countries we've updated. Note: although the maps are now available, the geocoder and driving directions are not yet ready.

Below is a list of the countries we've updated.

Cheers,

Mark Law & Mike Lawless, Product Managers, Yahoo! Maps

Countries with Comprehensive Coverage:

Andorra Austria Belgium Denmark Finland France (including Corsica) Germany Ireland Italy (including Sicily and Sardinia) Liechtenstein Luxembourg Monaco Netherlands Norway Portugal San Marino Spain (include Ceuta, Canary Islands, Mallorca, Menorca) Switzerland Sweden United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Channel Islands, Isle of Man, Gibraltar) Vatican City

Countries with Major Coverage:

Czech Republic Poland

Capitol City Coverage:

Bulgaria Croatia Estonia Greece Hungary Latvia Lithuania Romania Slovakia Slovenia

PS. In addition, we have a pretty extensive set of major Metro and Railway stations within the countries we've added.

The latest version of the Yahoo! AJAX Maps API includes performance improvements, numerous new features, bug fixes and a smaller footprint.

•Polyline support allows you to draw lines on a Yahoo! Map.
•Polylineswith GeoRSS can be drawn on the map using the coordinates of your choice.
•Local Search is now built-in to the API so that results from local.yahoo.com can be plotted on your map.
•Traffic overlay information is built-in allowing you to display traffic information from maps.yahoo.com on your map.
‚Ä¢GeoRSS export functionality let’s you export your map application into the portable GeoRSS standard.
•An additional 20+ methods, like auto-fitting zoom level when specifying radius.

There’s more information in the getting started guide. Make sure to join the yws-maps group to find the answers to your questions when building mashups or implementing Yahoo! Maps.

Mirek Grymuza, Vince Maniago
and the Yahoo! Maps Team

Are you ready to shoot, tag, upload, and collect? The latest Yahoo Local features - released today - will allow our users to start organizing their world in a whole new way. Here’s how:

• Everyone gets tags ‚Äì well ‚Äì maybe not everyone, but anyone who’s reading this blog. We think tagging is a great way for users to organize Local content for themselves, and for everyone else.


• While tags may just say one word, pictures say a thousand words! Now you can upload photos into any local content. Show the world what food you’re eating, or how good that plumber’s service really is.


• If a picture says a thousand words, how many might a collection say? Collections are groupings of anything you want‚Ķ.could be California Beach Towns‚Ķcould be Seattle Sites and Sounds‚Ķcould be Chicago’s Cuisine Scene. We think this is going to be a great way for you get even more out of Yahoo! Local.

Go ahead try it out and let us know what you think.

Frederique, Brian, Raghu & The Yahoo! Local Team

The Yahoo! Real Estate team has been busy completely revamping the site using the AJAX API to plot home listings on the homepage, search results and property pages. Users can now browse homes for sale and rentals via a map interface. We feel this integration with Yahoo! Local and Yahoo! Maps significantly adds to the overall user experience… After all, real estate IS local.

We also added the Local API on homes for sale and rentals pages to allow users to easily find nearby schools, grocery stores, parks, restaurants, and gas stations. Combining the Local API with the Maps API allows users to read ratings and reviews directly from the property’s map.

Another feature we’re excited about is the ability to plot comparable sales (a.k.a. “comps”) from the property map using Zillow.com’s home valuation data.

On top of all that, Yahoo! Real Estate provides one of the most comprehensive home search of over 3 million properties, as well as extensive local research (e.g. local market conditions, median prices, price trends, mortgage rates and rate trends). We hope that this significant upgrade fulfills our mission of enabling users (that’s you) to buy, sell or rent the right home. Check it all out and let us know what you think!

http://realestate.yahoo.com/

Carlos Teran
Product Manager, Yahoo! Real Estate

The Upcoming, Flickr and Yahoo! Local teams have teamed up to launch a ton of new features related to Yahoo!’s events offering today.

• Events you find in Yahoo! Local are linked to Upcoming so you can share the event with friends, see who’s coming, discuss, share photos, and more.


• Yahoo! Local events are now integrated within Upcoming as “Undiscovered Events,” so that Upcoming users can benefit from the wide range of events we have in Yahoo! Local.


• Yahoo! Maps and Driving Directions are now on every Upcoming event page, making it even easier to get to your events.


• The Upcoming homepage has been redesigned to help signed-out users find things to do in their area more easily.

Vince Maniago
Product Manager, Yahoo! Local

The latest version of the Maps API is now available and it's one of the most exciting yet. Many of the features and updates in this release reflect on suggestions, feature requests and bug fixes reported through the yws-maps group. We appreciate your ongoing feedback as it’s crucial in order for us to build great products.

Our goal is to make sure Flash API’s powerful features are easy for you to discover and implement. In 3.03 you will find improvements to the CustomSWFMarker feature. This feature has been greatly improved with the addition of a ‚Äòloaded’ event which allows you to reference the event object and pass data to the markers, opening the door to richer and much more dynamic mashups. Learn more in our CustomSWFMarker Tutorial.

We are happy to expand the creative potential of your mashups with the new Polyline Overlay. This new feature allows you to draw lines, curves and shapes over the map based on LatLon data from an XML document. This allows you to add layers of visual information to the map and display nearly anything, such as custom routes, city zoning or airspace maps.

We have also expanded the offering of ready-to-run examples and tutorials. These are designed with simplicity in mind and let you get your mashup up and running right away with any number of our features. These new examples and tutorials, along with our existing examples, include features such as PolylineOverlay and CustomSWFMarker.

Numerous updates to the maps developer site include documentation for the new PolylineOverlay feature, which includes examples on how to add polylines to your map, and XML schema examples.
Polyline Example 1 - View XML - Download source
Polyline Example 2 - View XML - Download source

Also included in the new release of the API are numerous bug fixes and updates which include methods such as setCenterByAddressAndZoom and setCenterByLatLonAndZoom. These two methods address issues with panning, zooming and pan duration times. This release also addresses a bug with the AS-Flash API where new users of the flash component could not import certain classes. In addition, all documentation on the Maps YDN site has been updated with the new component release so you can get started right away with the latest release.
The new APIs can be found here.

JS-Flash http://maps.yahooapis.com/v3.03/fl/javascript/apiloader.js
AS-Flash http://maps.yahooapis.com/v3.03/fl/components.zip
Flex http://maps.yahooapis.com/v3.03/fl/components.zip

Chuck Freedman, Zach Graves & the Yahoo! Maps Team

In the last two weeks, Yahoo! Maps has added new satellite imagery to dozens of international cities, including major metropolitan areas like London and Rome. Satellite images in U.S. cities were also upgraded as part of this release. I personally enjoyed browsing the islands (like Antigua and Santorini) and wouldn't mind exploring many of these places in person.

See below for a list of city and country names with links to their satellite maps. Cheers!

Michael Lawless
Product Manager, Yahoo! Maps

Abidjan, Ivory Coast
Antigua, Antigua & Barbuda
Auckland, New Zealand
Belgrade, Serbia
Brazzaville, Congo
Bridgetown, Barbados
Bujumbura, Burundi
Cancun, Mexico
Cologne, Germany
Edmonton, Canada
Freetown, Sierra Leone
Istanbul, Turkey
Izmir, Turkey
Jerusalem, Israel
Johannesburg, South Africa
Kampala, Uganda
Karachi, Pakistan
London, England
Madrid, Spain
Marseille, France
Mogadishu, Somalia
Nairobi, Kenya
Rome, Italy
Santorini, Greece
Tijauna, Mexico
Turin, Italy
Tripoli, Libya
Umm Durman, Sudan
Victoria Falls, Zambia

Have you ever thought how cool it would be to instantly tag cell phone photos, based on your location? The folks at Yahoo! Research Berkeley have been finding out with ZoneTag, a free mobile phone application they created to do just that.

With ZoneTag, you can snap a camera phone shot and upload it to Flickr in two clicks. More interestingly, the application captures the location information from the your phone and tags the photo with that data (if you choose to share it). For example, if you are snapping photos at your favorite restaurant, ZoneTag will automatically tag each photo with the location of that restaurant. So far, 13,000 public ZoneTag photos have been taken and by browsing the collection you get to see a specific place through "the eyes of the world."

With PhotoSphere, Yahoo! Research Berkeley's photo browser page, you can find photos by time, location,