Much of what we do in the Local search space is related to what our brethren in Web Search are also doing every day around Yahoo!. So, we made the decision to start posting our local search news directly to the increasingly popular Yahoo! Search Blog . And as the use of online maps has grown far beyond driving directions and into entirely new realms, we are starting a blog devoted to all things that are geographically inclined at Yahoo!.

Today Yahoo! Maps releases an expansion to our real-time traffic offering, increasing both coverage and comprehensiveness. In terms of coverage, we've expanded to a bunch of new markets from Bakersfield, CA to Rochester, ME, and improved some markets such as New York, where we previously only had incident data. For more comprehensive coverage, we've expanded beyond just freeways to major thoroughfares as well. Now roads such as East 14th in New York,

Like the London Tube Map , recording and retrieval of locations and their relationships doesn't always have to do with their Lat/Lon. There is a more elegant way to abstract the relationships of location, and unambiguously describe places in a permanent, language-neutral manner. Since Where on Earth joined Yahoo! in 2005, Yahoo! has geo-enabled the network, including geo-tagging advertising, Flickr photos, Yahoo! Maps, and so many of the location based services that Yahoo!

We have seen countless users struggle to find what they're looking for in a specific area or neighborhood using current local search and online maps products )ahem'ours included(. The results may be spread over too wide an area or not in a specific enough area. While we have had refinement options to help users narrow by distance or neighborhood for a long time in Yahoo! Local , this required the user to make the refinement selections and run their search again.

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,

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 ,

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,

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. Starting today, a new ' Send to Car ' link joins ' Send to Phone ' and ' Send by Email ' in the dropdown menu on 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.

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,

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,

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. Based on these motivators,

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.

Real estate is the ultimate local business. That's why our friends at Yahoo! Real Estate are always focused on making their products as local as possible. Recently, their launch of a home loan rate finder that can search for the best local rates caught our eye. With all the buzz around mortgages and real estate, house hunters and home owners alike are looking for tools to help them better navigate the market. So whether you're buying a new home, refinancing,

Now, in India, we drive a little differently. We drive on the left. Or the right, if the left is occupied. We also give directions a little differently. "Third right after the big banyan tree on your left" might leave many bemused, but is guaranteed to lead the lost out here. Starting today, you can search for driving directions " "Indian Style" " anywhere in India on the Yahoo! India Maps Site.

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,

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. Starting today, a new ' Send to Car ' link joins ' Send to Phone ' and ' Send by Email ' in the dropdown menu on 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.

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,