With this weeks announcement of Google to provide local search map search for the bigger countries in good old Europe. The "local" companies are finally facing the competition they have been expecting for quite some time.

I checked the map quality of Google Maps to compare it with the one provided by the German GoYellow (using the service from the Swiss Map Server company Endoxon). Well - see for yourself.





I can tell you for sure that both companies have bought the same map data. The different is the way the map data are post-processed and the Map Server.

(and yes - my latest venture www.local.ch is using the same Map Server)

Technorati Tags: localsearch googlemaps goyellow

Posted by Cedric at 4/29/2006 04:33:00 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Put up some screenshots on Flickr that shows the first internal version from end of January 06 up until the beta that went online two days ago. Although we spend most of the time coding the behind the scene stuff like (importers, repository, geo-localization, indexers, search engine) the UI makes the day. Hope you like it..

To add tel.local.ch to your Firefox search box - download the plugin at mycroft.mozdev.org.

Technorati Tags: localsearch localch yellowpages

Posted by Cedric at 4/20/2006 10:45:00 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Beyond the well-established search by city (start typing in the where field) and cantons (start typing or use the abbreviations AG, BS, ...) we though it would make sense to allow users to search in common known regions or distinct geographical areas like a valley. We added two into the live index to test the feature (more will be added the upcoming week-end).

They are:

1. Rechtes Zuerichsee-Ufer
2. Leimental

Examples: if you look for a cleaning company at the gold coast - or an architects office in the Leimental.

Enjoy.

Technorati Tags: localsearch localch yellowpages

Posted by Cedric at 4/20/2006 07:12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

After roughly 3 months coding we made the first version of local.ch online last night. The mission was: "YellowPages for the Web 2.0". Now what's that? - well - rush over and make yourself a picture. At this point I want to thank everybody on the team for making this possible so far - I spend a good time.

And yes - this is only the beginning. For now - enjoy drag & drop around the map and re-discover your neighborhood.

Soon more about some - not-so-obvious - features we crafted...

Technorati Tags: localsearch localch yellowpages

Posted by Cedric at 4/19/2006 09:27:00 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post