Local Search is not really about local business listings, it's about Personalized News for individuals and relevant "hyperlocal" information.
Found an interesting thread about Local Search News in BuzzMachine and Network(ed)News today, mostly from Jeff Jarvis:
"…I think I’ve been thinking about hyperlocal the wrong way. Like most everyone else chasing this golden fleece, I’ve defined it as content, news, a product, listings, data, software, sites, ads. It’s not. Local is people: who knows what, who knows whom, who’s doing what (and, yes, who’s doing whom). The question should be — in Mark Zuckerberg’s famous-if-I-have-anything-to-do-about-it phrase — how we bring them elegant organization. They already are a community, already doing what they want to do, already knowing stuff. How can we help them do that better? "
That's kinda hard to do, now, but Jeff Jarvis suggests that's exactly what local newspapers, used to do (when things were a bit smaller and slower, in the pre-internet, pre-webbed up world).
"..In truth, that was, long ago, the job newspapers saw for themselves. That’s why they lived to get as many names in the paper as possible. They knew: Local is people. Newspapers gave us news that mattered to us and would be trivial to anyone else. Newspapers were small and local and served their communities — and their advertisers — better. This is very close to the real mission of a newspaper, a mission we have lost as they got bigger and more egotistical and more powerful, as they become one-size-fits-all monopolies. Except today we have new tools (and new competitors). No one can or should do it all anymore. We need to help people do it themselves. Yes, themselves.
Local is people. Our job is not to deliver content or a product. Our job is to help them make connections with information and each other. "
Sounds more like "Personalized News". NetworkedNews takes if further:
"..The generally news-based web application must organize its information around functional units that are most relevant to the subject. When the subject is news, the most relevant functional units are people and and issues and organizations. Note that a full thirty percent of google searches are for people, for instance, says Jaideep Singh, CEO of Spock in this July 2 PodTech video. Also note the proliferation of person-centric search engines, like Spock, ZabaSearch, Pipl, PeekYou, and Ligit, to name a quick few."
But then the post goes and says that "people" have to be "liberated" from the "article" or news story they're being quoted in - in other words, the very way information has been organized, up to now, interferes with making Local Search into Personalized News, and relevant enough to really matter.
"…The article has taken the story hostage. That must be turned on its head: the bits of content must be contingent on the people they discuss. The people, and also the issues, who constitute the story, as it were, must be liberated from the confines of the article. That’s the promise the internet makes to journalism in the twenty-first century. That’s the promise the database makes to news."
Well, I don't think this level of News Personalization exists yet, but I have noticed the pre-curser of it in Meetup.com, believe it or not (at least, that's what it sounds like to me, based on what is being described).
Every week I get email telling me of all the local meetups in my area (NYC) with those that might be interesting to me highlighted.
What if the news was that way? When I look at Spock.com, for example, the possiblility of this kind of Personalized News Service exists, but it's not yet realized or not really designed for it. Looking at Google News, there is some attempt to serve me Personalized News by selecting news items for me because it's learnt something about my preferences based on past behavior. Google does not really change the story, it just filters what you see.
And most of the other services that offer Personalized News, are really just selection filters, they're not re-arranging the information within the article (liberating it, so to speak) and then organizing it around you.
Another example - look at Live Search ….. it's a MAP! So the information is organized around location … Google Local is a Map too. Sure, I want to know about what's going on in events around me (which Local does not really do - it asks me to pick an area or a person). Newspapers are organized around a "story" and Local Search is organized around locations …. whereas Local Search could be organized around the people and issues you care about and local events that you tell it to track for you.
