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Community Powered Local Search - This Could Actually Work

noozeez.com — I found a site last night that claimed to be the “Easiest Local Search Ever”. My reaction to this: “Oh reeeaaallly.”

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  • saurabhsogan007, on 05/20/2008, -5/+12Hmm.. not bad
    • Phisolo, on 05/20/2008, -1/+1Crashes and SQL errors. Content all scraped from other search engines. Not original or better done than most other "local search" solutions I have found.

      I searched for local computer services, I found the exact same listings found in google local or anywho.com searches. The ratings did not match ratings on the detail pages.

      I vote "fail"
    • Phisolo, on 05/20/2008, -1/+1This is marketing spam. the site has just enough depth to look "real". but the other content is all scraped from other sources.

      Way to get spam to the front page.

      Lame
  • novackofo, on 05/20/2008, -11/+4i love the website...it is really user friendly and very intelligent....the designer is a genius........
  • diggboss, on 05/20/2008, -3/+9buzz keyword seems to be catching on ...
    • starfocus03, on 05/20/2008, -0/+2I've noticed this too! craziness...
  • SVOboy, on 05/20/2008, -8/+5Looks pretty useful.
    • jupaneanu, on 05/20/2008, -4/+2Yeah, it's definitely useful. I've tried it
  • badwithcomputer, on 05/20/2008, -4/+23http://i25.tinypic.com/wgxrf5.png
  • bixby1, on 05/20/2008, -9/+4Been using it for a week. It's come in very handy.
  • Slices, on 05/20/2008, -7/+4Sounds like a concept, indeeeed. If this was a stock bond, I'd get in!
  • lucidguru, on 05/20/2008, -3/+5Community driven locales combined with google maps... Can I search for "marijuana?... OMFG it found 3 places!!!
    http://localbuzzer.com/search.php?what_search=Mari ...
    • chanop, on 05/20/2008, -0/+1Marijuana Anonymous? You ever suck dick for marijuana?
  • socialpyramid, on 05/20/2008, -5/+10I'm interested to give this a try. Sometimes I have a hard time finding local results on google, and it gets frustrating.
    • andyboyd, on 05/20/2008, -0/+1I know what you mean. Google is great when you live in a city or large town, but when you are somewhere a little more rural then I find that it can be a bit flakey.
    • obeezy, on 05/20/2008, -0/+1Sometimes google's local results are too strong! When I don't need them to be of course.
    • dleesgeetar, on 05/20/2008, -1/+1ya this looks pretty user friendly
    • kamel, on 05/20/2008, -0/+3This is the same reply on the website.
  • samimy, on 05/20/2008, -8/+4I think this is very useful, and intrested to see how does it work.
  • sega01, on 05/20/2008, -1/+6Nice, but slow and buggy for me. I used a two word search query and one (possibly all) of the results linked to bogus pages (instead of more detailed descriptions and the map positioning over them). Hopefully it will come around.
    • einsteinx2, on 05/20/2008, -0/+2I did the same search 3 times (pizza in my zip code) and each time all of the places had a different number of stars next to them...
  • ToeCracker, on 05/20/2008, -8/+3Great site which I am sure over time will become very popular.
    • Sanduu, on 05/20/2008, -2/+1I agree with you. It does have potential.
  • skysman1, on 05/20/2008, -8/+2it's good
  • upick, on 05/20/2008, -8/+3great site... nice layout, a bit slow.. since they are not billion dollar company like google but great job making this site.

    Looks like its getting data of google and spitting it out on the results...
  • sirmcdiznuts, on 05/20/2008, -8/+3Very very good site. Nice.
  • Rmassimiano, on 05/20/2008, -8/+2I'll use it to find somewhere to eat tonight!
  • dleesgeetar, on 05/20/2008, -7/+1how rare is it to find something you might actually use on here? excellent, thanks digg
  • MikeonTV, on 05/20/2008, -8/+3I'd freakin use it!
  • modemlooper, on 05/20/2008, -6/+1This site has a nice clean UI. Hopefully it gets optimized for my iPhone :)
  • starfocus03, on 05/20/2008, -7/+1cool site
  • skewl, on 05/20/2008, -7/+1sounds like a rock concept :-)
  • khushboonagori, on 05/20/2008, -5/+0 Good site, but desperately missing some cool APIs
  • kupa, on 05/20/2008, -2/+6Just a note, it just seems like a different GUI to what google itself already offers... For instance, type in "pizza zip" (where zip is your zipcode) and google will give you a list of places near you.

    Neat idea though, if not a tad slow.
    • praisethelard, on 06/06/2008, -0/+1You're exactly right. Seems like they just skinned Google Maps.
  • danieliorgus, on 05/20/2008, -8/+2amazing, really works!
  • LUCCHINA, on 05/20/2008, -7/+1Nice Site !
  • MaxMWood, on 05/20/2008, -7/+2Would be good if I could get it on the iPhone.
  • kamel, on 05/20/2008, -2/+15Holy crap. This is just a huge paid advertisement. Look at these comments and the blog write-up. Looks like it's working though.
    • savantidiot, on 05/20/2008, -0/+5This has gotta be one of the most blatant I've seen.
  • sciro, on 05/20/2008, -6/+0I will say that it was really freaking slow... nice web 2.0 ish look though.. so It gets my digg
  • Skooma714, on 05/20/2008, -1/+4Syntax error: Expected O RLY?
  • darkane, on 05/20/2008, -2/+8Holy ***** spam and spam comments. Sure, the first page looks nice. The results page.. does not. And it doesn't even work. Every page of results is exactly the same but the rating for each result is completely random every visit.
  • FirstPersonShow, on 05/20/2008, -3/+1works here in Cambridge, England. (Even if it just scrapes data off Google, I'll try it).
  • beakerwimp, on 05/20/2008, -2/+6This HAS to be pay advertising and fake comments, right? I think the site is designed and coded with a decent degree of talent, but aren't there a few dozen other popular websites that do the exact same thing, some of which came out 1-2 years ago and many of which have more data and run a bit quicker? Is the stripped-down nature of the homepage what is giving it a "wow" factor for some people? When you search for local businesses these days you normally get a myriad of sites with the exact same concept:
    http://local.yahoo.com/
    http://www.merchantcircle.com/
    http://www.showmelocal.com/
    http://www.topix.com/
    http://www.bigsity.com/
    (to name just the first few I found within 30 seconds)
  • cyzum, on 05/20/2008, -0/+3why not just use google?
  • Startemus, on 05/20/2008, -0/+1Dugg for the concept. The website needs work though.
  • captmorgan555, on 05/20/2008, -0/+4Fail - I searched for Hookers in my zip code and it didn't find any.
    • einsteinx2, on 05/20/2008, -0/+2its "escorts" not hookers. try again
  • josmtx, on 05/20/2008, -0/+0Canadian folks can look at http://ourbis.com
  • Ansible, on 05/20/2008, -2/+4***** IT! ***** THING SUCKS!
  • Joomal, on 05/20/2008, -0/+1If you type in anything with a Canadian address it just dies lol.
  • Pooley, on 05/20/2008, -2/+3SPAM!
    C'mon people... this is clearly a spam post. The blog is probably owned by someone with an interest in the project. He writes a glowing review in his unknown blog, posts it to Digg and some of his friends even add comments like 'Pretty useful...'
    Aren't we diggers able to see through such blatant baloney?
  • bigcol77, on 05/20/2008, -0/+2Awesome example of spam. Two scenarios: i) the site owner is in on it or; ii) the site owner has paid to be on the front page of Digg but didn't know how it would be achieved. Either way it's going to be hard to recover - good luck.
  • r3s0p, on 05/20/2008, -0/+1It works! I searched for 'anus' in 'Columbus, Ohio' and the first result was 'Ohio State University'. Third was 'Licking County'...haha
  • lzell, on 05/20/2008, -0/+1Can't I type "pizza, new york, ny" into google maps??? How about a real local event site:

    http://www.golark.com
  • eighties, on 05/20/2008, -0/+1What, no 'O RLY?' owl? Diggers, please don't disappoint. We have a reputation to maintain.
  • aaron.dunlap, on 05/20/2008, -1/+1i have to admit... that site just help me find something on my side of town that i didnt even know was there.
  • AlwaysAwake, on 05/20/2008, -1/+1Even works for Puerto Rico !!!
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  • jpurdy, on 05/20/2008, -0/+0Slow, buggy. A search for pizza picked up a local grease spot, with a four star rating, 1 review. There were actually two reviews, both from citysearch.com, both negative
  • eldinb, on 08/09/2008, -0/+1What a BS service tbh. They can't even handle special characters likes ÅÄÖ.. I still havent found a "global" local search yet, rather stick to localized ones instead.
    Also this smells spam
  • djMaxM, on 05/22/2008, -0/+0We’re taking a different but similar approach to the problem at povo.com (Boston/NY only at the moment). We take every block/park/street in the city and make a wiki page for it, including the knowledge of where it is in space. Each listing (can be a business or a park or a UPS drop box or whatever) can be tagged and also use “templates” (like wikipedia). You can then search by tags in an area. What’s more interesting, we hope, is that you can write your own search engines (Povo has a scripting language within the wiki markup). So on povo you can ask “where can I park for less than $15 for 2 hours near the zoo?” That entire “process” of data gathering and evolving search engine is user controlled.

    Perhaps most importantly, the entire site is Creative Commons licensed. So if you want to build your own YP site, or your own “cheapest gas prices” site you can use Povo as the data and back end for it, and monetize it how you wish, so long as you give attribution.

    Some links to illustrate the point:

    Neighborhoods are important too:
    http://boston.povo.com/Back%20Bay

    Parking search:
    http://boston.povo.com/Boston?search=&verb=search& ...

    A interactive “heatmap” of parking density in Boston:
    http://boston.povo.com/Boston?heatmap&radius=Bosto ...
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