Now you have no excuses for finding excellent pizza in your hometown. MSN not to be left out has entered into Local Search arena with its own version of city and regional searching capabilities. Looks like they are going hand and hand with the moves of the other search giants out there. Better late than never might be true for them. A thread on SEW forums talks about MSN Local in more detail and it has just been annouced today at the WMW conference in New Orleans.
There is a great thread at WebmasterWorld that is talking about what people think of the new search. One of the moderators over there raises some good points as to the significants new capabilities of their search in relation to other local search options out there. The search includes a Google like display, it's proximity ranked, it comes from internet derived data, and contains no user reviews or rich business profiles. This seems like a natural and predicted step for MSN to undertake, and so far it looks like a good one.
I got a moment to test out the local search and did some default searches. I can say it looks good, and I most notably like some of the navigation options at the top and the neat ability for it to highlight on the map the location of a place as you move your mouse over the business listings. The map is good, but I still love the Gmaps interface a tad better.
Check it out MSN Local Search. Continue discussing on SEW Forums and WMW.
