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Citysearch appears to be going for the jugular with its newly rebuilt site. While many sites add a little social here and a little mobile there, Citysearch is going for the three hottest trends all at once: Social, Local, Mobile.

“We rebuilt the Citysearch platform to give our users what they asked for — a new site that drills down to the hyper-local level with content for specific neighborhoods,” said Jay Herratti, CEO of Citysearch. “We also expanded our social and community tools by integrating Facebook Connect deeply into our site experience. Now users will be able to see their Facebook friends on Citysearch and share reviews and recommendations.”

This is a completely smart strategy as the economy gets tighter. Expect to see these trends grow even hotter despite the Wall Street-Capitol Hill drama.

I can see all sorts of possibilities. People are relocating or working in a different part of town. The ability to check out new local restaurants, entertainment venues, etc via their mobile and connect with people socially will be powerful.

Here’s what Citysearch is saying the new experience will be like:

– More local — Citysearch is expanding its local coverage from 140 local city guides to over 75,000 cities and neighborhoods nationwide. New geo- targeted search technology provides a truly local experience to users, allowing them to target businesses according to zip code. Citysearch also restores balance to local business coverage by providing content from three distinct voices: users, editors and merchants.

– More social — With Facebook Connect, users can log into Citysearch using their Facebook account, allowing them to discover new local businesses and share reviews with their friends online and providing a personal view of their neighborhood and favorite local spots. New social features also enable users to create profiles, more easily review businesses and infuse their opinions and unique local content into their social graph. Connectivity to more major social networks will follow in the coming months.

– More mobile — Mobile by Citysearch puts reviewing into the palm of the consumer’s hand. Key features include an interface tailored to each individual mobile device — optimizing content layout and keystrokes required to surface search results — on-the-go reviews, and mobile menus.

– More intuitive — The new interface offers a streamlined registration process, easy review writing interface, new search refinement and navigation tools. Other new features include a follow-along map with integrated content that moves as the user scrolls down the page, making it easier for users to see everything they need in one place.

What do you think of the update? Let us know in the comments.

Related Reading:
MapQuest Partners with Citysearch for Comprehensive Search Results
AOL to Distribute Citysearch Content, Ads

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The board of the Dallas-Fort Worth Search Engine Marketing Association is scratching their heads over a decision by Google to close their Dallas office. The group says Dallas-Fort Worth are search marketers are responsible for spending $100 million on search advertising, the majority of it going to Google.

“Our association members have worked with many different vertical Google sales offices across the country, and the general consensus is that the Dallas Google office was one of the best, if not the best team to work with,” said Rob Garner, DFW SEM president. “The Dallas Google office has supported the association and the North Texas search industry from the beginning, and their presence will be greatly missed.”

Dallas Googlers must choose between staying in Dallas and leaving Google, or staying with Google and relocating. They are invited to attend the DFW SEM Association’s quarterly meeting on July 16 at the Renaissance Hotel in Richardson, Texas. The group says there should be opportunity for networking for those choosing to stay local.

Apple is releasing the next generation of its popular iPhone today, and users of the first gen phone (including yours truly) get a software upgrade that enables downloading of applications available for the iPhone 3G. Of course, search has made its way onto several applications, so let’s take a look at what’s available.

Straight Up Search

First up, Google is the only one of the major search engines to offer up an iPhone search app. Suggest and My Location are utilized and you can also use Google search to query your iPhone contacts. The app is free.

The generically named Web Search pulls queries from search engines and presents them in a iPhone friendly format. The idea behind the app, which costs $1.99, is that not all search sites are optimal for browsing via the iPhone’s Safari browser, so Web Search takes the results and formats them for better usability.

Going Local

A whole host of applications are making local search easier. Some are the iPhone versions of popular web sites. Others are designed just for the iPhone. They make use of a user’s location and several include reviews and ratings, which are popular among searchers. Here’s a list:

• YP Mobile - developed by Yellowpages.com
• Yellow Pages - developed by Avantar
• Local Picks by Trip Advisor
• Where to Go
• UrbanSpoon
• Places
• Yelp
• Vicinity
• Where

YP Mobile vs. Yellow Pages iPhone apps

Media: Images, Video, Music and Movies

Both Flickr and Photobucket are offering apps for their popular photo sharing site. You can also browse public photos on their sites. Meanwhile, Truveo developed a video search app for the iPhone. YouTube (complete with search) comes packaged with the original iPhone software.

Midomi allows users to hum a song and the app will search for the song that’s hummed. I plan to make great use of this service.

Box Office, OneTap Movies, and plainly named Movies help you search, you guessed it, movies!

Travel

So far, the travel search apps (or lack thereof) leave a lot to be desired. I mean, this is the iPhone! People use it while they’re out and about and, you know, traveling. But for now, here’s what users can download:

• Travelocity - find flight times and nearby hotels
• British Airways - find flights with the airline
• Transit Guides - mostly just for NYC, San Francisco, and DC right now

Etc. and So On

Here’s a couple more apps, in case you didn’t have enough.

• People - a white pages directory
• CareerBuilder - search for jobs on the go
• Pulawai Real Estate Search - maybe not prime time for this app with the housing crisis, but useful if you’re house hunting, especially if on a relocating trip

There are also several apps which deliver information, such as news and sports scores. They kind of take search out of the equation.

Make no mistake, the iPhone is in the process of re-defining search (whether it meant to or not), and mobile search advertising is a space you need to explore.

Google Earth has a new layer: Google News. Writing on the Google LatLong blog, Brandon Badger, Product Manager said, “By spatially locating the Google News’ constantly updating index of stories from more than 4,500 news sources, Google Earth now shows an ever-changing world of human activity as chronicled by reporters worldwide.”

The Google News layer can be activated through the “Layers” menu on the left-hand side of Google Earth. Expand the “Gallery” mode and select “Google News.” Then browse the world for the latest goings on.

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The search engines help you in locating the right kind of information for you. The search engine ranking is thus very important. The web promoters and internet marketers pay all of their attention towards improving the page ranking of a web site. If the page ranking is high…
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