A9 Yellow Pages

Wow. I’ve been checking out A9 again and looking deeper into what they are offering. They have some pretty cool stuff. I’ve been thinking for a while that local area search is going to become bigger, and they have taken it to a new level with their Yellow Pages. The display is better; it is cleaner and it has some nice mouseover javascript to highlight locations on the map as you go through the list. The categorization is better; There is an understandable hierarchical structure for categories and when I search for “Food” I actually get a “Food & Dining” category instead of “Grocery Stores” and “Vitamins & Food Supplements”.

However, I think the biggest thing is that it has the Amazon review and recommendation system built into it. Each business gets it’s own page where people can review the business and even upload their own pictures. Furthermore, it allows (or at least seems to allow) users to update business information. Example: my local Domino’s back in Akron ended up moving and is now located in Ephrata. However the old location is still shown in the Yellow Pages. So I clicked on “Update Business Info,” and filled in the new info. I’m hoping to see the change… we’ll see how long it takes.

The “Click to Call Business” feature also looks cool. I’ll have to try it out.