The New Google Mobile Local
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Need to find a restaurant while on the road? Forgot where your hotel reservation is? It’s no problem, as long as you have a cell phone with you. Pull up the newly launched Mobile Google Local, still in beta, which requires an XHTML capable phone. You’ll be able to find the locations and driving directions to any local businesses listed in online directories and yellow pages.
Designed to compete with Yahoo’s local mobile search, Google’s Mobile Local offers similar functionality. Since last October, when Yahoo launched its mobile search engine to compete with Google’s, Yahoo has had the upper hand because their site offered local searches and Google’s didn’t. Months later, Google has stepped up to face the competition.
The homepage is a modest two text boxes, “what” and “where,” a search button, and a link for “Driving Directions.” Simply enter some detail of the business, as specific as “Wal-Mart” or as vague as “pizza,” in the first box and in the second box, then enter a city, zip code, or address.
What Google will return looks very familiar to anyone who uses the search engine’s conventional local search. At the top is a tiny version of Google’s local map, using orange lettered tabs to indicate which result it represents. Unlike the conventional local search, users cannot click and drag the map or expand it by expanding their browsers. To move the map, you can use the four directional buttons provided. Hit “Zoom In” to see the road map in slightly better detail or scroll down to the results.
The results will show 10 entries at a time and will include the businesses’ addresses, phone numbers, and their distance/direction from the location. You can click the telephone number to dial it, if your phone supports this feature. While you could use the phone numbers to call businesses for directions, you could even more conveniently Google the directions from the site so that you’ll have them printed on the screen of your phone.
Next: Getting to the Directions >>
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