Yahoo! India, the leading Internet company, today announced the launch of its new local information destination, Yahoo! India Local (beta), available at local.yahoo.in. This new offering provides a compelling user experience with relevant local information that impacts users’ daily needs. Yahoo! India Local is presently available across Delhi/NCR, Chennai, Mumbai and Bangalore.

Yahoo! India Local provides rich local information such as business listings, maps and directions, local events, and current movies. Users can get listings from a wide range of categories such as restaurants, pubs, shopping malls, hospitals, schools, tailors, banks, health and fitness, and 24 hour pharmacies.

Users can write reviews, leave footprints, mark businesses on the map, add listings or events on Yahoo! India Local. Contributions shared by the community provide users with real insights into their experiences, thereby making them better informed.

Local businesses across categories can now get listed for free on Yahoo! India Local. When users search for those categories, the businesses can get discovered.

“Yahoo! India Local (Beta) exemplifies our strategy to be the leading starting point on the web, by providing the most relevant and compelling experience for local needs”, said Gopal Krishna, Head of Audience, Yahoo! India. “With this innovative product, we are trying to make the web more useful, engaging, interesting and localized to our users,“ he added.

This product was conceptualized and developed by the Yahoo! India team in collaboration with the Yahoo! India Research & Development team.

With “Essentialist”, Yahoo! India Local aims to provide practical solutions for common problems. For example, relocating to Karol Bagh in Delhi can get you an “Essentialist that will provide details of essential services such as nearest gas agency, cable TV provider, provision stores, pharmacies, packers and movers, etc. Or if you’re getting married in Andheri West, Mumbai, the Essentialist will give you salons for men and women, apparel shops, jewelers, event management companies, catering services, party halls and hotels in that locality.

“Designed to create an active and vibrant community, Yahoo! India Local will enable its users to harness community knowledge. With user-friendly tools like reviews and footprints, people can now find, use, share and enhance their local information at ease,” said Sridhar Ranganathan, Business Head, Local & Maps, Yahoo! India.

By integrating web and mobile, Yahoo! India Local allows users to download or share information via SMS or email. For more information about Yahoo!’s current offerings, please visit: www.yahoo.in

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About Yahoo! India:

Yahoo! India (www.yahoo.in), launched in June 2000, has established itself as the pioneering and leading Internet portal providing value added services for Web users in India and users abroad with special interest in India.

Yahoo! India seeks to provide a compelling web experience to Internet users. A full range of tools and marketing solutions from Yahoo! India help businesses connect with Internet users and make it a ‘must-buy’ partner of choice for advertisers, globally. Yahoo! India also offers an array of communications, commerce and content services that serve as a starting point for online needs of Internet users.