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Yahoo! Introduces New Mapping Service

Posted on: Thursday, 3 November 2005, 09:00 CST

Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO), a leading global Internet company, today announced the enhanced Yahoo! Maps service with major focus on improving ease of use and personalization. The new Yahoo! Maps provides consumers an interactive look and feel with new features such as multi-point driving directions, local content integration, larger main map and dynamic pan, zoom and re-center technology. In response to direct feedback from Yahoo! users, these improvements highlight Yahoo!'s commitment to helping people easily find, use, share and expand knowledge of their local communities and strengthens Yahoo!'s position as the No. 1 online destination for local information. The new service is available at http://maps.yahoo.com/beta.

Underscoring Yahoo!'s commitment to leveraging the power of rich user-generated content, Yahoo! Maps is now more closely integrated with Yahoo! Local, providing consumers access to rich content, ratings and reviews to get "the inside scoop" on regional establishments, all from a single Maps page. Yahoo! Local draws on the collective expertise of Yahoo!'s 181 million registered users for their insights about local businesses and services, providing valuable information not found in traditional directory listings. Consumers will continue to enjoy features of Yahoo! Maps such as easy printability and the ability to send driving directions to mobile devices.

"Our new maps service is the result of extensive research on user preferences and experiences," said Paul Levine, general manager for Local Services at Yahoo!. "We believe the design and rich relevant data have raised the bar for online mapping. The new Yahoo! Maps is focused on innovation to helps users more easily and accurately accomplish their tasks."

New features of Yahoo! Maps include:

Improved Interactivity and Layout

-- Multi-point routing (A to B to C) -- Yahoo! is the only major U.S. mapping site that offers this valuable functionality. Convenient routing features such as drag and drop reordering, round-trip and reverse routes have also been added.

-- A larger main map and new "mini-map" make it easier to navigate, pan, and zoom.

-- Drag-and-drop points of interest and expandable turn-by-turn instructions offer a fully interactive interface.

Greater Personalization

-- My Locations saves time by adding your most frequently referenced destinations. My Locations will auto complete addresses from previously entered locations including saved map locations, recent addresses and Yahoo! Address book.

-- Customized Start Page automatically defaults to a user's saved or recent location. Driving directions and traffic information are all one click away.

Local Search Integration

-- Yahoo! Local is more tightly integrated with maps allowing consumers to seamlessly access rich content about points of interest while mapping. Users can look up information such as hotels, restaurants or event locations and map them effortlessly.

-- Address-to-Business matching automatically and conveniently populates business names, phone number and star ratings as users input addresses.

-- More prominent integration of exclusive Yahoo! features such as live traffic conditions and send-to-phone capabilities.

Yahoo! has also significantly enhanced its suite of developer tools, providing new application program interfaces (APIs) that will allow developers to use Yahoo! Maps in their Flash and dhtml applications. The new Yahoo! Maps can be integrated into developer websites, allowing them to more easily create their own personalized maps and overlay a variety of data such as weather, jogging trails, real estate rentals and local events. Developers have already created many interesting applications using the new Yahoo! Maps APIs and they can be viewed at: http://developer.yahoo.net/maps.

New features of the developer offering include:

-- Easy to implement solutions that provide built-in geocoding support and compatibility with GeoRSS (RSS feeds with location information).

-- Powerful tools that are compatible with JavaScript(R), AJAX and Macromedia's Flex(TM) applications.

-- Access to Yahoo!'s wide range of content APIs (local search, traffic incidents, Flickr(TM) photos, Upcoming.org events, etc).

The Yahoo! Maps offering is enhanced using Macromedia Flex, part of the Macromedia Flash Platform, and is now available as an opt-in public beta on http://maps.yahoo.com/beta. We use the url in the first graph. The new developer offering is available at http://developer.yahoo.net/maps.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is the No. 1 Internet brand globally and the most trafficked Internet destination worldwide. Yahoo! provides online products and services essential to consumers' lives, and offers a full range of tools and marketing solutions for businesses to connect with Internet users around the world. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Yahoo!, the Yahoo! logo and Flickr are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Yahoo! Inc.

All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Source: Business Wire

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