It was only on Tuesday, Yahoo was busy talking about their media mash-ups and brand initiatives. Apparently, its not just brand-focused mash-ups. (Yahoo Developer Network has an interesting back story on this mash-up.)
They are apparently taking similar approach to other verticals as well. A reader tipped us off about these new local city mash-ups Yahoo is currently beta testing in Bangalore and New Delhi. The product is called OurCity.
Pretty nifty mash-ups to boot: taking bookmarks from Del.icio.us, events from Upcoming, Flickr photos, News and even blogs. Flickr modules are seriously hot. They are taking data from Wikipedia and adding it to the mix. Missing: Yahoo Maps! Pretty easy to get a quick snapshot of what’s happening in a city. If they can roll this out across the world, I think they easily best Google’s local efforts.
Photos below the fold.
The’s an extra space in the url (and I thin that’s why it doesn’t work in Firefox)
http://ourcity.yahoo.in / should be http://ourcity.yahoo.in/
Om, the link is broken. It should read:
http://ourcity.yahoo.in/
I’m not buying it. Like their brand sites, I don’t think this is going anywhere. The ia is all wrong, plus anyone could duplicate this in an afternoon. And most importantly, there’s little user value.
Well peter, the value is in aggregating this stuff. i think it is simple enough to have some utility. how much traction they get with it? not sure – but my first impression – clearly not a business viablity case – is that the packaging is pretty good, and they have gotten the elements right.
Guys i fixed the link. is it still not working?
This is called reuse. you need to look at the ROI there is not much investment because they are wrapping up the existing content in a nice wrapper. if 10-15% of this gets success Y! will brake even. My thought is this will bring same minded user on their other community in touch. i. e. their brand site will bring me in touch with a Flickr user who loves the brand I like of this ourcity will introduce me to some one from the city I love.
I think if all goes well Y! will fetch the fruit of his “social” hard work.
I always think Y! Is coming out with great stuff (better than Google) but Google is just getting luck (may be they are the one who started doing good)
Good luck Y!
JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOST!!!!!!!!!Please
Bravo! This is an excellent, prescient further leveraging of their considerable assets…and yet another example of just how creative Yahoo really is…operating in a business landscape where media darling Google has unfairly and unwisely become a virtual “teflon company” that makes no mistakes…and can do no wrong…
Wow. I wrote a piece about Yahoo!’s opportunity in this space, outlining such an approach, two days ago.
It’s a no-brainer and Yahoo! could turn out a clearly superior service:
http://www.paradox1x.org/weblog/kmartino/archives/004702.shtml
Om: I like this local site better than the Wii site they have created as part of the ‘brand universe’ initiative. I thought that the Wii site lacked the edge that fan-driven sites are so good at. We are just beginning to see media like Flickr be integrated into local content – and it is really compelling. “Local” is getting a lot of hype, with good reason. Thanks for the link!
This mashup just follows YHOOs mission statement
Our mission is to be the most essential global Internet service for consumers and businesses. How we pursue that mission is influenced by a set of core values – the standards that guide interactions with fellow Yahoos, the principles that direct how we service our customers, the ideals that drive what we do and how we do it.
I have to admit that this site looks really good and if they added the maps would be an ideal and worthy competitor to any local pages.
Great Idea but more than that, a nice aggregation of most relevant content. I like the city flavor to the site. Yahoo can do lots of things with the amount and type of data they already have. Those pictures from Flickr look so amazing. Del.icio.us makes it even more connected to the world. Future is bright for these types of Mash-ups.
The idea is really neat. The idea of viewing all the information in one single place is very creative. Later expansion to all the Indian cities will be a really good piece of informative mashup. Good Luck!
Local search and news is definitely an important market. No one has really gotten the feature set for this space right and there is definitely money to be made there.
I agree that Yahoo maps is sorely lacking in this initial implementation, but it’s nice to see that Yahoo is taking a crack at it.