Press Release
Get Local With Yahoo!
New Get
Local Service Provides Local Programming for More than 30,000
U.S. Cities
Santa Clara, CA -- November 4, 1996 --
Yahoo! Inc. today
announced the launch of Get
Local, a new service that provides users with online, local
resources for more than 30,000 U.S. cities, covering over 40,000 zip
codes. Get Local is an extension of Yahoo!'s comprehensive regional
programming found on both the main Yahoo! site
(http://www.yahoo.com) as well as
the new regional sites, including Yahoo! San Francisco Bay Area,
Yahoo! Los Angeles, Yahoo! New York and Yahoo! Chicago. Users can
access Get Local through a link on the Yahoo! front page. "Users are
extremely interested in getting information online about their local
area, as evidenced by the overwhelming response we’ve received from
our regional guides," said Ellen Siminoff, director of communities at
Yahoo!. "With Get Local, individuals have immediate access to
resources and information for their hometown -- all conveniently
compiled into one central location."
Get Local Yahoo! already provides users with the most comprehensive regionally classified Web resources available. To use Yahoo!'s new Get Local service, users can type in their zip code or browse through a directory of alphabetical listings of cities by state. Get Local automatically creates a specialized page for the chosen locale with city and regional news, scores >from local sports teams, weather reports, and zip code-specific links to a variety of resources for entertainment, businesses and activities that affect the local area. Get Local pages also include Yahoo!’s popular free communications services such as yellow pages, white pages and interactive maps -- all using the user-specified city as the starting point for searching or browsing these services.
How does it work? Getting local in Palatine, IL
Using Get Local, a resident or traveler interested in Palatine,
IL, for example, receives a customized page for the city including
local weather, sports scores, state and local news from UPI wire
service. Because Palatine falls into the area covered by Yahoo!
Chicago, the user also receives the directory to Yahoo! Chicago’s 14
subject categories as well as additional resources such as the
Chicago Reader's entertainment listings, Polnet Communications' local
news in Polish, and Shadow Traffic's up-to-the minute reports for the
area. Users can perform searches within Yahoo! Chicago or the entire
Yahoo! database, view maps of Palatine, browse the Yellow Pages for
nearby Palatine businesses and receive detailed maps and driving
directions. In addition, the Get Local page for Palatine also
includes links to Yahoo! Chicago's message boards, allowing users to
start their own forums for posting messages about Palatine or
anything else that interests them.
But how does it play in Peoria?
For a city such as Peoria, IL that falls outside the area covered
by Yahoo!'s major metros, Get Local creates a customized city page
with local weather, sports scores, state and regional news from UPI
and Granite Broadcasting plus information and content pulled from the
Illinois category of the main Yahoo! directory. Users have access to
online resources about Peoria and the surrounding area through city,
county and state resources as well as a directory of categories
covering topics such as Health, Arts, Business, Travel, Entertainment
and Media. Searches can be performed within the Yahoo! Illinois
category or within the entire Yahoo! database.
About Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), offers a globally-branded Internet
navigational guide to information and entertainment on the Web. As
the first online guide to the Web, Yahoo! is one of the most visible
and recognizable names associated with the Internet. Yahoo! provides
a context-based directory structure for Internet resources, as well
as integrated Alta Vista Web-wide search capabilities. The Company
is continuing to develop a global family of Yahoo!-branded media
properties in targeted geographic (Yahoo! Japan, UK, Germany, Canada,
San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago), subject
matter (Yahoo! Internet Life magazine and Web site) and demographic
areas (Yahooligans!, a Web guide for kids). Yahoo! can be found on
the Web at www.yahoo.com. Yahoo! Inc. headquarters are in Santa
Clara, California.
Contacts:
Jennifer Hwang
Yahoo! Inc.
408-731-3362
jenhwang@yahoo-inc.com
Blaise Simpson
NRG Public Relations
blaise@nrgpr.com
(415) 827-7065