Chicago B2B: A Replacement for Yellow Pages?

I have to run out to a meeting and can only do a quick post on this now. Local Matters‘ “destination search” platform is finally on display with the launch of RH Donnelley’s new Chicago B2B.com. This is quite a nice-looking site and seems to have lots of functionality, including personalization features that are quite useful (personal directory, my itineraries, compare businesses). I only wish the homepage modules were “Ajaxified,” but that will likely come later.

Chicago B2B.com is broader and more user-friendly than most of the YP sites out there. One discussion I’ve had with Local Matters’ CEO Perry Evans is: should the YP product broaden its content to attract more usage? Verizon has done this with web search, Shopping.com content and eBay on SuperPages.com. And there are other experiments going on in the YP industry. Local Matters owns Areaguides.net in part to offer a broader consumer entry point for YP content.

Chicago B2B has lots of content and functionality (travel, finance) that wouldn’t otherwise be found on a YP site. But you can also get YP listings at the bottom. The question here is: Do YP publishers create a bunch of city-specific destinations in addition to their YP sites and push YP content out through those destinations? That’s what Chicago B2B would seem to be. Other YP publishers such as Canada’s Yellow Pages Group offer city guides, vertical domains and classifieds. Product scope and definition is a central issue for YP publishers as the local space rapidly evolves.

Here’s the press release.