These days it’s hard to remember that at one time Yahoo was the pioneer in dynamic mapping. It introduced enhanced local search features and capabilities into the map before Google, Microsoft and MapQuest. At a certain point, however, Yahoo opted out of the map feature wars that erupted between Google and Microsoft (StreetView, 3D, aerial, UGC). Since that time there have been a range of incremental improvements for Yahoo Maps.
Accordingly the company said that it has given Yahoo Maps a “face lift” in the UK, and in France. There are a range of improvements discussed. While these ongoing improvements are critical and help boost quality, the larger question in my mind is how committed is Yahoo to its mapping product and to Yahoo Local more broadly?
The rest of this post is at SEL.
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Yahoo! Local seems to be in “maintenance mode.” I’d love to hear your thoughts about this . . .
Screenwerk 
June 12, 2009 at 8:50 pm
I think you and I talked about this at SMX a bit…Yahoo used to be my favorite Local search engine, and they CLEARLY had a userbase that was ripe for all the community aspects that Yelp brings to the table and that Google is desperate to grow. Today, I don’t even know who is in charge of Y Local–is it Atif?, let alone if they have any innovations planned, plans for new SMB owner initiatives, etc.
With Bing Local’s intro of phone verification, I would now rank Yahoo third in terms of ease of claiming and updating business listings…trying to edit a listing seems to lead to duplication rather than change more often than not. I realize that SMBs may not be Y’s focus but it strikes me as an area where they could make a push to keep up with their competitors.
June 14, 2009 at 2:31 am
Yahoo Maps was my favorite for a long time. When I used to spend half my time in Seattle and half at home, I loved the address book feature and the ease of finding directions to and from the same address without having to re-enter data.
Then they switched to the “new” (it’s now a couple years old) map, which has a much slower load time and much slower features/tools. And I stopped using them so much.
On the bright side, and more about commitment perhaps — they still have dedicated customer service that beats anything Google offers. I screwed up a month ago and uploaded the wrong photo into a client’s Yahoo listing … reported the image … and Yahoo got back to me within an hour by email and removed the image. Very satisfied with that. Google has nothing to compare to that kind of human interaction.
June 14, 2009 at 2:34 am
Glad to hear they’re providing good customer service. Working on Hunch later 🙂
June 3, 2010 at 3:12 pm
I live at N31.601/W95.445. The map is incorrect. in 1998 177E was changed to 1772. There is no 177S as mapped. The old 177S ran N and S from 177E. my road is 1773 which runs N and S from 1772.
I have been trying for years to get these roads corrected.
no one can find my address on Yahoo or Google maps, which is
239 ACR 1773, Grapeland, Tx. Can you please correct the map?????
June 3, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Wayne: I cannot. You must try and do this directly yourself.
June 3, 2010 at 3:23 pm
How do I change it myself???
June 3, 2010 at 3:27 pm
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/maps/inaccuracies/maps-03.html
June 3, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Hope that leads to you to the right screen.
June 4, 2010 at 1:19 pm
I live at N31.601/W95.445. My address is 239 ACR 1773 (not 177S)
which runs N and S off of 1772 (not177E).
please correct the map….