Google launches Mobile based Local Search

Google is back with more services for the mobile users. The search engine giant on Monday rolled out their test service for finding local places of interests like restaurants and stores through web enabled mobile phones and other devices. It is currently only available to customers in United States and Canada.

Users can access the service from the Google’s homepage or from a custom page on the Google’s Server (http://mobile.google.com/local/). Yahoo! has already released a similar service quite sometime back, which let users search for local elements from a mobile handset.

Google’s own effort would provide 10 results for a search. It would be providing basic information like addresses, phone numbers and driving directions. It also integrates Google Maps though as usual they are keeping away the controversial Google Ads from these pages for now. The market of Local Search is expected to become big in the coming days as analysts predicts it to reach a revenue levels of USD 5.1 billion in United States alone.

The search requires user to input a keyword and the zip code of their location and the search engine results in a map with the nearby facilities related to the keyword. Microsoft is also expected to launch a similar service through MSN Search in the coming days.

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