YellowBot Blog

World IPv6 day - IPv6 enabled on www.yellowbot.com

2011-06-07T23:02:54Z

The internet is running out of "phone numbers". A new format (IPv6) was invented years ago, but is only slowly being deployed.

YellowBot is participating in World IPv6 Day on June 8th (UTC; so starting Tuesday afternoon in the U.S.). For 24 hours hundreds of sites, including Facebook and Google, will enable the IPv6 protocol to help test the readiness of the networks, from the backbone networks connecting everyone to the home wifi networks in peoples homes.

Most likely you won't notice any difference, but if you have trouble connecting - please try Google's test page or read their help article.

Sign Up With Your Social Media Account

2010-06-01T17:00:00Z

We recently launched the ability for users to either sign up or log in using a number of social media sites such as Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and Twitter.

Hopefully, this will make it a lot easier for YellowBot visitors to register without having to remember another password.

Once you log in or register with an account, you're offered that account as a default the next time you come to the site. So if you log in with Facebook, when you come back to the site to log in, you'll be offered Facebook as the default so you won't even have to remember which service you used.

Search by What's Open

2010-05-25T15:31:39Z

Long ago, we released ways to see which businesses are open and have slowly exposed these features to our users. With our site redesign, we have given it more prominence.

Now, we have exposed the ability to restrict your searches to businesses that are open during your search on our mobile site.
As an example, if you are out and hungry at 10 pm, you don't want to search for restaurants around you...instead, you'd prefer restaurants that are currently open around you.

If you're a business owner or a site user, please make sure to check the hours of operation and submit them or correct them so that we can get the most accurate results!

YellowBot Redesign

2010-05-21T20:56:39Z

Three years ago when we launched YellowBot we built it with a clean very simple design. It's served us well, but as we're growing in users, verified businesses and features it's been time to update the user experience.

Some weeks ago we updated weblocal.ca with an all new design. Today we're happy to have released the all new YellowBot site, too. (With iPad and Android support for playing videos).

We hope you like it and have patience with us over the next few weeks as we fix any chips in the paint that appeared during the remodeling!

We have a busy roadmap ahead of us in adding new features on the new site over the summer.

Please email us feedback. If anything doesn't work, be sure to include which browser you use and the URL of the page you were visiting.

Data Quality and Merchant Input

2010-03-04T22:29:42Z

InfoUSA recently posted an article on their site about improving data quality. While we agree that improving data quality is a noble goal, we think it's notable that the author of the post, Pankaj Mathur, is a sales executive and not a member of the product team. It's also notable that Mr. Mathur uses our site almost exclusively for all his examples, and that he makes it a point to include our logo on all screenshots.

Mr. Mathur's post is not without merit. We are working diligently to improve and automate methods to vet our data, and we encourage our users to notify us of data issues so we can research and correct them.

But it's also true that most data originates from the "big 3" providers: InfoUSA, Localeze, and Axciom. These companies spend a lot of money to correct and verify their data. And yet despite their high price -- based on what some customers tell us, anywhere between $300,000 to $1,000,000+ -- InfoUSA's local data is still fraught with inaccuracies. This was precisely why we turned down Mr Mathur when asked to use InfoGroup's data.

Let's take a look at the examples that Mr. Mathur uses: The very first example is of Office Depot located at Deerfield Beach, FL. (You know, the first of multiple YellowBot screenshots). If your'e an InfoUSA customer, go into your database and review InfoUSA ID 490977360. If you have already processed your latest feed from InfoUSA, you might have noticed it was removed, just in time for Mr. Mathur's post. That's an awful lot of money for data that is inaccurate. Remember, this was Mr. Mathur's choice of businesses to use as an example.
In the second example, you may have noticed a screenshot of Google results for The Pantry, Inc. Lucky for Google, which obtains its data from InfoUSA, Mr. Mathur cropped out the search giant's logo before including it in his post.

As a former customer of InfoUSA (when I worked at Citysearch), I am surprised by Mr. Mathur's hubris and by his willingness to throw others under the bus for flaws his organization shares. He is all too ready to point out others' mistakes, but not his own.

Pankaj, I'm calling you out. If you truly care about the quality of data that is available, then start talking about how to correct data. Anything else is salesmanship disguised as constructive conversation.

I do wish Mr. Mathur the best, because he clearly favors YellowBot over InfoUSA's site and the sites of his customers -- over, in fact, any other local search site. In fact, I almost feel sorry for him, because InfoUSA's business model so badly needs to adapt if it's going to survive. He's crying out from a sinking ship.

All sympathies aside, I find it offensive that Mr. Mathur chooses to insult Quizno's for knowing only how to make a sandwich. Does that mean he thinks that you, the business owner, don't know how to run your business because you're only good at building a product? Or what about you, good user -- are you only incapable of searching for a business, giving your opinion of it, or submitting correct information on a site that has bad data from InfoUSA?

In any case, if you do want to utilize YellowBot data -- and we have lots of data, plus features built on APIs -- you should contact us. We'd be happy to work with you as a supplement to your existing data provider, or as an alternative.

Meanwhile, be sure to let Mr. Mathur know what you think via email or phone since his "blog" does not have comments: email, phone: (650) 620-1300

You can read more on the Kelsey Group Blog or on Peter Krasilovsky's Blog.

Hiring a UI/front-end developer

2009-11-10T16:48:42Z

We are looking for a extremely talented front-end web developer to join a highly specialized team. Must have god-like skills in CSS and JavaScript, and be thoroughly fluent in YUI CSS, OOCSS, Template Toolkit and jQuery.

To apply please send your resume and links to your code samples / portfolio to j...@solfo.com. Text, html or pdf please - no word documents. Links to your github, CPAN or Linkedin pages are also welcome.

Delayed emails

2009-08-13T02:16:33Z

Recently we introduced some features in our backend tools that caused some confirmation and password reset mails not to be sent out in a timely manner. Oops! We fixed the bug today and just pushed the updates out to the servers.

I apologize for the inconvenience; except Yahoo users everyone should have received the emails by now (and thanks to those of you who emailed our support team about it!). (If you use Yahoo it might be another hour or two before the mails go through).

Excuse the dust while we move the weblog

2009-08-12T04:44:07Z

We moved the weblog from Blogger to be on Movable Type. Excuse the dust while we everything here in place again. This will make it easier for us to keep you up to date on all the new features we're launching.

A new feature we released recently is the ability of verified business owners to upload PDF files (think menus, price lists etc) and create "coupons and offers".

If you have a small business, don't delay: Go to YellowBot, find your listing and click "Are you the business owner?" near the top right corner.

Claim Your Business

2009-04-01T01:37:00Z

A few days ago, we launched a new feature that allows business owners to claim their business listing(s) using phone, mail, or manual verifications. Once a merchant verifies they are the business owner, they will be given tools to:

edit all of their contact information
edit all of their business attributes (such as hours of operation & payment methods accepted)

Other tools have been prepared but not yet released onto the site. These tools include:

replying to reviews
providing different departmental or additional phone numbers
providing your slogan & a message to consumers
uploading pictures and videos that will be marked as "from the merchant"
uploading documents such as menus, price lists, etc.

We are currently soliciting feedback from our merchants asking about their thoughts on these features before releasing them. So, what are you waiting for? If you're a merchant, go verify your business listing then sound off and let us know! To verify your listing, find your business details page and look for the "Are you the business owner?" link. Everything from there is as easy as 1-2-3. ;-)

YellowBot Voted Most Innovative Search At SES

2008-09-19T18:00:00Z

So we're a month late in announcing this and you may have already heard but YellowBot was recently awarded Most Innovative New Search Engine by Search Engine Strategies.

"Since 1999 Search Engine Strategies (SES) has been the leading international conference series for webmasters, digital agencies, online marketers and corporate decision makers. Over the years, SES has guided search marketers of all skill levels through the fast changing and complex world of search -- the single fastest growing marketing sector. In celebration of the event's 10-year anniversary, SES San Jose 2008 will incorporate the first annual SES Awards. The mission of the SES Awards is to inspire innovation and encourage new ideas. The SES Awards honor 15 outstanding search marketers and will be judged by a panel of industry experts and the SES Awards editorial staff."

We'd like to thank SES for this award, our team of employees and partners, and, most importantly, YellowBot users that have been brutally honest in letting us know how to improve YellowBot! Thanks!

Business Videos: an update to our launch

2008-04-15T13:49:00Z

A couple of weeks ago, we launched a way for business owners and consumers to upload videos associated with a business. In that short period of time, we've seen all kinds of videos uploaded. YellowBot users uploaded infomercials, comm erc ials, testimonials, appeals to consumers, slid e sh ows, creatives, on-location videos such as guitar players at bars & performances at the county fair, demo strat ions, and videos of how they build a 2 pound sandwich as big as your head...

One merchant even uploaded a video of dancing and singing cats to sell tickets! :-)

We're glad to see YellowBot users have enjoyed using this feature, providing merchants another way to reach out to consumers and consumers to either communicate with other potential consumers or with the merchants. Adoption has been much better than what we have imagined and, as always, your feedback is appreciated.

You can upload your videos the same way you upload a picture on YellowBot: you search for the business you are looking for, go to its page, then click on the "upload video" link. Your videos will also show up on our iPhone site.

What's With Those Crazy Ratings Graphs?

2008-04-08T23:11:00Z

YellowBot has been showing visual ratings information like the one below for some time now.

Fitz started a blog post about our site and we started having a two-way communication about features on the site...in particular, those visual ratings.

In the post, we describe how they are useful:

We don't plan on adding any additional info at the moment. Here is another example and a description of how the info is used:
http://www.yellowbot.com/ezo-dinning-sushi-bar-west-hollywood-ca.html
The location above has an overall rating of 3 out of 5 stars
The distribution summary (red/green/yellow/etc bar at the bottom of that section) shows the ratings all over the place so it is not 3 stars because people voted at either extreme or because there was a consensus that it was 3 stars).
Take a look at the line graph demonstrating the ratings over time and you see that people rated it highly but the restaurant, according to users, has gone downhill. It's rated a 3 because it was rated highly but, as time went on, people liked it less and less for one reason or another (you can read the reviews to find out specifics).

The "specifics" referred to is a YellowBot review that explains that there was a management change.

Not only is this useful to our users but business owners can manage their reputations as well.

In this particular case, we hear EZO Sushi has now closed (but have not been able to confirm this because nobody is answering their phone)...it just highlights the importance of listening to your customers.

LA Tech Community Growing

2008-03-11T15:19:00Z

Many of you in the Los Angeles area are aware that the YellowBot team frequents many of the tech events in this area such as Lunch 2.0 (courtesy of Andrew Warner and Mixergy) and Twiistup (courtesy of Mike Macadaan). We're happy to be part of this community and look forward to doing more to support it. So, we were glad to see Matt Marshall of VentureBeat reporting on the growth of VC investments and that LA was in the top 3.

The fastest growing major centers of U.S. venture capital investment are Seattle, Los Angeles, and the Washington DC metro area, all quietly growing their venture base over the last ten years, according to the National Venture Capital Association.

Thos of you interested in meeting us in person in the LA area, you'll be able to find us at most Lunch 2.0 or Twiistup events. We are also going to be at the TechCrunch/PopSugar event being held at The Vanguard on April 10 and MashMeet LA being held at SEVEN on March 29. See you there!

Fire Eagle Launches

2008-03-05T18:57:00Z

Yahoo's Fire Eagle was launched today at O'Reilly's ETech conference (finally). Users can go there and share their current location or use one of the applications that uses Fire Eagle to update their location as well. Application developers can set or get a user's location. Local search sites such as YellowBot will be able to access this info and share it with other applications that utilize Fire Eagle to create a better user experience.

Users must authorize applications to be able to access this info (for those of you concerned about how this feature works). Users go to the Fire Eagle site to update their info (coming soon are other ways to update including SMS, Nokia ZoneTags, a mobile version of the site, and a Facebook app).

Users will also manage access to their information on the Fire Eagle site. What does this mean for local sites? At the very least, they make utilizing their sites easier by pre-populating the geography for a user. Most sites have both a location and a search term for finding businesses. Many UI people will be glad if they can simplify utilizing their sites by eliminating one of these form elements. Mobile sites will be able to provide accurate results about all sorts of information...how close your friends are, which restaurants around you are rated the best or have a special deal, etc.

The biggest hurdle, however, will be adoption of Fire Eagle. How many people will actually sign up and update it? That may really depend on which tools ultimately decide to utilize it. Twitter? Facebook? MySpace? All of them? Maybe a combination of smaller sites not concerned about utilizing a Yahoo service since they don't directly compete with them. What will it take? This application has plenty of potential but I'd like to see some wide adoption. Their application gallery says:

There are many apps under development at the moment and they will be released soon, so please check back here often to great sites and apps from our worldwide developer community...

I will definitely be checking back and we at YellowBot will be evaluating the possibilities as well!

Lunch 2.0 at YellowBot!

2007-09-30T00:32:00Z

Lunch 2.0 is coming to YellowBot! If you are in the Los Angeles area on October 12th, please come by. RSVP here.