Archive for the ‘Yahoo Local API’ Category

The New Local Search Feature

Wednesday, August 8th, 2007

Until last weekend, we had a confusing 3-tabbed search area which was overlayed on top of the map.  Now we have a new search feature which I believe is easy to use and more streamlined, and I’d like to talk about it today.  Basically, it’s a local search that asks 2 questions:

1) What are you looking for?

2) Where are you looking?

If you answer both questions, and our site recognizes your location, the map will travel to that location and proceed to search for whatever you typed in the first box.  All relevant search results will be displayed, and you can click them either on the map or on the sidebar.  Yay!

Notice there’s also an AND/OR designation.  That means that we don’t require you to answer both questions.   If you only want to tell us what you are looking for, we’ll just search for it in wherever you happen to be on the map.  So, instead of answering question 2, you can just move to map to the place you want to search.  Likewise, if you omit question 1, we’ll simply bring the map to the location that you specified so that you can look around on your own.

This gives our users a far more useful tool for searching our site.  I encourage you to try out all the features it has to offer.  Let us know if you have any ideas on how we can make it easier to use or more intuitive.

Max

Integration with Yahoo Local Search

Monday, July 16th, 2007

Stickymap currently makes use of the Yahoo Local Search API, but we can do better. Right now, Yahoo Local is one of the three search options, and it’s a feature that’s very detached from the rest of the site. Markers are rarely created from Yahoo’s database.

We’re hoping to change this with the next release. Stickymap search results are going to be merged with the Yahoo results, to create a universal and customizable search. Yahoo results and Stickymap results should be able to mix as seamlessly as possible.