Think global, search local

Boy, there sure is a helluva lot of advertising for Yell on the London Underground - both stations and trains. The message is, predictably, about local search, mapping, area information, etc. I might have said before that while Google might have some kick-butt stuff going on in local search and mapping, the directories businesses have local knowledge, relationships, and some of them are already doing click-to-call of a sort. So it may not be all plain sailing for Google in some markets. Particularly impressive is Yellow Pages Canada (I like the "view menu" option). And while Yell isn't doing click to call yet, some of their features are pretty cool. No contextual advertising, but instead some genuinely useful features turn up. Let's say you wanted to stalk me, or perhaps you were coming to a surprise second birthday party for EuroTelcoblog - where would you find me, and more importantly, where would you park and how much would it cost? The answer is here. More than one telco boardroom must be echoing with the question, "Remind me why we sold this business?"