Moby Google Local

A test version of Google Local for mobile phones is now being put through its paces.

So far restricted to the US and Canada, the local search for internet-enabled mobiles helps Google keep sides with arch enemy, Yahoo!, which lifted the curtain on a similar mobile-friendly service late last year.

Users of the new Google Local version can get information on companies and businesses in their location along with a map, driving directions and contact details. Users can also receive driving directions in text messages via Google SMS.

Both Google and Yahoo! are trying to capture the lucrative local advertising market in the States which it is estimated will total $5.1 billion by 2009. No word yet on when the service will be rolled out in Europe.

Meanwhile, as regular readers may remember, Google Local is so far giving the UK a wide berth and instead assigning the UK country code to the Ukraine.

A Google Local for the UK is highly desirable as a means of capturing more online business, and Google Local has been launched in other European countries with much smaller populations. As yet the UK web-based Google Local appears some way off, while a mobile phone version with our driving regulations would seem an even more unlikely development.

Meantime, it will pay web site owners to remember that their next online customer may be someone who lives on the other side of town, not necessarily the other side of the world.