Yahoo! Launches Local News

prostoalex writes "Yahoo! News front page added local news today. Available for logged-in users right on the front page, local news are also delivered at location-specific URLs." There are a few words on the new feature at Search Engine Journal.

Re:Not all that local...

[takeya]

I believe Google News was only North America at first.

It takes time to localize it for the whole world.

Yahoo! and location awareness

[Lord Satri]

This confirms Yahoo! want to be a serious provider of Location-awareness tools, such as Google and Microsoft are.

Spatially enabled Yahoo! tools now includes:
- This Local News announcement
- Yahoo! Maps [yahoo.com], including APIs [yahoo.net] (more reading [slashgeo.org]).
- Flickr (/. story about the acquisition [slashdot.org]) maps [flickrmap.com] (undoubtly a similar service will soon be provided by Yahoo!)
- Probably other I forgot?

I doubt Yahoo! will join the Virtual Globes frenzy. With Google Earth, Windows Live, NASA WorldWind (and Punt [sourceforge.net]), the competition is already fierce.

Scrolling News Block

[jaredmauch]

So, I love Yahoo news as it's a good source for the AP/Reuters feeds, but the recent addition of the auto-scrolling/cycling articles is making me reconsider it. I'm tired of web designers thinking that just because i visit their page (and leave it set for their auto-refresh interval) that it's the only thing on my desktop (1600x1200 dual mon (3200x1200)). I don't need their thing to constantly suck my cpu (yes, i use flashblock to prevent that as well) and provide a distraction from the real work i'm doing as well.

It's seriously making me reconsider setting up my own RSS fed news website for my own news gateway/needs. The local thing is kinda nice, but the scrolling highlight articles make me want to find a way to turn off javascript. (anything that does that like flashblock?)

Re:No news is no news

[fm6]

RTFP dude. This service is available to signed-in users. Who have voluntarily given up their zip codes. No reverse DNS required. Anyway, if you consider somebody figuring out from reverse DNS where you live an invasion of privacy, you shouldn't access any web site.

But that's just bullshit. There are many reasons to worry about your privacy. The fact that web sites know the zip code you live in is just not one of them. So what if they know that you're an overprivileged type from 90210 or a blue-collar hispanic from 95112? Hardly a first step to finding all about you.

Incidentally, 95112 happens to be my zip code, and the databases actually do have this area classified as bch. Not that this classification actually describes me....

Re:Scrolling News Block

[fm6]

Well, the CPU drain is not that big a deal. And if you don't want a distraction, why do you even have the page up? But I do agree that those auto-cycle news applets are a pain — they make sites harder to browse.

What they're trying to do, of course, is get our attention. A better way would be to stop giving us dense lists of headlines, and actually present the first paragraph or two of each news story so we can decide for ourself whether to read the rest. Every high-school journalism student knows about the inverted pyramid [wikipedia.org]. Why don't the folks who design news web sites?

How soon until I can get news from my block?

[neo]

This might seem local to some of you, but I really want to hear the news from the three blocks around my apartment. Too often things happen that I can see from my window but I never see anything in the news regarding them.

I would very much like to empower neighbors to take pictures and write stories regarding truely local events.

Give us the power to be local journalists!!