Yahoo social search and communities of interest

From the Latitude blog

Jackie Danicki says

After reading last week’s news that the web is the main research tool for car buyers, I found the new Yahoo Autos Custom very interesting. This is a US feature that is still in beta, but it capitalises on the results of Yahoo’s research on car buyers’ use of search , which revealed that nearly 70% of automotive researchers who bought a vehicle first went to a search engine to investigate their purchase. As explained on the Yahoo Search Blog ,

Yahoo Autos Custom offers the following features:
Installer Search - We partnered with the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) to help you find local installers that can do modification work on your car. Find the top rated shops in your area, see pictures of their work, read user ratings and reviews, and get driving directions with embedded maps. This is the first time the SEMA database of installers has ever been available online.

Car Enthusiast Search - We built a specialized search engine by crawling virtually all of the top car enthusiast sites to produce the most relevant search results for enthusiasts. Go right to the source of enthusiast sites. Try a search for “blazer” on our car search and compare that with web search and you’ll see much more relevant results for one than the other.

As well as integrating local search, Yahoo Autos Custom only solidifies Yahoo’s determined move into the area of social search. Yahoo understands that helping vertical enthusiasts - be it travel buffs or petrolheads - to connect with one another only expands the network of potential customers that their products can reach.

Ask yourself this: When it comes to your company’s marketing, which networks should you be tapping into? Does your marketing strategy reflect this, or is it the equivalent of standing on a street corner and passing out leaflets to people who may or may not be interested in your products?

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