There is much discussion about the role of traditional search engines like Yahoo and Google when it comes to local search. Traditional web search was built and optimized to value the popularity of a page rather than the popularity of a place.

The rise of Web 2.0 gave birth to products like Yelp, focused on collecting reviews from local business patrons and organizing them into search results, with the most liked businesses at the top. Yelp created a step function improvement over what Google and Yahoo had to offer, allowing real customers to voice their opinions and be heard.

Seven years later, it’s time to re-imagine local search for this decade. This next generation search will be highly impacted by the two leading trends of the last few years: social and mobile.

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