Yahoo! India has launched the public beta of its local search service, initially in four cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, and Chennai.

According to Ashish Sinha, product manager at Yahoo!, Yahoo! local search integrates Yahoo India maps, and map data has been effectively used in the service. Typically when users search for places like restaurants, pubs, health clubs, and shopping malls, they are led to the business detail page where they get details along with driving directions on how to get there.

Another feature of local search is 'EssentiaList'; it isn't completely functional as of now but is meant for packaging data in the most usable format. Currently, Yahoo! local search offers two types of 'Essentialists', i.e. moving to Koramangala, getting married in Koramangala with the idea expandable to other contexts and cities.

Yahoo! local search includes a feature similar to that in Yahoo! Maps wherein users can send directions to their mobile phones as SMS. Yahoo local search could be a competitor to existing players: Google Local, Justdial, Burrp, Guruji. and askLaila, to name a few.