As usually happens a search for restaurants leads to a wild goose chase and exercise in evaluating the latest options in local search.
I came across some interesting finds when this search led me to the Yahoo Travel > Toronto > Restaurants zone.
Yahoo is really coming along in this area as it gains a critical mass of user reviews.
I do find it strange that the main restaurants everyone seems to talk about are the absolute top-dollar establishments that exist in the middle band of the city from downtown up through Rosedale. It suggests to me that the Yahoo Travel view of a city is indeed the “for out-of-towners” version. The top-recommended Rosedale Supper Club isn’t my usual type of haunt for those late-night hunger pangs.
But some further exploration shows that Yahoo not only understands cities and streets, they get neighborhoods now. Yahoo knows about High Park, Baldwin Street, The Fashion District, Koreatown, Leslieville, Queen West, Parkdale, and Leaside? Surely you jest.
As it turns out, it isn’t Yahoo who knows this stuff. Yahoo Travel has partnered with a service called wcities to organize some of this material.
In any case, Yahoo is doing a fantastic job of aggregating restaurant, hotel, and other vital information for tourists. The functionality of this portal continues to improve. And… neighborhoods, eh? Man, they really get it.
Now if only Toronto restauranteurs would not grumble so much when we straggle in at 10:30 p.m., life would be grand. Off to the gym now, and if I’m lucky, something will be open late when I’m through. Greektown here we come…
Andrew Goodman is Principal of Page Zero Media, a marketing consultancy which focuses on maximizing clients’ paid search marketing campaigns.
In 1999 Andrew co-founded Traffick.com, an acclaimed “guide to portals” which foresaw the rise of trends such as paid search and semantic analysis.
