October 5, 2005

Without too much noise or fanfare, Yahoo has acquired Upcoming.org, an Internet event planning Web site that the company hopes will fill its search properties with more local content.

Yahoo confirmed it's acquisition late Tuesday without offering any financial terms of the deal.

With more offices and homes having broadband Internet access, this makes it a lot faster to load Web sites. Users are then increasingly turning to the Web before traditional media such as the Yellow Pages for looking up businesses or to find a person.

More and more people, especially the younger generation, are also looking at the Internet to find out more about their own communities.

Los Angeles-based Upcoming acts as a social calendar that depends on its users to post free listings about a wide range of upcoming events, from local rock concerts to picnics in the park.

The site, founded by Andy Baio, provides tools that enable users to share observations about the events and identify common areas of interests.

Yahoo plans to keep Upcoming's current Web site separate, but eventually will incorporate much of the content into its own site to bolster its local search capabilities, said Paul Levine, Yahoo's general manager of local search.

"We think local search is about much more than being able to find a business in your community," Levine said. "There is no question that local events are an important component, too."

Both Yahoo and its rival, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) , have been placing a greater emphasis on local search during the past two years as more people gradually change the way they search.

With more homes having high-speed Internet connections that make it easier to load Web pages, people increasingly are turning to the Internet before the Yellow Pages for business referrals. And more people, particularly younger generations, also are turning to the Web to learn about what's happening in their communities.

Both Yahoo and Google want to field the local search requests because they make money from the ads posted alongside each batch of results.

Because Upcoming revolves around social networking, Upcoming eventually might be blended into "Yahoo 360," a social networking and blogging section the company is testing. The listings about concerts also shape up as a logical fit with Yahoo's music offerings.

Source: eCommerce Times

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