Yahoo launches India Our City, India Maps

Bangalore, Apr 25 (UNI) Moving in to a new premises to accommodate its expanding operations, Yahoo India today announced the launch of two new products for the domestic market.

The products--'India Our City' and 'India Maps' have been designed and developed locally.

'Yahoo India Our City' is an innovative next generation Web2.0 mesh application. This was the direct outcome of the internal hack day event organised at Yahoo India Research and Development, where the idea was conceived and materialised.

'India Our City', covering 20 cities across the country, provided an interesting, rich and dynamically updated perspective of a city as seen and experienced by people at large. The cities covered included Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai among Tier I cities and Bhubaneswar, Bhopal, Madurai, Chandigarh, Jaipur and many other cities lacking noteworthy city portals.

'Yahoo India Maps' covered 170 cities, 4785 towns and 2,2O,0O0 villages across the country.

Yahoo India managing Director George Zacharias said that the two products were examples of the innovations carried out by Yahoo to enhance the end-user experience.

Yahoo Co-founder David Filo acknowledging the contribution made by the India Development Centre for Yahoo globally said the team in Bangalore ranked on the top of the table compared to other centres in technological development. Nearly 20 per cent of the engineering inputs for Yahoo came from here, he added.

Keeping in tune with the growth, the centre, currently having nearly 1000 developers, had been moved into a new facility covering an area of 220,000 sq ft to house 1600 staff, he said.

He said that the Bangalore centre would also be catering to the requirements of Yahoo's penetration in other emerging markets both in Asia and elsewhere.

Stating that Yahoo India's internet portal tripled its revenue last year Mr Zacharias said the Internet penetration was growing significantly in the country.

Referring to advertisement revenue, he said the Indian advertisement market was around three billion US Dollars and was growing by 20 per cent annually. The online market which was around 60 Million Dollars was expected to grow by 50 per cent and Yahoo aimed to get a significant percentage of it.

UNI