YAHOO HAS ROLLED out its neighborhood information ser¬vice, called Local, in India, making it the third country to get the service after the U.S.
and U.K.

The service, which is in a beta test phase, has been launched in four cities -Delhi,
Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai. Yahoo plans to introduce Local to other cit¬ies depending on feedback from the initial rollouts. The services on Yahoo Local have been modified to meet local requirements, the spokesperson said. Some of the new features include walking and driving directions, fare information for auto rickshaw and local listings for plumbers, cable TV providers and milkmen.

The site is also integrated with SMS (Short Message Ser¬vice), which allows users to send their friends information such as road directions from a PC to a mobile phone, the spokesperson added. India has emerged as a key market for Internet
companies, which are roll¬ing out local versions of some of their main prod¬ucts and services. In May, Google launched an Indian version of You¬Tube, while a month earlier MySpace launched an Indi¬an version of its social net¬working site. Some Inter¬net companies, including Yahoo, have sites and ser¬vices such as e-mail and instant messaging in local Indian languages. The content for Yahoo Local comes from local and international providers, the spokesperson said.