YellowBot

YellowBot is an interesting local search web portal which aims to find information and reviews of various places and businesses. It is an online platform where users can write reviews defining their experiences of different local places and businesses around them. At YellowBot, a user is able to find information about different locations in the form of address, phone numbers and innovative maps. In case if someone is not able to find any place that ought to be included in the site, he/she has the option to make a contribution to the database of the site by submitting the name or information of that place. Users can also provide ratings to various local businesses in the form of stars and the site can be used for giving recommendations to others about places on the location’s profile page or on the search result itself. The search process of YellowBot is simple and just asks for two terms ‘what’ and ‘where’. One can enter the name of company, a business type, or the related tags or keywords in the ‘What’ section and in the ‘Where’ box one just needs to enter a city, state or zip code. The search engine will take the user to the search results very quickly where he/she can find about the desired information. Tags are one of the most appreciable features of the site. These can be used to superimpose one’s vision or emphasizing on a particular characteristic of a place of business. If somebody likes a particular dish of a restaurant, then he can tag the name of that dish to the restaurant name. It also allows it users to upload photos and videos on YellowBot site regarding different businesses with ease. Yellowbot.com was founded in June, 2006 and the man behind its existence is Erron Silverstein who is also the present CEO of the company. The registered office of the company is situated in Burbank, California, USA. The company is soon going to launch a site named ‘Weblocal’ in Canada also. The site currently has a decent user base which it hopes to increase in near future. The site looks like an addition to the already existing crowd of local search web portals. But by incorporating elegant and quick search features and the use of Google maps to give a virtual view of different locations in the site, it has tried to create a distinctive image in the mind of users. The site does not carry a neat outlook with the homepage of the site over flooded with information. The marginal use of colors such as yellow, blue and red on a white background is insufficient to make it eye catchy. The separation of different sections on the home page is also not up to the mark. Although the presentation of blog section of the site is great. Similarly many of the graphical elements used for different sections like reviews, tags, locations, friends and neighbors are very creative. The navigation process of the site is not too good and sometimes it takes a bit of time to navigate between pages. The registration process is short and precise and does not require a person to provide too much information for signing up with the site. It simply asks for the email address and password. It is mandatory to register with the site for writing the reviews about different businesses. The site does not demand credit card details for registering a user. When a person provides all the required information at the time of registration, a confirmation mail is sent to the email id of the user. User can start using the site only when he/she confirms the mail sent to the email address. The site requires a user to be at least of 14 years of age to register with the site. The site does not charge anything from the users for surfing the site and for getting themselves registered for writing reviews and rating different businesses. No advertisement schemes are currently available in the site. The site can be recommended to all those who wish to have a great experience about different local places and like to share that with their friends and others. It is also recommended for people who prefer to search for things through a clickable map.