It has been heralded as the great new development just on the horizon for a while but so far has failed to take off. But that might be about to change with Google’s latest offering – Google Local, still in Beta, but by all accounts being enthusiastically taken up in the US. Google Local allows you to search for a product or service in a specified location and not only gives a list of providers, but shows their locations labelled on a map on the right hand side of the page. It’s perfect if you are looking for a manicure in Las Vegas. Unfortunately if you type in London,this is the result:

Unable to understand address London. Please try another address.

Suggestions:

- Make sure all words are spelled correctly. - Try using a less ambiguous location like a zip code.

Well, I did say it was still in the future :-)

However, this could revolutionise the use of the internet for businesses that have a very localised geographical reach.