New SMARTpages Prepares for YellowPages.com Integration
SMARTpages has relaunched with a new look and feel, preparing for the eventual merger of the site with RealPages.com under the unified YellowPages.com brand. The new site is a significant improvement over the user experience previously offered.
FAST Search & Transfer is the vendor behind search on the site and there’s a product roadmap that extends beyond what’s visible today. But this is a downpayment on the eventual YellowPages.com user experience.
One of the things that was really interesting about the old SMARTpages vs. other IYP players was its life events guides. Yellow Pages publishers have long known that life cycle events (e.g., homebuying, weddings, etc.) drive usage and comScore has shown the same to be true of e-commerce and related Internet usage patterns.
The new site translates those life events guides into “Smart Guides,” which is a separate area on the site. The new site also has city guides. These are important efforts to broaden beyond the basic contact information historically offered on IYP sites. There’s a ton of valuable content here, but the information is generally segregated from lookups on the “traditional” part of the site.
It will be interesting to see when the three sites (YellowPages.com, SMARTpages, RealPages) become one how the product evolves to meet a rapidly changing set of online user needs and interests.
