When looking at some of the initiatives launched by the major global search engines over the past year, it quickly becomes evident that local is a top priority going forward.
In September 2011, Yandex launched its search engine in Turkey in order to challenge Google’s dominating position in this increasingly attractive market, whose online audience is now estimated to be around 35 million, according to Internet World Stats. Just a month later, in October, the company launched Yandex.Maps for Turkey and has on several occasions disclosed that this will prove a key service to succeeding in the country.
According to Yandex CTO, Ilya Segalovich, the first stage of success will be to have 20-30 market share. However, there’s still a long way to reaching that objective as Yandex currently claims less than one percent of the Turkish search market.
Increasing awareness therefore is crucial and in an attempt to do so, Yandex has begun posting real-time traffic information — a built-in feature in its Maps service — on 12 LED boards placed around Istanbul, Hurriyet Daily News reports. The boards are displaying the real-time speed of traffic on main roads connected to where the boards are located and will reach around two million people every day.
Rather than just having a static billboard with a Yandex logo and a tagline, this will in fact add value to people navigating their way through busy Istanbul, while at the same time showcasing how the service works.
Immanuel Simonsen
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