Here are two videos from Dave that tell you how to make the most of your business listing on Brownbook - hints and tips, what to look out for and what really works:

And part 2…

I was asked the other day why we don’t do radiating search, and its a good question the answer to which is not immediately obvious.  I figured it may be useful to share the reasons why?

When we first designed Brownbook.net we set out to challenge all the established rules of how local business directories ’should’ work (coming from a big directory background as we do this was not always easy, but an exercise we def wanted to do).

#Evolution of tag-style searches in other web behaviors:
The use of tags to replace traditional ‘more scientific’ methods (tags versus hierarchical taxonomies/classification structures, and geo tags versus radiating search) is becoming more prevalent on the web and an accepted behavior that allows consumers and publishers (businesses in the case of business listings) to naturally reach a equilibrium of self regulation.  What I mean by this is that instead of maintaining a complex (and by definition rigid) taxonomy you use tags to allow that taxonomy to evolve naturally over time (some people may be familiar with the term folksonomy).  We see the same rules that apply to a hierarchical category taxonomy applying to a radiating geo search.

It’s not a short answer, but as with all simple concepts the wiring under the board is often more complex than you’d imagine.  But in short geo tags let users and busineses define what works best for them, without the arbitrary rules that the traditional directories had to enforce.

There’s been a lot of activity at ‘Brown Towers’ recently, not least of all was the release of Brownbook.net USA, Brownbook.net Canada, and Brownbook.net Australia.

So, in the last week we’ve gone from 2.2 million businesses listed to well over 27 million (2.2m UK, 22m USA, 1.1m Canada, 2m Australia).

Recent developments include:

- Added in FOUR new countries with base data - including the ability to search globally.  You can also add businesses in ANY world country and we’re even starting to see activity in countries where we haven’t even added base data.  We also added some diddy little flags to the home page content to denote which country the home page content is coming from.

- Re-prioritised the search results to give more weight to exact matches on business name

- Added the business name to the Recently Reviewed Businesses on the home page (so you can see which busineses people are commenting on

- Modified our OpenSearch API to support country selection in the API

- Added a more obvious link to enlarge photo reviews, and to play video reviews

- Added support for an ‘affiliate code’ so our partners can provide local search services using our PLATFORM, and they can earn money when businesses claim their listings.  This can be used in conjunction with our OpenSearch API.

- Our MOBILE PLATFORM is ALMOST ready for primetime.  A few people have been trialling it for us and initial feedback is good.  We’ve just got a few more tweaks of the UI to get it just right, and that should be live in about 2 weeks.

- We have a new member joined the UK Business Team: Sarah is responsible for getting the knowledge out about Brownbook.net and she’s going to be working on various news, promotional, and marketing-type activities.

I’ll make another update soon, the next version due in a couple of weeks has some great new tools for business owners and consumers, so stay tuned.

PS: check out this example of a business page with a photo gallery promotion (Emy Lou Photography in Brighton, UK).