Transcontinental Media has launched Weblocal.ca, a local search website that allows users to read and post reviews and recommendations of businesses and services in markets across Canada.
Visitors to the site find standard information–such as restaurant menus, contact details and hours of operation–in addition to photos, videos and reviews supplied by other users. When a user navigates to a page associated with a specific business, the site automatically crawls the web to seek out reviews from newspapers and other websites.
Weblocal.ca users can also set up their own profiles and online communities to send and receive regular updates from fellow consumers with similar tastes.
Marc Ouellette, senior vice-president, newspaper group for Transcontinental Media, said the emphasis on interactivity and social networking sets Weblocal.ca apart from other search sites.
“For local businesses to have this many possibilities for ratings and reviews is rather new, and we’re already getting quite a few–in a couple of days, we’re already in the thousands,” said Ouellette. “There’s also the social networking component to the site, and the fact that users themselves can upload videos for the businesses.”
Transcontinental Media will promote the website through its multiple newspaper, magazine and web properties, with additional support coming from radio and out-of-home advertising. The marketing campaign for Weblocal.ca, which features creative by Ogilvy Montreal, will launch in markets east of Montreal next week and additional markets across the country after that.
Transcontinental Media partnered with California-based search company YellowBot on the website’s development.
According to Ouellette, the multiple databases purchased by Transcontinental to create the listings cover “99%” of Canadian businesses.
