TrueLocal Goes Live

TrueLocal is a consumer-facing local search engine that has been operating "under the radar" (except for appearances at SES) for a while. Run by search engine veteran Jake Baillie, the company is owned by database provider Geosign, which delivers local data to many of the marquee search and portal providers. That's the company's "secret sauce" — better data. The site also has a huge database of local franchisee information.

The site is fast and clean, and a majority of the listed sites have URLs. On the advertisers side, the company provides 800 numbers for call tracking, and bidding is quite inexpensive compared with the major engines. As I mentioned, the data are also syndicated to other sites.

Unfazed by larger competitors, Baillie seems content to let usage grow organicially and showed me some of the company's "guerilla marketing" strategies (very humorous) at the last SES show in San Jose.

Here's more from the company's release.