Whatsopen.com: Google’s mobile local search effort?
Whatsopen is an unlaunched web and mobile local search engine — and a secret testing ground for Google’s new search offerings, a source tells us.
From screenshots we’ve been shown off-the-record, the site offers a way to search for nearby stores and their hours of operation from your phone.
Whatsopen is doing invite-only alpha testing in the US and China and will launch in late 2007, a note on the site says.
Our source says Google has been interested in purchasing the company and its search technology, and may have already purchased it and started using it as a testing ground.
We have not been able to verify any of this information with the company. Google declined to comment.
Valleywag has screenshots here (including the one, above) — obtained from a different source, our source claims.
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About the Author, Eric Eldon
Eric currently covers digital media technology and business news, especially what's happening on social networks and their platforms. He also writes and edits stories about venture capital, and lots of other stuff, too. He started at VentureBeat in the spring of 2007, half a year or so after Matt Marshall left his reporting job at the San Jose Mercury News to found the site. Eric previously cofounded a startup called Writewith, that was building editorial software for newspapers and other groups of writers. The startup didn't work out, but he learned a lot.
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whatsopen.com.au