Yellow Pages Group Breaks Into Social Media- Click here http://bit.ly/laiURa for full article

Yellow Pages Group Breaks Into Social Media- Click here http://bit.ly/laiURa for full article

Yellow Pages Group has announced that they are entering a strategic agreement with Foursquare. This new partnership in the venue harmonization project started by Foursquare, looks to benefit users of both Foursquare and the publicly available API of Yellow Pages Group, YellowAPI. By integrating the merchant information from Yellow Pages Group with the social data and features of Foursquare, users will be able to locate and learn about businesses near them with even greater ease and accessibility.

Yellow Pages Group is the first Canadian business to take advantage of the new venue harmonization project of Foursquare. The goal of the venue harmonization project is combining the business information databases of other companies, such as Yellow Pages Group, in order to provide a more accurate and robust listing of that business for Foursquare users. This information includes everything from location to hours of operation. For developers using YellowAPI, this allows them to use the vast amount of Foursquare social data available in their own applications.

This development not only benefits Yellow Pages Group and Foursquare however. Businesses all over Canada will now have their information available to a much larger user base. Businesses can count on that information to be more accurate as well. For instance not only can someone on Foursquare find the location of their favorite restaurant, now they can see how long the restaurant is open and what credit cards they take as well. Foursquare also has a way for users to see pictures or videos of the location, providing potential customers with an even greater view of the business.

As social media continues to grow in popularity, applications such as Foursquare provide a new outlet for businesses to reach potential customers. The API of Yellow Pages Group already covers 1.5 million merchant listings in Canada. For those companies this is welcome news and will further solidify the usefulness of both Yellow Pages Group and Foursquare among the business community.

Ultimately this strategic agreement between Yellow Pages Group and Foursquare will help businesses the most. This is just one of the many new contributions social media is making to entrepreneurs. With the venue harmonization project getting more attention, Yellow Pages Group is continuing to expand the YellowAPI and make it even easier for a business to connect with its customers.