My Opinion:
Google Local is a loser.
3 Cheers for Yahoo!

My selfish reasons:
I search "advertising agency" in zip code 78130 on Google Local and I get maybe one or two real agencies, plus tons of unrelated companies, such as power utilities, and copy shops. I'm not listed at all, although I have one of the better known true ad agencies in the area.
However, Yahoo Local has me at no. 12. I've changed the company name and address since then, but still, Yahoo Local is cool! Thanks.

How do these searches work, anyway?

Its back now :)

Until I saw Google Maps today and fooled around with it for awhile I was convinced Yahoo local was much more intuitive and user-freindly than Google for local search.

I really think Google Maps is a step forward and I found it very nice to use.

I think the introduction of Google Maps addresses many of the problems I originally encountered with Google Local.

I find the drag feature is very nice and through experimenting I had little difficulty finding relevant results.

I strongly dislike google local. I don’t like how it ranks people in order of who is closest to the city center. Is that what it is doing? That is how the results show for my searches. Does anyone know how to get your address in there? I am optimizing a website for a new company and they’re not in the phone book any solutions to get your address in the results.