Search marketing firm Overture has launched on Monday in the US Local Match , a service allowing advertisers to select the region where their ads appear online, targeting thus audience in that area to within half a mile.

Local Match is challenging Google's locally targeted paid search, launched in April.

But the strenght of Local Match over its predecessor are that:
- even businesses without web sites can participate in sponsored search,
- advertisers can target their listings to customers in a 100 mile area down to the half-mile, while Google's nearest reach is from 20 miles away,
- besides, the service enable advertisers to deliver multiple creatives across multiple locations, within one account, while by using a customer's IP address from registration data, or designated market area DMA, advertisers can target what ads they want to feature even if users don't specify their location.

Yahoo will use the local search listings on both its search and yellow pages sections. MSN, ESPN.com will also feature Local Match as distribution partners.

From Net Imperative.

Elders are becoming a key market for high-tech products and services.

For years, product managers and marketing people have talked about creating something "easy enough for grandma to use". But now, grandma is going to be part of a big market. Already, one of the fastest-growing segments of the auto market is female drivers over 65 (many of them buy cars because their late husbands did the driving.)

In the future, techno devices will be redesigned for users with limited manual dexterity, poorer eyesight, and hearing.

Elders will drive innovation and market growth in assistive technologies – everything from PDAs to hearing aids to medical implants. The assistive technologies market is already growing*, but it'll explode as boomers retire, for a couple of reasons:
- people who have spent decades using PDAs and mobile phones will be less resistant to the idea of having devices that help them remember to take their pills,
- boomers were the breakthrough market for cosmetic surgery and medical implants. The idea of using technology to stay well, and on schedule, is nothing new to them.

Much more in Red Herring.

Related entry: RFID under the toilet seat, The silver generation is neglected by the US mobile market.

* which reminds me of an article I read this morning in the weekly Italian newspaper Internazionale. "Vecchietti molto arzilli" ("Lively Old Men") reported about experiences carried out in Danmark showing that high-tech is not the only path to well-being: elderly people were submitted to sex-therapy, involving the screening of porn movies and the availability of "happy girls". The results: less violence e less medicine.

Cardiff–based W2Wave has worked out a service that helps users check if a internet domain name (co.uk, org.uk, me.uk, com, org, net, info, biz) is available or not.

The service costs 25p for each request.

From 160 Characters.

Israel-based MobiMate has released the professional edition of its WorldMate application for Symbian OS handsets, adding detailed weather updates and flight schedule information.

Let's remind that WorldMate is available in 8 languages and satisfies most of travellers' needs: world clocks and maps, weather forecasts, currencies and metric converter, packing list, clothing measurements, etc.

Over the next six months, Singapore Airlines, All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines plan to offer high-speed wireless connectivity on long-haul flights. China Airlines and Korean Air are expected to follow.

Such a service, made possible by Connexion by Boing via a network of satellites, ground stations and antennas fitted to the aircraft, was inaugurated on a Lufthansa Airbus flying from Munich to Los Angeles on May 17.

Airline companies could also use the system to monitor constantly throughout the aircraft via security cameras and cabin crew can also consult doctors in case of a medical problem.

From Channel News Asia.
Related entries: Mobile phones while flying, Enjoy your surfing fly.

Each year, some 1,500 people die in fatigue-related car crashes in the US.

To encourage drivers to take regular breaks, the Texas Department of Transportation plans to install wireless "hotspots" at rest stops and travel information centers.

TxDOT successfully experimented Wi-Fi hotspots last fall, as many business travelers or truckers are criss-crossing texas highways and access to e-mail is important to them.

Details in Press Release, via Yahoo.
Related entries: Wi-Fi road trip, Wi-fi gasoline.