Yahoo Buys UK-based Whereonearth

TechDirt, among others, reports that Yahoo has bought local search and LBS focused Whereonearth. The “official word” came on the Yahoo blog:

In an offline world 80-90% of purchases happen within 8-10 miles of your home. We believe this will carry over into the online world and in an increasingly personalized internet, users should expect their search results to reflect their lives more precisely. Same for advertisers – they need to target users with more meaningful, relevant ads based on the user’s locality.

Whereonearth is small, just 25, and has had licensing agreement with Yahoo for the past five years according to Reuters. The company itself touts is worldwide database as a distinguishing feature. That’s likely to be very important to a global provider like Yahoo. I for one am curious about what a company like Yahoo (or Google for that matter) can do for LBS since so far, it’s fallen rather flat.