Beta Labs - Yellowpages.com

Engineering the Mobile Web Site

An interview with Richard Parker-Lead ATTi developer for Mobile Web

AT&T Interactive’s new mobile web site recently went live, which replaces the previous WAP site and the newer iPhone web app (site) – developed entirely by our AT&T Interactive Mobile Development Team.

The new site (found at m.yp.com) reflects features and search tools from our flagship mobile app – YPmobile.

One of the most significant changes is the site’s ability to dynamically deliver content based on the user’s device. It supports over 6,000 mobile device profiles! That means users should always see edge-to-edge crystal clear maps; and all of the icons and font sizes should be appropriately sized for their device’s screen size and resolution.

I had a chance to catch up with AT&T Interactive’s lead developer on this system, Richard Parker, to get more insight into all the work that went behind creating the new site:

Q: What language/tools were used to develop this application?
A: We used Ruby on Rails, Netbiscuits and the usual array of HTML, CSS, Javascript, etc.

Q: What were the technical challenges of this build?
A: We had to support over 6,000 different mobile devices, each with their own display peculiarities. This was in order to meet our primary requirement of the displays being functionally clean and scalable.

Q: Who was involved in the engineering of this system?
A: We worked with a very wide group within AT&T Interactive including Ops, Apps Support, Architecture, Manual QA, Automated QA, Business Intelligence, Search, Syndication, Web team, and Logging.

Q: Give us a short look back on this system
A: This system had previously been outsourced. We decided to “in source” with an internal team in order to have more influence on functionality and user interface.

Q: What else would you say was significant?
A: This build was done in a very short time frame, which is a strong reflection of the excellent working relationship within our product and the other engineering groups. The team was VERY open to help and suggestions. We operated in an “ego-less” fashion. Essentially it was passion for excellence tempered with receptiveness to outside influences. We re-factored constantly to raise the quality of the product. In addition, our code was reviewed by three different groups.

Local is Mobile . . . YPmobile 2.2

Discover, Plan, Share – And Go!

We’ve released version 2.2 of our YPmobile iPhone application available now in the App Store (download here). With this version, we integrated access to our thousands of video profiles – which if you think about it – is a great fit for iPhone users (Nielsen recently reported that iPhone users are six times more likely to watch video from their device vs. other wireless users). We’ve also extended Pay Per Call^® ads to our updated version of the iPhone app. Another great feature that adds value for advertisers while maintaining a positive user experience.

As consumers we’re relying more heavily on mobile devices for finding a great local business than ever before. Research suggests that finding local information ranks 3rd, as the most popular data consumption category after personal email and ringtones.

With YPmobile we’re making it easier to discover trusted local businesses and events:

• Search or browse for local businesses
• View businesses in map view
• See aggregated business reviews
• Search or browse for local events
• See advertiser videos – get the experience of the place (we got thousands… more coming..)
• Browse by Categories or Popular Businesses
• Save Favorites
• Make Plans & Share with friends

The ATTi team involved in making it happen has been working hard on this and many more Mobile Local Apps – Let us know what you think – and download it today!

ypMobile 2.0 Promotion

Discover. Rock. Share.

Got craving?

Earlier this year AT&T Interactive R&D released Have2P, an app for the iPhone that gives one-touch access to a list of restrooms around your location. Now there are 3 more apps in the family:

Have2Eat, a restaurant locator

Have2Snack, which finds ice cream parlors, donut shops, and convenience stores for when you don’t need a full meal

Have2Drink, which has two modes. During the day, it finds cafés, juice bars, and places to finds a soda. At night, it looks for bars, cocktail lounges, and places to find beer.

We’ve also expanded the number of phones these apps run on — in addition to running on the iPhone and iPod touch, all four apps also run on Android phones now.

The Have2 apps are all focused on two ideas: quickly point out the local facilities (whether it’s a restroom or a restaurant), and let the user community help improve the apps by adding more information. You can give a quick thumbs-up or thumbs-down rating to a place, add comments, tell us that the facility has closed, and recommend new places to add.

Speak4it simplifies local search

The AT&T Interactive R&D team, in cooperation with our good friends at AT&T Labs, recently launched an iPhone application called Speak4it. Speak4it is a voice-based local search application that makes it really easy to find things in your local area. What makes Speak4it different from other speech recognition apps is that it is designed specifically for both local and mobile. So if you are out and about, and you need something nearby, Speak4it will get you what you need as easily as possible.

How it works: launch the app, push, speak and voila! Results around you will appear, and you can view them as a list or on a map. You can even see where you are relative to the results. If you want to search in a different location, you can do that too. For example, you can say “Pizza in New York.” Try it out.

We’re using the AT&T Watson speech recognition engine, and the more you use it, the better it gets. So keep using it, and send us feedback, LOTS of feedback. In fact, you can send us feedback right from the phone. We want to hear about what you like, what you don’t like, and also where you would like to see us take this next.

Check back often, as we will be launching more apps soon. In the meantime, enjoy Speak4it.

When Nature Calls

In addition to Speak4it, AT&T Interactive R&D has created and released another iPhone application called Have2P. From the name, you can probably figure out what this free app is all about…

Yep, you guessed it. It’s a restroom locator. Even we are not immune to the callings of Mother Nature and felt that something like this would be useful for everyone. So we created this specialized local search application to help those in times of need.

The application uses the GPS function on your iPhone to identify where you are and automatically searches the restroom database, which currently covers the U.S. Search results allow you to view and update the details about a restroom and add your own comments.

In order for this application to reach its potential, we need your help in collecting and refining the information.

Pay it forward! One day, you’ll be glad that someone else has too.

Improving Mobile Search for Cities

Our first-generation mobile search algorithms often use simple “expanding radius searches” around specific points. Here’s what happens:  If you were to conduct a search for pizza in Chicago, IL, we would search within a 5-mile-wide circle around a central point in Chicago for businesses related to pizza.  If no results are found we would expand the radius by an additional 5 miles, until we find results or reach the maximum search radius of 20 miles. The same goes for ZIP codes, neighborhoods and street addresses.

The problem is that for some cities (not so much for ZIP codes and neighborhoods), this simple approach can sometimes omit businesses that actually fall within the city, but don’t fall within the circle we’ve drawn on the map. This is especially perplexing for users who search for a business that they know is in a certain city, only to discover that they can’t find it using one of our mobile apps.

A simple improvement to this algorithm is to combine the basic idea of a radius search with a search for businesses with addresses that match the city name. We call this search algorithm “Box+ search”.  We expect this new dual approach to provide more accurate search results than the “expanding radius search”.  To validate this we have set up a page where you can see the results of the two approaches side by side.  You can see the difference in search results by looking at the following links, or try ‘Box+ Search” search with your own terms and location:

• Thai Food in Pasadena, CA
• Apple Stores in New York, NY
• Day Spa in Malibu, CA*
• Auto Parts in Sierra Madre, CA
• Massage in Sammamish, WA

Note: For uninteresting technical reasons, the search actually finds matching businesses using a box, rather than a circle, along with the name of the city, neighborhood or zip code.

The blue pins are businesses that were only returned in the “expanding radius search”.  The red pins are businesses returned with “Box+ search”.  The green pins represent listings that were returned by both search algorithms.

The red box shows the default area that was searched for Box+, while the blue circle shows the expanded radius search area.

* This result is interesting because it shows how a Box+ Search returns accurate results i.e. business that are “Day Spas” in “Malibu, CA”, where as the radius search returns businesses in similar categories but closer to the center of the specified search area.