Burlington Chosen as Initial Launch City for Next-Generation Local Search Site

BURLINGTON, Vt.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Grayboxx Inc., a Silicon Valley-based online local search firm, today announced that Burlington is the first city to gain access to the company’s unique "neighbor-recommended" local search service. By using patent-pending techniques to accurately determine the community popularity and approval for local businesses, grayboxx.com provides the most meaningful local recommendations on the Web. Grayboxx will roll out its service to other communities across the United States in the coming months.

“We are very pleased that grayboxx allows our neighbors to recognize ReCycle North as the most recommended computer repair service in Burlington”

For people who live outside of the largest metropolitan areas, there are few, if any, online local search options that provide extensive business rankings and recommendations. Grayboxx’s unique approach to local search has enabled it to assemble a critical mass of community feedback on more than 3,000 of Burlington’s businesses. The site features more than 12,000 “neighbor recommendations”, covering everything from antique shops to violin stores.

“Grayboxx allows Burlington residents to finally explore online all their city has to offer,” said Bob Chandra, founder of grayboxx. “The search giants of the world might be bigger, but we invite you try grayboxx and decide which is better. We think that Burlington will be pleasantly surprised by the quantity and relevance of the local recommendations on grayboxx. We've got more local recommendations than the largest search engines combined.”

How grayboxx Works

Grayboxx's innovative PreferenceScoring™ engine is able to translate everyday actions people take with or about businesses into meaningful expressions of business popularity and quality. For example, when a user checks out a restaurant online, makes a reservation, and then a week later makes another reservation, this can be considered as a positive recommendation of the restaurant.

Online reservations are just one of the many methods used by the powerful new local search engine to assess the top recommendations in Burlington. Grayboxx works by processing anonymous information from a variety of sources to create implicit neighbor recommendations in more than 6,000 yellow page categories in Burlington or in any city. This approach differs greatly from that of current search giants, which rely on manually entered user reviews for their recommendations.

Top Picks in Burlington

The following are samples of grayboxx’s top results for businesses and services in Burlington, as ranked by the Burlington community.

The top neighbor-recommended “jewelers” in Burlington are:

Fremeau Jewelers, with 34 neighbor recommendations
Von Bargen’s Jewelry, with 12 recommendations
Hannoush Jewelers, with 3 recommendations

The top three neighbor-recommended “taxi” services in Burlington are:

Benway’s Taxi, with 38 neighbor recommendations
Yellow Cab, with 8 recommendations
Airport Taxi, with 5 recommendations

A search for “computer repair” in Burlington returns with the following:

ReCycle North, with 47 neighbor recommendations
Computer Rescue Squad, with 7 recommendations
Pine Computers, with 4 recommendations

“We are very pleased that grayboxx allows our neighbors to recognize ReCycle North as the most recommended computer repair service in Burlington,” said Milia Bell, marketing manager for ReCycle North.

Grayboxx Braintrust

In addition to serving Burlington with 12,000 neighbor recommendations on various businesses, grayboxx distinguishes itself as the local search service "for the people" by opening its advisory board to the general public. Burlington residents are invited to join the growing "grayboxx Braintrust” on Facebook.com and take a vocal role in the improvement of the grayboxx experience.

About grayboxx

Grayboxx is a local online search Web site that provides the most meaningful and extensive recommendations on local businesses and professional services in thousands of categories for cities throughout the United States. For more information go to: http://www.grayboxx.com.

“grayboxx” and “PreferenceScoring” are trademarks of grayboxx, Inc. All other trademarks referenced in this release are the property of their respective owners and are hereby acknowledged.