An Indian local and media search site Zook.in (http://www.zook.in/) is using search engines from Yahoo and Microsoft at the back-end of its site to keep its costs low.Rather than pay yellow pages companies to provide local data, which is often limited to only key locations, Zook.in analyzes content thrown up in searches by mainstream search engines, to offer immediately consumable data in the area of local search and media search, said Ajay Sethi,CEO of Ziva Software, the company that runs the new web site.

Zook.in is launching at one go in India and abroad, as it believes that to succeed as a viable business proposition, it has to scale quickly to millions of users.Local searches and searches for media are key search categories for mobile phone users, Sethi said.

While mobile phone users can also search for other general information on the Zook.in web site, the results displayed on its "Web snippets" section will be of a similar quality to those offered by the back-end mainstream search engines.On local searches, the site returns data such as the address and telephone numbers of hotels, restaurants, government offices, consulates, malls, hospitals, and other key places. Users can click on the telephone numbers provided, and dial out immediately.

source:pcworld.com