Yahoo has released an innovative app to search local businesses in a certain area on a map. 

This is a great idea by yahoo.  Basically, you first view a map on your iPhone and decide on the area you want to search.  Then you draw right on the map to outline the area.  Yahoo's Sketch-a-search will then give you back a list and locations of the local businesses in that area that you are searching for.

Right now it ionly works for restaurants in the USA but Yahoo has plans to expand to other types of businesses and countries as well. 

It is very simple and easy to use but it will need a lot of work to get grow the database of local businesses in many countries. 

So for now, it might be fun to try your city in the USA but it may be a while before we see this being usable at scale across the world. 

They have also released an update to their regular search app for Apple's iPhone.  It also is limited in where it can be used.  It is available in 22 markets across, North America, Europe and Asia.  We guess their "markets" mean cities. 

Both apps are available in the Apple iTunes App Store.