Citysearch redesign feature video ads

Purveyor of all things local (wherever local is for you) Citysearch has launched a major new site design today with some cleaned up site layout, a new five star rating system to replace the 1-10 scale, and about 700 videos.

The videos cover restaurants and other establishments in about 10 major cities including New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles right now. The videos are produced by TurnHere, and are basically infomercials, albeit well produced infomercials.

It would be nice if visitors had some sense that the videos were approved by the site's editors. But alas, they're paid advertisements. A section for user-generated videos would be really useful for a site like CitySearch, which already has user reviews.

[via Search Engine Land]

Tags: citysearch, search, user reviews, UserReviews