AOL launched When.com, a search engine for local events and happenings. The site uses your IP address range to serve up content, but you can reset this at any time via a browser.

When.com is a search engine for local events, with categories for events, performers, kids & family, movies, restaurants and venues. I evaluated the St. Louis version of the site, and found it usefull ... found several events that I would have loved to attend, if I had any spare time! The site features some user generated content and reviews, and is free (supported by ads).

Overall, this is a good site for scoping out things to do ... it will be interesting to see if they can compete against more established entities in this market.  

Yelp is serving up a vertical portal on cities ... not a bad effort overall. Looks like they're trying to create communities of users to rate and review all sorts of things (restaurants, nightlife, shopping, education, automotive, etc. ) in a city. They're currently rolled out in major metro areas (St. Louis included!), and look to add more in the future.

Yelp faces a problem most portals have ... how can they drive traffic to their sites? Most people still will go to Google for this sort of content ... they might not find exactly what they're looking for, but they'll find something, which is generally sufficient (unfortunately).

Visit the site at: http://www.yelp.com/stlouis (St. Louis).