Loren Baker has screen shots and details on the new "quick editing" feature for Yahoo Local business listings. The idea behind the offering is to allow local businesses (and their customers) to quickly and easily edit the information that appears on Yahoo Local.

Since the new service allows users to change business information (including making note if a business has closed) my first concern was that competitors could use this to cause problems for each other. After all, it's not going to help business to have someone think that your restaurant has closed when it's still very much open. Thankfully, it looks like Yahoo has already thought of that and has put some precautions in place. Apparently, when someone makes a change to a business listing, that change will first show up in a pop-up over a listing. People that view the listing with the pop-up can add their own opinion on whether they agree with the changes or not.

This leaves Yahoo well ahead of their competitors in terms of taking advantage of user generated content for fleshing out their local search features.

Smart local businesses will not only ensure that their business information is correct, but will also encourage their happy customers to write up reviews.