Hyperlocal is the future of search

This means you would be walking down the road with your phone or Android tracking your every move and optimizing the information it gives you by your location, where you've been and where you are going. When you type in "lunch" by the little magnifying glass on your mobile device the first thing that will happen is that you won't be finding restaurant sites in South Africa or even in fact in Cape Town but soon you'll find restaurants a couple of meters from where you typed that search query.

Desperately need a toilet? Soon you will be typing "toilet" on your mobile and you won't find the latest toilet manufacturing company, you will find an actual toilet a few meters from you. Luckily you can still type in "toilet manufacturer" and you will probably find the nearest toilet manufacturer.

In today's understanding of search engines, this seems like a broken search system. That is not actually true, it's just a more detailed and detail needing search engine. Hyperlocal is also not only the change for search engines but also for journalism in general.

News sites cater to specific areas nowadays. In some countries, you can open a popular news site and they will show you news in your area and as mobile phones and GPS enabled tablets to become the norm we will see the rise of hyperlocal everything. Especially since GPS enabled devices are becoming more and more popular, not only popular but also available since almost every second mobile device has built-in GPS. Heck, you can even say the GPS is what will reshape search. Maybe not entirely but you get the picture. Google has a new "thing", they call this "Google Now".
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According to Google

It tells you today’s weather before you start your day, how much traffic to expect before you leave for work, when the next train will arrive as you’re standing on the platform, or your favorite team's score while they’re playing. And the best part? All of this happens automatically. Cards appear throughout the day at the moment you need them.

The thing about Google Now is that you don't, in fact, search anything most of the time. It's all automated. Even before you search the engine will tell you where you are going based on your usual habits. Quite scary actually but as people get used to the idea and laziness creeps in you will see an acceptance of this and using Google Now like all things invasive will become the norm, in the beginning however you should expect some backslash. Hyperlocal Search engines will enable people to live like never before. Traffic information will become almost instant. Restaurants won't need signs but will almost be semi-obsessed with getting their places page ratings.

Businesses will move to the best locations in town where most people browse through by the chance of being seen on more mobiles in the area. Fact is, instead of SEO there might be something new called PEO. People engine optimization. Gaining the system by being closer to where everyone else is, being in the vicinity of the most populated areas and thereby showing up on more screens for popular daily hyperlocal search terms... No one really knows where all of this is going but one thing we know, the future of search and most of the internet is hyper-local.