I must admit I've always been a fan of what the folks at Blockshopper.com have been doing with their site:  taking tired old real estate data and turning it into news.

That's right — they turn every real estate listing into a news story, and then provide gobs of data (from political districts to school information to house-by-house property tax data) to create what is not only a hyperlocal news site, but also an SEO machine.

After several years of building this machine (and inking deals with newspapers including the San Francisco Chronicle and St. Louis Post Dispatch), it now appears that Blockshopper might be quietly transforming their online publication into a powerful local business directory.

For example, if you look at http://Chicago.Blockshopper.com/notes, you'll see that local businesses (as well as realtors) can now attach positive customer comments and work case studies to specific addresses.

So, say you're a contractor who's worked on a number of homes in the Lakeview section of Chicago ... you can attach case study notes (which link back to your Web site) to the pages of each of the homes you've worked on.

Kind of like a "virtual yard sign", eh?  And it's a yard sign with some major "Google Juice" as evidenced by a few quick Google searches relevant to some of the businesses advertising on Blockshopper.

Stay tuned for more from this company.  I have a feeling they're just getting warmed up.