Mobs might be smart, but are the individiaul within mobs smart? Yahoo! has placed several bets on the acuity of individual users: local reviews are being pushed through Yahoo! 360 as if they were proprietary Michelin content. Movie reviews, stock message boards … user input has for years provided Yahoo! with easy, free, ready-made that, even if mediocre, snares eyeballs.

Yahoo! is making the same bet with a new interactive Trip Planner added to Yahoo! Travel. Meant to be a one-stop locator of hotels, restaurants, and tourist attractions in the city of your choice, Trip Planner is also heavy on the tagging and sharing features that Yahoo! is so high on these days. You can browse the saved and publicized trips of other users, and you can make your own trip planning public (or keep it private). Conspicuously absent are airline tickets and rental cars—perhaps the two most needed pieces of the travel-planning puzzle. Yahoo! Trip Planner is more about what to do after you're there, and amounts to a detailed, scheduled list of local destinations, linked up the Wazoo to descriptions and related Web pages. If other users don't provide good ideas, a built-in travel guide offers suggestions. Maps are brought into the page. You can share selectively by Yahoo! ID.

It all works like a Swiss watch, asnd is diligently thought out. Yahoo! Trip Planner doesn't replace Expedia or, for that matter, Yahoo! Travel. It complements online travel agents, and takes a stab at replacing that AAA guide book.