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Yodle, a company that helps local businesses advertise online, today announced it has landed round four financing of $10 million, bringing its funding total to $38 million.

According to a company spokesperson, the new round will be used to double the company’s sales team and invest in several new products to increase internal efficiency and provide better marketing tools to clients. The new tools will apparently help to go beyond clickable ads but the company hasn’t offered up any details on the product yet and won’t be showing it off until next week. The company would not provide any additional information on the new product launch.

An in-depth analysis of Yodle’s business model can be found here, but essentially the company displays local advertising on search pages. If someone is searching on Yahoo for a “plumber in San Francisco” for example, Yodle will serve up an ad on the results page for one of its clients in the San Francisco area. As a person clicks on the ad, they are redirected to the plummer’s website and Yodle then tracks the information so the company can see the results.

Yodle also claims a triple-digit growth with a 135% year over year revenue increase in 2009. An impressive number as the total U.S. Internet advertising revenues declined by 5.3% from the same period in 2008, according to the recent IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report.

The company, based in New York City claims over 7,000 customers and targets 25 cities, including Boston, New York and San Francisco.

The recent investment round was led by JAFCO Ventures, and included previous investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Bessemer Venture Partners.

Apple has both quietly and not-so-quietly been going about the business of tackling the portable gaming market. Perhaps presaged all the way back to the original iPod’s hidden easter egg game of Brick, the iconic and primarily music-playing device has acknowledged the powerful role of fun on a portable device.

Of course, with the advent of the App Store ecosystem and the iPhone/iPod touch lines of hardware, Apple’s ability to go head to head with the likes of Sony and Nintendo went up more than just a notch.

The “Funnest iPod ever” ad from about a year ago exemplifies Apple’s strategy in the marketplace. The focus is purely on fun, the target demographic extends way beyond the typical range of the “hardcore gamer,” and the easy over-the-air access to thousands of game titles is starting to set the iPod touch apart from Nintendo’s DS and Sony’s PlayStation Portable.

Today’s Apple event continued the company’s push into more traditional portable gaming territory, with an entire segment from SVP Phil Schiller on how the iPod touch stacks up against the portable playing field.

Image courtesy of Engadget

Phil reminded everyone that the PSP and DS have “no multi-touch, expensive games, and no app store.” As compared to the mostly sub-$10 pricing of iPod touch/iPhone games, typical handheld titles for those two consoles can run from $25 to $40 a pop.

Speaking of titles, Phil shared an interesting statistic about the number of games available on all 3 platforms. Here’s how it stacks up:

Sony PSP: 607 games
Nintendo DS: 3,680 games
Apple iPhone OS: 21,178 games

Wow. Even given that a large percentage of those iPhone/iPod touch games are relatively simple and casual titles, it’s still an impressive number. And with some full-featured AAA titles already out (take Civilization Revolution’s faithful translation of the console version of the game as a prime example) and on deck as well, the iPhone OS ecosystem is looking impressively like a viable handheld gaming experience even to the more hardcore gaming set Sony and Nintendo regularly compete to win over.

Schiller’s segment included a number of game demos as well, with Gameloft’s upcoming first-person shooter named Nova (pictured, below) looking very Halo-like, with stunning graphics and excellent framerate. Phil said much of what’s coming next to iPod touch gaming is possible because they’ve built-in support for OpenGL ES 2.0, “great for those next-generation games.” Blockbuster publishers Ubisoft and Electronic Arts also shared the stage to demonstrate two franchises already hugely popular on consoles, Assassin’s Creed and Madden ‘10.

With both established major console publishers and insanely talented independent development teams all lined up to make games for Apple’s platform, Sony and Nintendo had better be concerned. The latter has already indicated that Apple’s iPhone ecosystem is having an impact on its business. Sony seems to be a little bit slower in understanding the market shift, or at least continues to put on a brave bluster in public.

What do you think: is the iPhone OS ecosystem giving traditional handheld gaming a run for its money? Have you already or would you consider the iPod touch or iPhone as your handheld gaming rig of choice?

Tags: apple, handhelds, iphone, iphone os, iPod Touch, nintendo ds, playstation, portable gaming, Sony PSP