BooRah, an innovative restaurant review startup, unveiled today a slew of new enhancements. This is important news because the company that I rated number two out of 62 at Demo last month is gaining momentum and could be on its way to figuring out an important piece of the local advertising puzzle. BooRah is in the process of raising new angel funding and CEO Eric Moyer told me the company expects to seek venture funding later this year.

Among BooRah's new announcements today are:

1) Redesigned Web Site - A major improvement over its spartan predecessor but the company still needs a new logo.
2) Syndication Business Model - Announced a partnership with a local Bay Area publisher to power its restaurant section online.
3) Advertising Business Model - Plans to work with local publishers to sell more effective advertisments to the media companies' existing customers in a newly strengthened restaurant section.
4) User Generated Content - Now enables users to write their own restaurant reviews rather than just aggregating outside reviews.

These are all smart moves. They won't all work. In particular, I think it will be difficult for BooRah to draw in enough of an audience in each locale to become a true destination site the way, say, Yelp is in San Francisco. However, if BooRah's syndication and advertising model works, it doesn't need to be a destination site.

Just like Aggregate Knowledge pitches its recommendation engine as an outsourced solution for publishers and e-commerce companies, BooRah can pitch its restaurant review engine as a quick and easy way for publishers to boost their traffic and profits.

For BooRah, the combination of innovative search technology that can be applied across multiple verticals, a smart, flexible business model and a target market in dire need of something quick and easy to improve the bottom line is a recipe for success.

Tags: boorah, the+funded, vc, venture+capital