Microsoft has paid close attention to the apparent early success of Apple’s iAd platform and it would like a piece of the action.

In fact, it believes its new Windows Phone 7 ad platform will be the best thing since sliced bread–seriously! It’s calling the platform “Toast!”

Windows Phone 7, due out for the holidays, will allow advertisers to push notifications about their products to people’s phones through a platform called “Toast.” Even when a company’s app is not active, a small ad box can slide down from the top of the phone’s screen to alert the user there’s an update or new offer from that brand.

Did you know that WhitePages.com regularly ranks among the Top 50 web sites in the US for traffic? I didn’t but I guess that just shows that I don’t need to find many phone numbers. That kind of traffic though is a valuable asset and WhitePages.com is looking to take advantage of the push in local business information that has been led by Google’s Place Pages and other specific local business directories.

paidContent.org tells us more

WhitePages.com has given visitors the option to search for local businesses for almost a decade, although it has historically sent those queries to third-party sites. Starting Thursday, it’s taking those listings in-house and adding several features, including a “store locator,” which lets people find branches of national chains in their area.