Archive for August, 2010

I think Facebook’s entry into the Local game is a watershed moment for our little corner of the world. It’s going to be extremely interesting to see how the other major players respond. The battle for Local domination is officially afoot…here’s how I’m currently handicapping the players, based on a set of six criteria. I’ll do my best to revisit this map in a year or so, but for now, here’s how I’d break down the world of Local Search. Time for someone to roll the dice…

I suggest they may want to reconsider this one…

Mike Blumenthal once again breaks the news on a new initiative from Google Places: the ability for business owners to respond directly to reviews. Google is not the first local search portal to come out with this product enhancement, but as arguably the biggest and certainly the most visible, it puts incredible pressure on the remaining stragglers to do so. It’s a great complement to the UI/link shift — allowing business owners even more control over their Place Page–and is a clear indication to me that Google is headed more in the direction of Facebook Fan Pages every day.

As reported by Mike Blumenthal earlier this morning, Google Places is now making phone calls to selected (random…?) Local businesses to verify their contact information. Sort of a virtual reverse check-in, if you will. This initiative seems to be a genuine effort by Google to decrease the spam in their Places index–the engineers’ hearts are absolutely in the right place here. I am all for as much human interaction with business owners as Google thinks is possible. But it’s frustrating to see such a good idea executed in this manner.