Google Further Personal...

It’s a full time job just keeping up with and understanding the reason behind all the changes that Google makes regularly. The latest is and addition to maps that allows you to see the places you have reviewed on a map along with some Google suggestions. The more I read about these changes the more I realize just how little I go out (don’t feel sorry for me because I actually like it that way). But as with any marketing update in the online space, how I use it doesn’t matter a bit. In a post from the Google Lat Long blog comes an explanation of this newest maps feature. Since the My Places tab was released earlier this summer, you’ve been able to view all the places you’ve rated in one manageable list. This list is now being used to personalize your view of Google Maps, enabling you to visualize all the various places you’ve visited, loved, loathed, and might want to check out right on the map. Starting today, business labels for locations you’ve rated with Google Places will be highlighted on the map with your corresponding rating beneath it. Additional places that our system thinks you might enjoy visiting — either to eat, shop, or more — will be highlighted as well. These personalized recommendations are based on the places and ratings you’ve already shared. his could be good for the “out and about” set. My question is, how many places does the average person go out to eat at and do they actually forget whether they rated it as being good bad or indifferent? And do they just wander about and look for recommendations to something else in the vicinity? Anyway, it doesn’t matter how I see this. It’s how the target market does that counts. Are you one of the targets for this kind of map functionality?

Are Google’s Local Effo...

Google is often given the edge in taking control of the whole local discovery thing. Considering recent developments that may not be the case at all. The short term conventional wisdom regarding the new iPhone 4S is going some way to changing that. Its impact on the mobile world is that the voice recognition “engine” for the smartphone, Siri, is going to be a local search “killer app”. Google is responding in a way that seems to point to their need to make sure that their version of “local” is better. Google has announced that they are now using another way to update Google Place pages. As put by Jon Mitchell of ReadWriteWeb Google just launched a more streamlined process for updating small business listings on Google Places, but it asks forgiveness instead of permission. Instead of requiring owners to manually update the listing, Google Places will now automatically update with user-submitted info or updates to another source on the Web that Google identifies. When a listing is updated, the system will notify the business owner of the change by email. What we don’t know for certain is where these updates are coming from (Attention experts: feel free to tell us more in the comments) and one wonders if there is room for any local information foul play which has become an local SEO pastime of sorts. So where does Yelp fit? Well, one of the sources for Siri’s data is Yelp. Here is some more insight from local search expert Mike Blumenthal Interestingly the current Siri app pulls data from a wide range of data sources to answer your questions. That is true with business listing data as well. Depending on the local search it might show results from Yelp, Yahoo, CityGrid, Localeze or BooRah. I presume that it uses even more sources than I have so far discovered and it appears to be agnostic as to where it gets its data. Siri also seems to mix and match sources when necessary. Blumenthal also checked in regarding the changes in how Google Places is updated . Yesterday Google Places announced on the LatLong Blog that they would automatically update claimed listings more quickly with information from trusted third parties [and end users] if Google thought the information was more accurate than information that was in the Places Dashboard. The program’s goal is to improve index quality. If implemented carefully it can work. It is not clear how abuse proof program is and how much trust Google will put in end user edits. Obviously many of those, if not properly vetted, could create a whole new spate malicious activity. If you would like to read even more of Mike’s thoughts on Siri check out his Siri love letter . In the end it appears as if Google is working to wean itself off of certain local data sources with Yelp being one that they would like to create some distance between for obvious reasons. With this strategy, however, there are risks for sure. I don’t have any evidence of this but one can pretty quickly surmise that Yelp is one of the companies that carries a pretty large target on it around the Googleplex. Right now though Google’s voice recognition doesn’t seem to be as smooth as Siri but the average Android user is used to clunky. iPhone users use the iPhone for a variety of reasons and one of those is that it is usually a smoother interface on all fronts. Android is usually playing catch up but that’s to be expected. The idea of Siri making Yelp a bigger player in the local space must be maddening to Googlers like Marissa Mayer. The trouble with this local battle is that Google has been expected to be the local business leader but it never seems to make a push to get far ahead of the field. It has all the components to do it. It has Places, it has Android but one thing it never seems to truly have is a plan. At least not one that that is easy to see and moving them forward all the time. Now they are starting to look like they are reactive in their local approach rather than proactive which often indicates that they are not in a position to lead the local push. In the end, this move by Apple to use Siri could spell serious trouble for Google in a space that is critical for the future of the search giant. Whether it happens today or in the next few years, mobile will be a very large component of any online effort. The spread of smartphone ownership is making that more of a reality than just a prediction. If Google fumbles the local search market that could be a turnover that could be a game changer for sure. Do I think it is going to happen that way? I’m not saying yet because it is still early. What I will say though is that it looks like Google may be more on their heels than I imagined when it comes to the mobile space. Just that possibility is enough to put everyone on alert that the local game has never been more up for grabs than it is now. Your thoughts?

Hyperpublic Launches Fr...

New York-based startup Hyperpublic has some big news today that should catch the eye of developers looking to do anything with local: they’re opening access to a new Point of Interest (POI) database called Places+, and they’re also giving developers a straightforward and easy way to start monetizing. All free of charge. Founder Jordan Cooper , who is also a Venture Partner at Lerer Ventures, walked me through each of the releases. He says that Hyperpublic has offered some location APIs before, but that they were small potatoes compared to what they’re bringing to the table now. The Places+ product will be competing with the likes of Factual and Foursquare’s location database (each database allows mobile apps to display which restaurants and other venues are near a given location). But Cooper says that Places+ contains a superset of its competitors’ data — and he thinks that it has fresher data to boot. So where does Hyperpublic get that data? Cooper says that the service has an approach that’s similar to Google’s: it’s constantly monitoring a variety of publicly accessible data sources, both to establish where POIs are located and to see if they’re fresh (for example, it might look at recent status updates to see if people have mentioned a given venue, which would obviously indicate that it’s probably still around). At this point the service has a high density of information for over fifty major cities and counting. Obviously Cooper is making some pretty bold claims; time will tell if the Places+ is better in practice than the other POI databases available. The next product is called Geo Deals & Events.  This takes of advantage of the fact that there are a lot of local businesses running deals in your area at any given time, through myriad services like Groupon, LivingSocial, and others. Hyperpublic is aggregating all of these deals and making it easy for developers to display them from within their applications (so, for example, a restaurant review app could display a Groupon for a nearby steakhouse). Better yet, developers keep 100% of the affiliate fee associated with driving users to each deal — Hyperpublic isn’t charging anything. Finally, Hyperpublic is now allowing developers to request certain types of data. Say you were building an app and wished you could access a database of every nearby water fountain. If Hyperpublic wasn’t already making that data accessible via an API, you could ask them to do so (provided they had the data). If the service doesn’t already have the data, it will get in touch with other developers on the platform who might. So how is Hyperpublic going to sustain itself, given that it isn’t charging for anything? Cooper explains that in the longer term, the company will be launching an ambitious location-based search engine that goes well beyond the local search you see today — the idea is that you’ll be able to search for specific objects, rather than just venues. But to get there the service needs a lot of data, so it’s opening its doors to developers, who will both access and contribute to Hyperpublic’s growing databases. In addition to its APIs, Hyperpublic also builds products using its own data (in a sense, they’re dogfooding their stuff). You can see some of these projects right here . The company raised $1.2 million earlier this year. Crunchbase HYPERPUBLIC Company: Hyperpublic Website: hyperpublic.com Funding: $1.2M Hyperpublic is an open database of people, places, and things tied to a specific location. Anyone can add objects to the database and developers will be able to build applications on top of the data. Learn more

Does Google Only Listen...

Yesterday the New York Times ran an article that addresses what is becoming a rather serious issue in the local online marketing space. The issue is around just how easy it is for someone to get a Google Places listing tagged as “Permanently Closed”. Now, in a world where there was respect and decency this shouldn’t be that big a deal but we are talking about the Internet here. If there is a way for someone to make a buck or prevent someone from making a buck by exploiting a hole in an open system like Google Places you can bet there will be those who will do it and even smile when they do. The article reads In recent months, plenty of perfectly healthy businesses across the country have expired — sometimes for hours, other times for weeks — though only in the online realm cataloged and curated by Google. The reason is that it is surprisingly easy to report a business as closed in Google Places, the search giant’s version of the local Yellow Pages. On Google Places, a typical listing has the address of a business, a description provided by the owner and links to photos, reviews and Google Maps. It also has a section titled “Report a problem” and one of the problems to report is “this place is permanently closed.” If enough users click it, the business is labeled “reportedly closed” and later, pending a review by Google, “permanently closed.” Google was tight-lipped about its review methods and would not discuss them. The Times goes on to basically call out Google’s system and what many perceive as their simple lack of caring about the issue. It is pointed out that even the remedy that Google offers for the situation is inconsistent in its success. The owner of a closed business, and customers who know better, can click on a button marked “not true,” which appears by all “reportedly closed” and “permanently closed” listings. In some instances, owners say, a business will “open” shortly thereafter. But other owners, like Ms. Cowan, say that the button doesn’t work, or that it takes a week to have any effect. Still others say that immediately after clicking the “not true” button, their business is immediately “closed” again. Some local search experts were quoted in the article that recounted one of the funnier things a search marketer has done to make a point. Mike Blumenthal reported Google’s headquarters as being closed. His actions, described below, at least got some attention from Mountain View. In mid-August, a search consultant and blogger named Mike Blumenthal was so rankled by what he considered Google’s cavalier attitude to closings on Google that he committed an act of online disobedience: He “closed” Google’s offices in Mountain View, Calif. For a brief period, Google itself was “reportedly closed,” according to Places. “I did it to point out how annoying this is when it happens,” he said. On Aug. 15, Mr. Blumenthal posted a screen shot of Google’s Places page “reportedly closed,” noting that it took just two people — him and a friend — to pull off this stunt. It seemed to get the company’s attention. At least one change to closings on Places has already been made. Since late August, a business that is newly tagged “permanently closed,” receives an alert via e-mail from Google, informing the business owner of the change. So will this result in Google finally acting as if it has some responsibility in making sure that yet another one their systems isn’t being gamed regularly? We all know what happens to search results and Google’s “battle” with spam. Now the same gamesmanship is happening in Google Places. Google better get it’s act together on this one especially if the Places listings will in some way be incorporated into Google+ as part of their business offering. There has been no confirmation that this will even be the case but it would make sense especially since Google’s recent whitewashing of these Place page listings indicates they may be preparing to populate these pages in a way that fits the whole social fabric they are trying to knit together through Google+. So what does Google have to say about all of this? Well, the New York Times certainly must have their ear because a post today on their Lat Long blog says the following About two weeks ago, news in the blogosphere made us aware that abuse — such as “place closed” spam labels — was occurring. And since then, we’ve been working on improvements to the system to prevent any malicious or incorrect labeling. These improvements will be implemented in the coming days. We know that accurate listings on Google Maps are an important tool for many business owners. We take reports of spam and abuse very seriously and do our best to ensure the accuracy of a listing before updating it. That being said, we apologize to both business owners and users for any frustration this recent issue of spam labeling has caused, and we’re committed to making sure that users and potential customers continue to have the most up-to-date and accurate information possible. Wow, Google, those are some very pretty and comforting words. Nice try. Until there is some action taken that is real (how about providing some real support to these businesses if they are so important?) this is an empty gesture. We’ll wait and see what exactly is done in the “the coming days” then see if this is something you are really concerned about or just paying lip service to. Sorry to sound so cynical, Google, but why does it take an article in the New York Times to make you take action on something that you have known about for far longer than just these past few weeks?

Sony, Hitachi And Toshi...

Quite big news from Sony , Hitachi , and Toshiba today: according to Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun [JP], the three companies today decided to merge their LCD businesses, at least for smaller and mid-sized screens used in smartphones, handheld gaming devices and tablets. If the report is to be believed, a joint venture will be set up by the end of the year. What’s interesting is that the so-called Innovation Network Corporation of Japan , a semi-public organization, will control a whopping 70% of the newly formed company. The organization is ready to invest a total of US$2.6 billion (and fend off competition from South Korea, Taiwan and other places). Sony, Hitachi and Toshiba will hold 10% each of the yet to be named joint venture. It will control over 20% of the world’s market for smaller and mid-sized LCDs, making it the biggest company globally in this field. We covered the first rumors about the merger back in June .