Understanding Google Places & Local Search – Developing Knowledge about Local Search

March 11, 2008

Local Links of Interest

Category: Google Places (Maps & Local) – Mike Blumenthal – 9:28 am

Milestone Talks To Matt Cutts From Google: Best Practices For Promoting Hotels Online. – Milestone, 4Hotliers

Question:
We have been doing a great effort for mobile devices and I think in the past year I have been struggling with what is going to be the future? Should mobile sites be designed for iPhones or SmartPhones?

Answer:
The short answer to this question is the target market. If your target market is in the United States, it is quite evident that phones are going to get better and smarter. Soon phones will be getting even smarter, and have browsers that will be able to support richer websites. So I think the focus should be to concentrate on creating good websites that would look good in mobile browsers as well as regular browsers, instead of creating specialized websites for smart phones only.

GOOG Goes North – Greg Sterling, LocalMobileSearch

The Goog-411 service now works exactly the same in Canada as it does in the US. From LocalMobile: you are right that Goog411 is testing in Canada. The business data for Goog411 is coming from Yellow Pages Group.

Google Local Business Referral Rep - Ms. Crystal

Last August Google announced their Maps Referral program. Little has been from it since. Apparently the Google Maps incentive program is still alive and occasionally adding new recruits.

NSA’s Domestic Spying Grows As Agency Sweeps Up Data – WSJ.com

Five years ago, Congress killed an experimental Pentagon antiterrorism program meant to vacuum up electronic data about people in the U.S. to search for suspicious patterns. Opponents called it too broad an intrusion on Americans’ privacy, even after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But the data-sifting effort didn’t disappear. The National Security Agency, once confined to foreign surveillance, has been building essentially the same system.

According to current and former intelligence officials, the spy agency now monitors huge volumes of records of domestic emails and Internet searches as well as bank transfers, credit-card transactions, travel and telephone records.

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2 Comments »

  1. Mike:

    2 things.
    1. these local links posts need comments…ergo…here is one.

    2. after reading the wsj article I think all further communications between us should be by carrier pigeon or smoke signals. :D

    Comment by earlpearl (784 comments) — March 12, 2008 @ 4:15 pm

  2. Dave

    We should be able to keep emailing at a minimum.

    According to the article they were only reading mail headers and subject lines. So as long as the subject is benign, say something like: Bush is cool, we can make all kinds of seditious statements in the body copy, no?

    Mike

    Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1960 comments) — March 12, 2008 @ 7:54 pm

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