Comments on: Google Maps: LBC broken and more

By: furtherclient10306

furtherclient10306 — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 19:25:27 +0000

Hi Mike, i was searching for my id on google to see my thread url and i found your blog.

@Hi will

We charge 1$ / listing for this task.

By: Understanding Google Maps & Yahoo Local Search » Google Maps: Short term fix and long term problems in LBC | Developing Knowledge about Local Search

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 10:56:21 +0000

[...] Google’s Maps Guide Jen has announced a short term fix to the recurring system error in the Local Business Center. She notes that Google will provide a fix to anyone reporting the [...]

By: MiriamEllis

MiriamEllis — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:07:01 +0000

Mmm…reminds me of projects we’ve turned down for companies selling pig ears and jerky and other things that….well…we just couldn’t bring ourselves to promote.

Miriam

By: Mike Blumenthal

Mike Blumenthal — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 19:49:21 +0000

@Will You are right about context. The idea of a vegetarian Hindu who reveres cows selling burnt cow flesh is "hard to swallow"...reminds me of the old Utah Phillips story: "Moose Turd Pie" ....but its good! Mike

By: Will Scott

Will Scott — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:51:39 +0000

@Miriam,

Perhaps I was projecting from my own experience. I presumed that the language dependent elements would be done by native speakers and that the offshore component would be all about data entry.

@Mike,

There’s definitely something to be said for cultural context.

Will

By: Mike Blumenthal

Mike Blumenthal — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:27:22 +0000

@Miriam

As Will points out quality control is of the essence in these types of arrangements.

It will make for interesting Maps results to see what happens when the copywriting gets outsourced and combines the less than stellar English of some offshore workers with a restaurant listing for McDonald’s.

Mike

By: MiriamEllis

MiriamEllis — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:22:08 +0000

What I find amazing about this post is that someone has obviously managed to start some type of program wherein 1400 UK restaurants are about to have LBC listings. That’s a lot of businesses! Wonder who is doing this.

Like you and Will, I see the intention is honorable here, primarily because of the postcards, but am dubious about the evident outsourcing of something like this where one would assume language skills are of high importance. Maybe not, though…a lot of the LBC information involves clicking boxes, not really writing copy. Still, I find that a little concerning.

Miriam

By: Steve Espinosa

Steve Espinosa — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:52:55 +0000

Mike,

We haven’t been seeing this with our bulk uploads. We had an error when we would manually edit in the LBC but that has been gone for about a week or so.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:14:54 +0000

Hi Jim

Yes, I remember now that Jen acknowledged the error. I have corrected the article above.

It would be great if its gone! Anyone is it working now?

Mike

By: Jim Gianoglio

Jim Gianoglio — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:10:01 +0000

I was seeing the error off and on a few times at the end of last week, but so far today (knock on wood) I haven't gotten the error. Maps Jen acknowledged the problem in the Google Maps help group on Oct. 1, but hasn't given any indication of progress since then.