Google has only dabbled with the “feet on the street” concept with their Business Referral Rep. It has never moved very far or with any intentionality. It never had as a goal anything more than sign ups for the Local Business Center.

They are very wrapped up in the high margin, high productivity per employee model of self provisioning of ads. When they need better representation they have always worked with SEM/advertising firms.

I think that will be the case in local for a number of years. They will only encroach on that turf when their returns start slowing and that is the only path left for growth for them.

I could be wrong but I think this type of effort is an anathema to their collective conscience (and profit).

Mike

What you are seeing is the acceleration of a new market with a typical S shaped curve. The only question is where on the curve are we.

The answer to that question is that it really depends on what market/industry you are in. Any new opportunity such as Maps, like every new technology/market before it, becomes visible and valuable one market segment at a time. Maps has already done so in a number of markets, and those will grow over time. Maps has already redefined the Yellow Pages of the new era and it is just a matter of time before all market segments understand that. This has been the case at least since the introduction the Local Universal.

When you analyze the total visitors/views of local content in Google, it is approaching 1/6 of their visitors/views of the main serps on the desktop alone. They are making real money on those views and are already aggressively monetizing that. The only questions remaining are how are the going to monetize mobile in the Google way…ie providing ads as relevant content as opposed to eyeball control.

Google has surplus cash that they need to be investing somewhere. It needs to be in a growth area or capital will move elsewhere. This is as true in a recession as any time. Their bet is on Local in all of its iterations. One or more of them in the mobile arena will certainly stick as it already has on the desktop. That won’t happen though until, as Brin points out above, the user experience becomes more standardized and consistently attractive.

@Mal
From where I sit and the comments above, I believe that they are already monetizing local search in a manner consistent with their view of ads. That is to add them into the mix when they are relevant and useful to the viewer. Given the uncertainty of hardware and technology in mobile, that has been slower than the desktop. But in the great majority of local searches they are actively presenting paid ad content now.

Mike

Thanks for breaking it down to the high points. I think this is important information given all the negative news about the economy lately. It’s good to keep things in perspective and also discuss elements of business that are growing. I remember the roundtable discussion at SMX Local wondering when Local was really going to take off. I’d say this is a pretty good sign that things are heating up.

I think they should have a detour available…and send the small business operators over here…just before they enter their info in the LBC