I see their recent API releases of Buzz, Lattitude and Places Nearby as efforts to push mapping via mashups into all of the subjective areas of which you speak…it is not just a fact/subjective distinction as you note but a platform and data distinction.

The only sustainable, long term strategy is to focus all of your efforts on one listing per location (and possibly one listing for each lawyer at that location depending on the firms focus).

Cleaning up strays and dupes focuses strength and complies with Google’s quality guidelines. Why make the effort only to be banned in 6 months?

Sorry I missed your post. It got caught up in a slew of spam postings that I am just now clearing out.

I don’t think that InfoUsa and Axciom make most of their money off the web listings…it is a small part of their income. That being said, like mapping, the industry is moving to a low cost, all digital model… and this poses a threat to their income but more importantly their model. Localeze seems a little better positioned in this whole thing but who knows. Google’s behaviors here could totally wipe out the value that they have created for themselves by giving away for free what has cost something in the past.

The local space is made up of many players…there are multiple and changing dynamics…on the Maps/listing side there is Google and then everyone else. In Social it is still wide open field.

I see Google leveraging their data by offering it up to a million small companies like they did with their Maps API. This will happen in both local listings (places/maps api) and social (buzz api) & location (lattitude api). Maps then becomes a platform for more than just directions or listings but a local, social, mobile platform that can be used in creative and unknown ways.

Thus Google can compete with the Facebooks and Twitters directly while their many API users can compete in the many many niches that will evolve.

They followed this model with Maps and now they get more Maps usage via the API than via Maps itself…some of those “niche” players became “real” players ( ie trulia)

Any idea what percentage of the data aggregator’s revenue comes from Google directly or indirectly? Assumming that Google makes their dataset available to the public for free via APIs do you see Yahoo/Bing/Facebook/Yelp/etc willing to use it?

You are right that the aggregators need to plan for this eventuality but I’m not so certain they’ll disappear entirely. There are enough other players in the local space needing data that may not be willing to source from Google regardless of whether the data quality is better.

What are your thoughts on multiple listings. Our law firm has a unique situation where we’ve been in business for 27 years, we currently have 35 offices in 3 different states, we have different consumer phone numbers for each office, we’ve moved certain office locations to new locations in the same area several times, we have several active sites that we drive traffic to, have several active sites that we don’t drive traffic to, and we have a ton of obsolete information that is out there without us controlling it. All the claiming that we’re doing is resulting in having redudant listings for offices and in some instances we really have 4, 5, sometimes 6 different listings with varying titles that all share the same phone number. I can’t think that Google wants all this redundancy. I’m thinking that we should get it down to one listing per office, total, to give us the best chance at placing well in local/places/maps as well as traditional organic with our targeted vague topic searches. I just want to see if my thoughts are correct and if so, what listing should we try to keep? Lets say that the one I currently control comes up on page 3 but there is an unclaimed orphan on page 1 with outdated info. Is it better to update the better placing orphan after claiming it and then delete the first one I possessed, or does it even matter? Also, what if we don’t control the listing, but the listing is indicated as owner-verified? Is there a way to gain control of that listing, even though it’s indicated to already be in control?

I know, I know….short question, but I only ask because it looks like you’d have a good answer for me.

Thank you