From the jotpsot.com press release:

We’re writing to let you know that Google has acquired JotSpot. We believe this is great news for our users. More importantly, we want to reassure you that you’ll continue to have uninterrupted access to your account. Both Google and JotSpot are committed to supporting our customers, and we understand that users have invested a lot in our products. In the near-term, we’re focused on migrating JotSpot to Google’s systems and datacenters. We’ll work hard to make that move as seamless as possible so that customers won’t be inconvenienced.

Why is Google acquiring JotSpot?

Google shares JotSpot’s vision for helping people collaborate, share and work together online. JotSpot’s team and technology are a strong fit with existing Google products like Google Docs & Spreadsheets and Google Groups.

Certainly this acquisition makes sense to round out Googles on line application suite and should really elevate Wiki technology into the main stream. This is one more tool that can help small businesses function on the internet. You can read the details here.

Greg Sterling found an ad today for 877-520-FIND that took him to http://www.520find.com/. He looked for but couldn’t find any ownership information. Other than a reference to LanLogic on the terms of use page.

While the facts of ownership may be cloudy, there are several things that are clear:

1)The service works very well. I tested it with 7 calls this morning and only ran into problems on one business name (and no place names) out of the seven attempts and that was the try with the radio blaring. I have started using it instead of my contact directory which can be distracting when driving down the road.

2)It definitely uses the Google Maps local data set. I have optimized the business titles for several local businesses in the Google Local Business Center and those titles are listed in 520-FIND verbatim.

If you haven’t tried the service yet, you should. It demonstrates how local data is quickly being pushed out into the world.

Curiouser and curiouser as they say.

In a recent search in Google, the organic search results showed a link to the same search on Google Maps.

This is an interesting way for Google to promote users accessing Google Maps but I have not seen this behavior very broadly. In fact I have never seen if before today and I have yet to find it on other search phrases. Continue reading Google Organic returning results from Map in organic search results page? →

About a month and half a go I spotted a trend that is interesting: The top three local listings on the Google Organic results page and the top three listings in Google Map are often not the same.

This has implications for both optimization strategies for Google Organic AND going forward for the directory assistance service that Google is testing. For the present, getting into the top three on the main results page or achieving a “onebox” result on that page is all that matters. There is little traffic coming from Google Maps and less yet from the yet unclaimed directory assistance.

It appears that the two pages calculate authority of listings using different algorithms. Continue reading Google Organic Local and Google Maps Local data diverge →

Google’s voice driven directory assistance has removed the 877-GOOG-411 number and now automatically forwards any calls to that number to: 877-520-FIND.

It is interesting that Google has not publicly acknowledged that the experiment is theirs and that the phone number has been changed to further distance themselves. Perhaps they didn’t want to seem like they weren’t focusing around the time of their quarterly analyst meetings. Although this clearly is a focused extension of their search capability. Pushing search out to the cell networks is clearly a way to dramatically increase their reach.

It is not difficult to see how this could be monetized and perhaps it already is being monetized.

1-Make this a generic service that the cell companies could use (remove Goog(le) from the number)

2-Share local ad revenue with the cell companies.

Currently there is not a lot of PPC advertising in the Google Maps section although the number is growing. But Google has partnered with Verizon to sell PPC, Verizon is spinning off their on-line SuperPages and it appears that local listings with local ads recieve a higher listing in the directory. So not only is Google beginning the monetiztion of directory assistance they are certainly planning more.

In early October I wrote a post about achieving a “an automatically expanded Plus Box” for a client on a valued search phrase (Vacation Rentals Ellicottville NY) BUT having the url Google had associated with the listing pointing to their competitor. After postulating conspiracies and incompetancies on the part of all but myself I determined that I had neglected to enter the client’s URL in the Local Business Center and Google, in its best guess, had made a not so harmless assumption.

I immediately attempted to fix the problem by:

-Correction the local listing in the Local Business Center

– Submitting to Google on their Dissatisfied? Help us improve link.

I didn’t report the aberation to the client preferring the wait and see chicken approach. From experience I knew that local updates might take 2 to 3 months which would have meant that the client would have missed the bulk of her rental season sending visitors to her competitor site. Fortunately, yesterday (and perhaps sooner) Google rectified my mistake and their best guess and associated the listing with the correct url. It took something less than 3 weeks. Continue reading Redemption in the Gilded Google Age →

Greg Sterling highlighted some interesting comments. I was intrigued by the comment from an analyst: I know you were doing some testing with some retailers, putting their names in the bullets on the Maps and things. Can you talk about that at all?

It appears that one of the means of monetization is a strong relationship with national companies. This seems particularly true with the restaurants. The result is that you will frequently find chains at the top of the local list. I hope to investigate this phenomenon.

The full transcript is available here  (again thanks to Greg).

Of interest from Larry Page: This quarter, we partnered with Intuit to make AdWords Starter Edition Maps and Base easily available to Intuit’s millions of QuickBooks users. We wanted to make it easier for them to advertise and find customers online, as well as make their information and products and services available on the Internet. We also launched coupons on Google Maps, and we hope it will be an appealing genre for our smaller and mid-sized advertisers. We teamed up with Valpak to provide coupons from current Valpak advertisers.

Over half of local businesses don’t have websites yet, based on the estimates we see and our local business center helps those businesses easily create a web presence so they can advertise online.

7)Using Google adwords in the local listing

In a previous post about ranking well in Google Maps I listed 6 items that seemed to affect ranking. It seems that there may be a seventh. Although the sample size is limited, there is some evidence that having an adword campaign running in Google Maps adds authority to a local listing. The “authority” may lead to the Google “Onebox” (the phrase referring to the inclusion of a map, local information and a weblink) listing in a broader range of circumstances.

When initially available, the “onebox” would usually appear with a search of “business name + local modifier”. However recently I have seen behavior where the “onebox” is now appearing with a more general search of “business activity + local modifier”.

Using the search phrase “Web Hosting Olean NY” returns the “onebox” listing. With the search “Computer Olean NY” it returns a “onebox” as well. As you can see from the example, the authoritative listing is given page dominance on the organic results page and includes significant additional information beyond either a typical organic listing or a typical local listing.

Why is this important? Obviously achieving a #1 ranking on Google is always nice. But this listing goes well beyond that. It provides the local customer with a phone number, full address, a map AND a link to our site.

But for the first time local search phrases have showed up in our logs. Local search has not generated much web traffic previously. Certainly if Googles new “Vocal Local” (see previous post) takes off then it could provide significant phone traffic.

While a listing like this is of little use in many industries there are some in our local market that receive significant searches on “service + location” searches. “Restaurants”, “Jobs” and “Hotels” are frequently used with our local modifier and in those industries a listing like this would provide significant web and phone traffic.

Now to the more difficult question of why and how…. Continue reading The Google “Onebox” on general search phrases →