Mike Blumenthal

Augmented reality (via Greg Sterling) is moving from the area of research and into reality. Layar is releasing an augmented reality browser. From their web site: The World’s First Augmented Reality Browser. Layar is a free application on your mobile phone which shows you what is around you by displaying real time digital information on …

The Google Local Business Center has a number of limits that it imposes on mere mortals and small business people. For example you can only legitimately have 5 categories. Another is that the description of your business can only contain 200 characters (about 30 words). One then has to marvel at the craftiness of the …

When I have time on my hands I ponder the big questions in life. A recent one that popped to mind was whether Google Maps business listings for Mountain View were more spam free than elsewhere. Do the folks at Google do a ground check to see if reality and Maps are at all in …

Sometimes when you get in a car, you are struck by the convenience and utility. You just know that the engineer that designed not just is a good engieer but that she/he loves cars and thinks about how they should be used. Last week, Mapquest showed me the just released MapQuest 4 Mobile for iPhone …

SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday – SEO for Local Search from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.

Yesterday Google announced at the GoogleBase blog that they’ve “begun experimenting with exposing store locations in Google Product Search…. We think this will help users find nearby store locations, and help merchants get foot traffic into their stores” (thanks to Peter Wyspianski for pointing this out). Google is inviting existing GoogleBase users to submit their local business locations …

I was curious to get an overview of dashboard information to understand both the value of Google’s new Local Business Center Dashboard and to attempt to quantify the value of a Local Universal search placement. I have summarzied impressions, actions and the details of actions for 31 of the Dashboards that I have access to. …

Today in the announcement section of the Google Help forums Google has published a simplified view of where their business listing information comes from. The details as to how this actually functions were covered by Bill Slawsky in his review of the patent, Generating structured information, filed in early 2006.  In the recent announcement Google notes …

The two Davids, among others, have been encouraging me to join the Twitter community and I have done so, with some trepidation, under the user name @mblumenthal. Who do you follow in the Local space and why? What kinds of information do you find most valuable? **** Margaret Shulock publishes her comics individually and as …

Google recently revised their listing guidelines for Maps. They specifically added several sections on appropriate category use. Why? Well because while you and I are stressing over the details like legitimate business naming practices to comply with the guidelines, the spammers long ago went after the long tail of category search very aggressively to maximize …