Mike Blumenthal

Update: Over the weekend many of these “A Google User Reviews” were removed from the corpus as well as the count. I just got this email from my favorite pet client, Barbara Oliver. She watches her reviews like a hawk and is very protective of them: I noticed today that I have 139 google reviews …

At the LSA 18 Conference in Chicago (at friggin’ 8 am*) Anita Yuen, from the Google My Business team, announced new features focusing on the small(ish) and bigger agency market. “GMB now delivers a tailored experience for agencies and platform partners”. 3 Key investments Updated API – coming Messaging API Improved Search APIs across location …

Yesterday at Streetlight Magazine during David Mihm’s and my conversation he noted: You’ve been banging the drum for the last 12-18 months that for most businesses, Google Is the New Homepage. The reality is most customers are coming into your business digitally with Google as the front door. But it feels like with all the new …

This was mentioned on twitter several weeks ago and reported on in France about a month ago (h/t Sergey Alakov). I missed the memo.  Google is now supporting restaurant reservations with the Book with Google Feature in the GMB. When initially introduced in October, it supported 12 booking programs across a range of verticals. OpenTable …

I have been looking at and thinking about Google Q & A great deal since its introduction. The feature reminds me of the movie, Dr. Strangelove and it’s subtitle: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Q & A is a lot like that. For those of you with many locations it’s …

Google has formally announced the availability of the new GMB feature to add a Service Menu to the local Knowledge Panel. It has recently been reported by  both Kevin Getch and Phil Rozek as visible in their client dashboards. From the announcement: Back in January we launched a new Menu editor for the food service industry. …

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GetFiveStars: Google Write a Review Link Generator – Free Chrome Extension Sometimes big things come in very small packages. Easily being able to generate the Google Write a Review link for service area businesses has not been readily available. This Chrome extension will do that in 0 seconds flat. LocalU Deep Dive: Interview with Cindy Krum – …

There was an interesting article on CBC Canada this past week and it  encapsulates the range of problems that Google has not yet confronted in the review space- including but not limited to buying reviews, negative SEO reviews, review pile ons etc etc etc.: Kensington Market restaurant inundated with hundreds of 5-star reviews accused of buying …

Phillip Barnhart of Nehmedia just noted on Google+ that Google Posts is testing the use of video as a media type within a Post. The Knowledge Panel for  Moments from the Heart Photography Cedar Park Tx shows the video in an actual post. I am a big fan of Google Posts as a tool for the …