Mike Blumenthal

In Goog-411 rolls out bill boards in the hinterlands? I noted that Google had chosen some extremely rural settings for their billboard placements. Just how rural you are asking? Well….on my way into work today my path was blocked by this rafter ( or a gang if you prefer) of turkeys (for some more photos …

The recent purchase of NavTeq by Nokia has the potential to have incredible impact in the mobile and internet map worlds. The implications go beyond technology into social and political issues. Minimally the technology will give the largest cell phone manufacture dramatically increased technology in the mapping arena. Maps are the logical future of local …

At the Google Lat-Long Blog Google has announced a satellite image upgrade that will appear in Maps shortly. Today we’ve published a significant amount of new or updated 60cm satellite imagery for Google Earth, with the Google Maps update to follow shortly. Much of this imagery is concentrated in the U.S., Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, …

Nokia to buy Navteq for $8.1 billion in push to expand services, compete with Apple Nokia’s President and Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said “location-based services are one of the cornerstones of Nokia’s Internet services strategy. The acquisition of Navteq is another step toward Nokia becoming a leading player in this space.” Kallasvuo added that by …

Mobile Phone Web Users Nearly Equal PC Based Internet Users in Japan 53.6 Million Japanese Use Mobile Phones to Access the Internet – Email is the Most Popular Mobile Web Activity Other tidbits: •Interstingly 51% do Search/Navigation. •Time spent web browsing on mobile phones is still much lower than that spent on desktop PC’s. Internet …

At SES and again at the Tech40Crunch conference Marissa Meyers was quoted as saying that the iPhone has led to a continued surge in Google Maps usage. One could obviously infer from this that (no duh!) a well designed piece of mobile hardware, that is easy to use and has well integrated, pre-installed access to …

I drive 8 miles to work along NYS Route 16, down the hill known as Rock City, and past some incrediblly picturesque scenes as I head to my office in downtown Olean. The drive is rural and while Olean is called a city, it is a small (and getting smaller) rustbelt town of 15,000. It …

The many posters from around the world at the Google Maps for Business Group will have reason to rejoice today as Google has announced at the Google Lat-Long blog that Google Maps has dramatically increased world wide coverage. You can now see where McDonald’s are in Costa Rica. From the Google Lat-Long blog: Today we …

In a recent post, The Google Operating System Blog points out that Google SMS Adds Location-Based Personalization to your text queries of its local business database by sending a SMS to Google that contains the command: set location [city, zip code, address] In recent trip to NYC with my family over labor day weekend I …