Mike Blumenthal

I read the other day in I, Cringely’s Blog that Google had a booth last month at the Online Lenders Association convention in Chicago, a group mostly composed of Payday lenders… you know the ones… they charge ~400% to help poor folks get from one pay check to a smaller one. What Google was doing at …

Last week on 9/23, there were major disruptions to the Places listings in Google Maps with numerous reports of listings not showing, showing the wrong Place, duplicate listings and the QR codes not working. One theory posited on the disruption was that Google was moving Maps to new servers. At the time, Google noted the …

Last October, Google replaced TeleAtlas as their primary geo data provider with their own StreetView data. At the time, they also rolled out the “Report a Problem” link on Maps. The idea was/is that users could help Google keep all of this Map data up to date. Google’s goal at the time was to resolve …

The next GetListed Local University is coming up in Denver and will be held Thursday, October 21 at the Sheraton Denver Tech. Pricing for the event is $129 and with the discount code: MBDenver your cost will only be $89. There will be morning and afternoon events and you may sign up for single tickets …

Update 9:00 PM EST:Google has noted the following in the forums this evening: We’re aware some of the business listings were not appearing on Google Maps earlier today. This was a technical issue that’s now been resolved. Google Maps Experiencing Difficulties – Do not change the channel, I repeat do not change the channel and …

The Lat-Long Blog has announced that Google is now supporting rich snippets as a mechanism for identifying the specific location that a webpage is referring to: From a local search perspective, part of this effort means looking for all the great web pages that reference a particular place. The Internet is teeming with useful information …

Google has just announced on the Lat-Long Blog that images on a Places Page, whether uploaded by the owner or included via Panoramio, are now viewable in a slide show mode. From the Lat-Long blog: Today, we’re offering you a better, more streamlined way to view these photos. With this new feature, you can easily …

Update 9/10: Matt Mcgee reports on Searchengineland that Google has returned the philosophy page back to its original wording and disagrees with the assessment that they are a portal. I would note that regardless of the content of their philosophy page or any denials, if it walks like a duck….. etc. etc. etc., it is …