Mike Blumenthal

On August 8th, this post (and several just like it) appeared in the Help Forums: Hi I am on Google maps and i was aghast to see that the north eastern state Arunachal Pradesh is projected as not part of India!! Infact, the names are being shown in Chinese. This is blatant violation of India’s …

I recently received two of the email newsletters from the Local Business Center that Google announced several days ago. The first was titled Update from your Google Local Business Center Account The Latest from your Google Local Business Center Account and included the newsletter plus the following July stats from one of the many businesses in my …

The new stats in the Local Business Center leave a bit to be desired. Apparently though they are better than no stats as many outside the US, which have not yet been upgraded to the data rich dashboard, are reporting that what few stats they had are no longer showing and have been at best …

I have been seeing this adword listing on the search Google Maps Help over the past week. I am no AdWords expert but in Maps, there is no way to use the word Google in a business listing even if you are using a Google Site as your home page. Your listing will be flagged …

Update 8/12/09 4:50 PM: I just received the newsletter in my mailbox. Just one showed up, but no stats just yet. Ok its 5:06 and I just received a second email with a different subject but the same newsletter but now including an overview of stats for one of the listings in the LBC. In …

Today around noon, Google, as part of a change across all of their forums, has upgraded the Map’s Help forums. The goal of the change is to make the system as descriptive as possible to avoid duplicate questions. For a frequent forum visitor it dramatically slows down getting an overarching view of the activity and …

Can a Canadian business that is required by law, post two listings in the LBC? One in French and one in English? Can a Lawyer that services both English and Spanish clientele from a San Diego office have a listing in both languages? Can an English guest house that services European clients have a listing …

In early June, reports surfaced of a new beta program that allows a Local Business Center account’s bulk uploads to be whitelisted after approval by Google. Google has confirmed this program and estimates that it will be live in the Local Business Center in several months. Here a correspondence from last week with Carter Maslan, …

Google has scheduled two more rounds of downtime for the Local Business Center: Wednesday 8/5, 12-1pm PDT Monday 8/10, 10-11am PDT

If you grew up in the American school system like I did, you always wanted to know: How do I get a 100? Ever since Google introduced the Data Rich Dashboard in early June, this has been a frequent question on the minds of all that have frequented the Local Business Center and filled out …