Mike Blumenthal

How do you know that you have been looking at Maps too long? When you wake up one morning fire up your screen, head on over to Maps and you notice that something just doesn’t feel right. Well sometime just before falling off to sleep it came to me, the logo was new. Not exactly …

I have always found StreetView very cool but very frustrating due to the infinite time spent navigating the view. Google has introduced an upgrade that now makes it much more usable. From the Lat-Long Blog announcing the upgrade: Today, we are really excited to introduce a new mode of navigation which liberates you from the …

Google has apparently introduced a new service – a Google Whitelist Feeds Beta that allows for information from trusted bulk feeds to be automatically verified. I had been hearing about a Local Business Center data feed that offered whitelisting and automatic verification from several sources. I have been unable to get confirmation from Google that the service …

Recently David Mihm had a very insightful piece on problems with Google Maps, quality, security, complexity and the LBC. One of his criticisms revolved around the phone verification process. He noted: As if the verification process weren’t cumbersome enough, the exact “flow” of Google’s automated phone message leaves many business owners thinking “What do I do …

GigaOm analyzes the O3D browser plug-in that Google introduced last month that displays rich 3D graphics. It portends a day in the not too distant future when the browser by default, handles the complexities of a 3D geo environment with ease and speed. It points towards a rich mapping environment where Google Maps takes on the sophistication of Google …

There was a fair bit of comment about small business naming practices for the internet in general and Google Maps in particular after the recent upgrade to their listing guidelines. The discussion revolved around the ambiguity that exists in the naming practices in small businesses and how that should best be projected into Maps to …

Here is the official Google announcement of the new LBC Dashboard reproduced in its entirety:  New feature will provide businesses with new visibility into the ways their local listings are found on Google, enabling them to make smarter decisions about attracting customers Today Google is launching a new dashboard feature in the Google Local Business …

Update: Poll closes in 3 Hours. Please provide your input. Google recently revamped their Business Listing Guidelines and has provided much more detail about what is acceptable practice in listing a business on Google Maps. Despite their efforts to formalize what is spammy and what isn’t, the discussion in the comment section of the announcement …

Google is formally announcing their data rich Desktop for the LBC this morning. The new LBC view has been visible to a growing number of LBC users over the past week and should be visible to all US listings by Tuesday afternoon. I had some questions about the product and its focus which Carter Maslan, Director …