Mike Blumenthal

Goog-411, Google’s voice driven 411 directory assistance that uses the same business listings and rankings as Google Maps, has recently been upgraded to only require a single business + city search phrase. This upgrade mirrors the late  July blue line upgrade to Maps that moved Maps from a two field entry (one each for business …

The community edit hijackings started in the Payday Loan industries to create location confusion, moved onto theft in the floral industries, were highlighted with a bit of pranksterism with the Microsoft Escort example and subsequently moved into the consumer complaint arena. As Ben Allen noted in his blog: You Deserve a Rake Today at Ickdonalds. …

Google has roled out two new Maps transit trip instructional videos: For new users: As we are having more and more new Maps users and new forum members everyday, we customized an Introductory Maps video for people who has just about started to use Google Maps yet not very familiar with all kinds of great …

Google Maps, since my Microsoft hijacking, has taken on a whole new role; consumer advocate and complaint department against major national firms. Google’s community edit feature is allowing the “community” (aka disgruntled consumers) to speak out in ways that were not anticipated when the feature was released. I was browsing Maps when I found this …

Sometimes Google Maps just gets it wrong. It is a large and complex system where a single switched byte makes all the difference.  For whatever reason if you do a search on Pregnancy Testing Wellsville , it wants to send you off to Amsterdam NY for your appointment, 265 miles away. While Wellsvile is rural, it …

Google responded via the comment section to the Microsoft Hijacking: **** (cross-posted to Danny Sullivan at http://searchengineland.com/google-local-business-hijacking-microsoft-acquires-yahoo-becomes-escort-service-15313.php) Hi Mike, We appreciate your continued efforts to help us identify spam on Google Maps. The wiki nature of Google Maps expands upon Google’s steadfast commitment to open community. That said, we also work very hard internally to …

I have often noted in the past how managing a business listing has gone from expensive to free but from simple to complicated. It used to be a simple matter of paying the Yellowpage salesman to correct this or change that. But now the path to getting it corrected is much, much more complicated.  I …