Mike Blumenthal

It’s hard getting any review but it’s particularly hard getting Yelp reviews. They filter many, many more than make it through. I have seen filtering rates as hight as 85% of first time reviewers. Unless the reviewer has either lots of Yelp friends or lots of Yelp reviews, their reviews will be nuked. Yelp, of …

@mblumenthal @serenasaitto I don’t really get why it upsets people. No one is forcing them to pay extra & @Uber is not a monopoly. — Mike Okhravi (@mikeokhravi) December 18, 2014 I have been thinking about this question a lot since receiving the above tweet. Users do have a choice to either use or not …

Google announced today that as of February 16, the City Experts program that encouraged G+ users to become active reviewers will be upgraded and now called Local Guides. The new Local Guides program implements a multi level approach with benefits accruing based on the total number of reviews written. There is even a code of …

I had several “retail” interactions over the past few weeks that rubbed me the wrong way. I went to rent a car from Enterprise, the only car rental in Olean, for about the 10th time this year. Other than knowing my name, they treated me like a new customer, signing all the forms, holding a …

Both Local U and Moz are dedicated to providing great information for professionals. LocalUp Advanced, our first joint effort, is bringing together some of the most knowledgable folks in local for what promises to be the best local conference of the year. We have all of the Local U folks (Aaron Weiche, David Mihm, Mike …

Update: Barry reports that it is still rolling out to all English speaking countries except India (thus Indian tech support will not see what you see.) After a week of rumors and spottings, Google has confirmed that Pigeon has rolled out across UK, Canada and Australia. What to expect for those of you in those …

Yahoo sees fit to send me a Christmas card. My Christmas message to Yahoo: Save the Bandwidth and FIX YOUR PRODUCT. There was a post in the Local U Forum the other day pleading for help with dupes at Yahoo. Here was Nyagoslav’s response: “There is currently no way to remove duplicate listings on Yahoo! …

Reuters has an exclusive report that Google’s next version of Anroid will be car ready for use without a phone. “Allowing drivers to enjoy all the benefits of the Internet without even plugging in their smartphones“. I have a hard time seeing this happening.  For a number of reasons. Cars, like the iPhone, are integrated …

Google has long been the top dog in local search. Along the way they bested IYPs, Driving Direction sites and Mapping companies. Google left more than a few, like CitySearch and Yahoo Local, among the walking dead and severely limited the growth options for the likes of  the Groupons and Navteqs of the world. They have …

Brian Pasch of Mastering Automotive Digital Marketing noted that Google will be rolling out a new mobile ad type for auto dealers in January. Initially it will be available in limited markets with a limited set of keywords. It is a mobile only ad format will not display on the desktop. The Dealership Listing Ads (DLA) ads, …