Mike Blumenthal

I have been enjoying my work at GetFiveStars. What is most enjoyable is the constant effort to upgrade our feedback and review platform to better serve businesses. The most recent effort on that front has been our new integration with QuickBooks Online via Zapier. Imagine all of the power of GetFiveStars happening automagically from within …

When Google ripped  Local out of Google Plus last summer and stopped linking to Plus, they noted that the unverified Plus pages (what Google called “shell” pages) would be removed. That never seemed to happen but it might just be starting now. Removing the Plus Pages must have been a difficult process with a few too many dependencies and those …

Our Local U Advanced is rapidly approaching. We still have seats left if you are a last minute type. To sign up visit our Eventbrite page. With David Mihm, Mary Bowling, myself as well as Andrew Shotland, Google, Joy Hawkins and the rest of the Local U gang it promises to be a great event. …

With the release of V2 of the Google My Business API, Google simultaneously released categories for each of the 135 countries currently supported by the GMB. I noted it at the time but it was lost in the article but I wanted to be sure that folks so these categories and downloaded them if they needed …

Imagine a world where multi location business no longer have to continually mess with the Google My Business bulk dashboard and could have a direct feed of their critical location data to the Knowledge Panel via their website with schema markup.  Apparently that world is right around the corner. Rohan Ayyar of E2M pointed out on …

CNBC is reporting that “as of today, homeowners searching for contractors on Google will be shown results that are “HomeAdvisor screened and approved” and come with profiles, price estimates and the ability to “book now” or schedule an appointment to compare estimates for work”. This appears to be a new ad format although as of …

Google My Business List (aka GMBL, Bulk) has not seen this many upgrades in a quarter since the financial meltdown in 2008. Google rolled out last night a small but helpful upgrade that allows businesses to  set different hours for different days both en masse and on a daily date basis. The feature rolled out …

I am a student of local. I read Google patents, I study legal documents. And I am reasonably a good speller. That doesn’t mean that I can spell Acxiom’s name correctly very often. Nor can I pronounce it. It is one of those corporate branding exercises that must have looked great on paper but never …

Google, with the release of the new Google My Business API, is perhaps suggesting one of the biggest “best practice” shifts for handling SMB Google My Business accounts in years by suggesting that it is not only ok but preferred to claim multiple listings in a single Google My Business account. Yesterday in the Google Ads …

Many (myself included) who use both Apple Maps and Google Maps contend that Apple Maps has gotten good enough that it is simply a matter of preference not functionality as to which one to use. The one area though where Apple had a distinct advantage was in the Watch integration of Apple Maps. It is …