Google Maps Now Displaying Buildings in 3D
In some major metro areas, Google Maps has quietly begun displaying 3D building wireframes, visible when you’ve zoomed into the more close-up street level views. Here’s the Empire State Building:
[Google 3D Map of Empire State Building]
The 3D building shapes are apparently adopted from Google Earth, indicating further possible convergence may be on the horizon between the related Google projects.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 05/09/2007
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Filed under: Google, Local Search, Maps 3D, 3D-Maps, Google-Maps, Local Search
Superpages Launches New Redesign
I noticed that my old company, Idearc Media, just launched a major new redesign today for their primary web property, Superpages.com:
Read on for a few of my comments about it.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 04/27/2007
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Filed under: Design, Local Search, Yellow Pages idearc, Local Search, superpages, Superpages.com, Yellow Pages
New Columnist for Search Engine Land
I just became a new contributor for Search Engine Land with the publication of my first article today:
“Google Builds Local Map Content in 3D“. As you may recall, Danny Sullivan launched SearchEngineLand.com back in December of last year after stepping down as editor-in-chief for SearchEngineWatch.com which he’d originally founded. I’m contributing work under the Locals Only column that was earlier launched with their correspondent, Greg Sterling. As you may know, Greg Sterling was a former member of the Kelsey Group, and is widely respected as a top authority/commentator/analyst on marketing/business in the local search space.
I was really surprised and flattered to’ve been invited to contribute – I’ve long been a fan and devoted reader of the folx who worked upon SearchEngineWatch.com and now SearchEngineLand.com. I’ve also been a longtime reader of articles by Sterling, along with many others in my company, Idearc Media. I think I’m in really august company, and I know it’s going to challenge me to try to put forward work that’s worthy of appearing under their masthead along with others in the same space.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 03/26/2007
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Filed under: General, Local Search, Reference Material local-search-articles, Search-Engine-Land, searchengineland.com
Could Nanotechnology Save Print Yellow Pages?
Technological evolution continues to change our everyday lives, and the speed of changes over the last two decades has caused an acceleration of impacts to traditional forms of business. Nowhere is this more evident than in the impact to usage of printed yellow pages directories. Once the mainstay for locating businesses, many consumers now treat the books as doorstops or fireplace kindling.
The Yellow Pages Association‘s annual report and other research indicates that consumer usage of print directories is on the decline while usage of online yellow pages and local search are increasing. The main divergence of opinion seems to be in how long it will be before print dies completely – ten years, fifty years, or a century? Simba research indicates that profits of core yellow pages are down while independent publishers are increasing at double-digit rates, indicating that advertisers continue to see value in print YP exposure. Even though the print biz still has lots of money and usage, those who have watched tech trends during the Information Age know that transitions of this sort can often reach a tipping point rapidly, perhaps rendering print YP irrelevant at the closer end of the timeline estimates.
In all the rush to sound the death-knell for print most folks are looking upon it as merely a dinosaur, soon to die as a result of the meteor-strike of internet search technology. But, could there be another future in store for print directories?
I’ve been watching developments in a number of converging lines of technology for a while now, and I foresee another potential fate for the print directories: nanotechnology. Read on and I’ll explain.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 03/20/2007
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Filed under: Futurism, Local Search, Online Directories, Research and Development, Yellow Pages iyp, nanotech, nanotechnology, Online Directories, Online-Yellow-Pages, print-yellow-pages, Yellow Pages
Skype Adds Yellow Pages Tools – Local Search for VOIP
Skype released a new beta version for Windows a few days ago, and it includes a new feature called SkypeFind. SkypeFind allows users to search for businesses, add in new business listings, and edit existing listings. It also allows users to review/comment on businesses, following the trend of other online directory and social media sites.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 02/28/2007
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Filed under: Advertising, Local Search, Online Directories, Yellow Pages Local Search, online-advertising, Skype, voip, Yellow Pages
Tempest in a Local Teacup
Okay, so in the ongoing minor brouhaha sparked from my “Extreme Local Search Optimization Tactics“, Dave Naffziger has posted a rebuttal of my recent post.
Just to clarify, if there was any doubt, and to steer the unwary newbies of search engine optimization from bad practices, I’m posting another follow-up rebuttal of the rebuttal of the rebuttal. Terribly recursive, I know, but bear with me and you might find this entertaining and informative. (more…)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 02/05/2007
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Filed under: Best Practices, Local Search, Local Search Optimization, Yellow Pages black-hat-seo, Local Search, local-search-engine-optimization, local-SEO, Online-Yellow-Pages, SEO
Local Search Mentions in the News
It was cool that Greg Sterling mentioned one of my projects during the last week — IdearcLocal.com (the site was previously known as “VZlocal.com”, prior to our recent divestment from Verizon Corporation):
It’s always gratifying to have one’s work get noticed!
In a less-than-glowing mention of me, David Naffziger, VP of Strategy and BizDev at Judy’s Book, was critical of my recent article on Extreme Local Search Optimization Tactics. He apparently feels that some of these tips could result in “spamming” online directory listings. I beg to differ, of course. (Not to be too pedantic, but his use of the word, “spam”, is inaccurate because spam is the mass-mailing of unsolicited email notes of a commercial nature. My posting had nothing to do with email. Heh!)
Read on for my rebuttal on this and some more local search news.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 02/01/2007
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Filed under: Google, Local Search, Local Search Optimization black-hat-seo, idearc, Local Search
Flickr Adds Geotagging Features
In a move that proves that the people behind flickr are still channeling the Web 2.0 mass conscious, flickr announced this week that they’re adding Geotagging features to their already-robust suite of image management products.
As you may recall, I previously blogged a bit about the rise of geotagging, particularly geotagging of photos, and I had said that it seemed to be a really strong idea with a lot of potential uses. It’s gratifying to see that a service like flickr (and a company like Yahoo!) also believes that it will be strategically beneficial.
The number of people who have been geotagging or who even know about it is likely a relatively low percentage of the online populace, I’d guess (partly for the reason that most people don’t have a GPS device to tell them a location’s longitude and latitude). Now that a top-ranked photo site is supporting it expressly, droves of users will become educated about it, and experiment with it. By doing this, flickr is propelling the trend into the mainstream, increasing the likelihood that it’ll be more widely adopted.
Flickr’s new geotagging utilities were built by mashing-up their image management utilities with Yahoo! Maps, allowing users to drag pix onto a mapped location of where the image was taken in order to associate the photo with the geotag. Also, it appears that users could now use a graphic map as a navigational interface to browse geographic locations and then pull up any publicly-available photos associated with that location. Read on for more info.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 09/01/2006
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Filed under: Content Optimization, Image Optimization, Local Search, Local Search Optimization, Maps, Yahoo flickr, GeoTagging, geotags, image-search, images, Yahoo
Google Maps for Europe & the Rise of GeoTagging
A couple of weeks ago when I was writing the joke article on optimizing roof ads for Google Maps, I happened across this weird satellite picture when browsing the downtown area of my city, Dallas:
(This weird situation of buildings apparently leaning into one another is caused when two or more satellite pictures, each taken at different angles to the buildings, are stitched together. This phenomenon is referred to colloquially as the “Google Escher Effect”.)
I thought it was particularly amusing, so I posted the screen capture to my account on Flickr, and then sent it out to a few friends, and lazily posted it to a number of groups in Flickr that would have an interest in the pic. When researching appropriate related groups in Flickr, I noticed that there are quite a few groups dedicated to “GeoTagging” — this new and rising trend is something that’s got a lot of potential which businesses involved in local search may not be aware of yet, so I thought I’d mention just a few details and ideas on the subject in conjunction with Google Maps expanding their level of detail for European maps.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 04/26/2006
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Filed under: Google, Local Search, Local Search Optimization, Maps GeoTagging, Google, Google-Maps, internet-trends
Google Maps
Geez, I just posted an amalgamation of Google news, then a day later they launch another new service — Google Maps. I can’t seem to keep up with all the cool stuff that Google Labs pumps out. I love the way you can pan around by clicking and dragging with the mouse. Check it out!
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Posted by stephan of stephan on 02/08/2005
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Filed under: Google, Local Search, Maps Google, Google-Maps, Local Search, Maps
