Marissa Mayer demos the iPhone at SES San Jose
At this morning’s keynote conversation between Marissa Mayer (Google’s Vice President, Search Products & User Experience) and conference co-chair Danny Sullivan, when asked some questions about Google’s interests in mobile search and wireless applications, Marissa whipped out her iPhone and showed some features and user-interface aspects that she particularly admired by pulling up Google Maps and Google Voice Local Search service on the phone:
As we recently highlighted Google’s mobile phone development project, they apparently have quite a bit of interest in the mobile space. Obviously, they consider the iPhone to have very good user-interface design, since this very nearly amounted to a product endorsement. From watching this, I’d predict that Google is likely to be in talks with Apple to see if they couldn’t partner with them in some major way in order to get prominent placement through the iPhone platform, or perhaps even to persuade Apple to develop the hardware for the Google phone on their behalf.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 08/22/2007
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Filed under: Google, Local Search, Maps, Mobile Search, News danny-sullivan, Google, Marissa-Mayer, Search-Engine-Strategies-Conference, SES-Conference
Google Maps adds Microformat support to results
I was pleased to see that Google Maps team announced support of the hCard microformat today in map search results. This will make the export of address/contact info easier for users, and pave the way for perhaps greater integration between the map results and other applications. If you have a browser with a Microformat plugin feature, you can easily export listing information for use in Outlook or other applications you may have:
Can we hope that Google’s support of Microformats at the front-end of their application might also indicate that they may eventually support Microformats at the back-end? As you may recall, in local SEO tips I posted last year, I recommended that local business webmasters not just include their business address on their site pages, but to do so in the hCard Microformat. I was probably the first to propose doing this for local search optimization, even though there’s been no overt mention from the search engine representatives that this is necessary or desirable. So, why did I recommend doing that?
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 07/31/2007
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Filed under: Google, Local Search, Maps Google-Maps, microformats
Google Quietly Decommissions Click-to-Call from Maps
Google quietly decommissioned their experimental click-to-call services from Google Maps. Previously, you could use the “call” links beside phone numbers in their search results:
It’d be nice if Google would officially mention when they remove such features from service, even if they were considered experimental. Quite a number of people reported using the feature, and some were even reliant upon it for making things like personal long-distance calls from within companies that didn’t allow employees to do so, or where long distance was actively blocked. Google didn’t announce the change on the Google LatLong Blog where you might expect, but instead stated it in a response to a user’s question in the Troubleshooting section of the Google Maps Help Group:
Of course, the service was introduced free, and no one can ever expect a free ride forever, and perhaps cell phones make click-to-call less attractive to users. Though, I would’ve expected they’d first see if they could get such a service to pay for itself through advertising before throwing it out altogether. For instance, each call could’ve been prepended by a brief audio ad or they could be displaying ads along side the call/maps interfaces while users were connecting through. Perhaps they just had trouble working out call quality issues.
For those users seeking a good voice-over-IP (“VOIP”) solution, I guess they can sign up for Skype.
Update: I see this has also been reported by Grant Robertson at downloadsquad.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 07/20/2007
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Filed under: Google, Maps Click-to-Call, Google-Maps, voip
Google Maps could be chocked full-O-ads
I was glancing at Google Maps of Tokyo when I noticed just how many ads they have running in them! I can see icons for all sorts of chain restaurants for instance, including: McDonald’s, Baskin-Robbins, 7-Eleven, Royal Host, Mini Stop, Taco John’s, Denny’s, KFC, ampm, etc.
Now, we’ve already seen ads in Google Maps here in America, but in a much more limited deployment:
The Tokyo map ads are not clickable like the ads in the states.
What’s really different with the Tokyo map is the density of ads within the maps is much greater, and there seems to be much more variety of companies advertising. I can only see this as the likely future for Google Maps here in the US, too — more ads, from more companies.
UPDATE 3/18/2010: Mike Blumenthal reports on how icon ads have been added to Google Maps in Australia.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 06/20/2007
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Filed under: Google, Local Search, Maps Google-Maps, Google-Maps-Tokyo, Map-Ads, Map-Advertising
Factory Offers Up Rooftop Space for Ads
A company named Kumomo has issued a press release recently, announcing that it will sell rooftop ad space on one of Malaysia’s largest factories. Is this to be the first node in a network of roof billboard advertising space? The ads would be intended to be seen in Google Maps/Earth and via airplanes.
The rooftop ad would be installed by the California company, RoofAds, which specializes in painting logos and art onto the tops of buildings. Although Kumomo’s site and press release are vague about details on the roof in question, after considerable searching of satellite pics in Google Maps I was finally able to locate the location of the building where they’re intending to place the ad. Disconcertingly, the exact place is mostly obscured by clouds in the Google satellite pic, or perhaps it’s the factory’s own smoke:
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 06/06/2007
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Filed under: Advertising, Maps Google-Earth, Google-Maps, Kumomo, Roof-Ads, roof-advertising, Rooftop-Ads, Rooftop-Advertising, Roofvertising, Satellite-Images
“Roofvertising” mentioned in the news
Greg Sterling and I were quoted in a news story in yesterday’s USAToday by Craig Wilson in an article titled “Shout a message from the rooftops to the world“, along with Google Earth’s Chikai Ohazama. The article is about how people are increasingly trying to use Google Maps and other online mapping systems to communicate messages or display ads through them. People place the messages on rooftops or other ground surfaces which may be seen via the satellite pix or aerial photos in those interfaces.
Rooftop Ads or “Roofvertising” is becoming more common
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 06/05/2007
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Filed under: Advertising, Maps, News Advertisements, Advertising, Google-Maps, marriage-proposals, roof-advertising, Rooftop-Ads, Roofvertising, Satellite-Photos
Google Map API to Now Include Ads
InfoWorld reports that at a conference yesterday, Google Maps engineer Andrew Eland announced that Google has integrated its AdSense program with Google Maps so that those using their Maps API and developer tools would be able to derive money off the clickthroughs to the map ads when displayed on their site pages.
Detail – Google Map Ads
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 06/01/2007
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Filed under: Advertising, Google, Local Search, Maps AdSense, Affiliate Marketing, Google, Google-Maps, Map-APIs, Mapping
Google Confirms New Local OneBox Placement in SERPs
I earlier reported that Google SERPs were now showing the “OneBox” containing Google Maps listings embedded throughout the listings in the results pages, not just at the very top any more. Days later, Google has now confirmed this new layout on the new Google LatLong Blog:
You’ve probably heard Google’s big announcement about Universal search. As part of this, when you search for local businesses on Google.com, listings from Google Maps are now blended into the results page. These listings may appear at the top, middle, or bottom of the page based on their relevance compared to the other web results.
Previously we only showed local listings at the top of the results page, and since this was prime real estate, we would not display the listings if we were not certain that you were looking for a local business. Within the Universal search framework, we are now able to more smartly handle ambiguous queries. For example, for the query [san francisco bar] we can now satisfy users who are looking for the website of the Bar Association of San Francisco as well as those looking for a local place to get a drink.
Well, you heard it here, first! 😉
I’ll probably circle back around and comment about Google’s new “Universal Search” later on.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 05/20/2007
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Filed under: Google, Local Search, Maps Google-LatLong, Google-Maps, Local Search, Universal-Search
New Layout for Google Local Search Onebox Results
Chris Sherman earlier reported that Google was to begin displaying their OneBox content for news anywhere within the search results page, not just at the top of the organic results as they have been for some time. I’ve just in the last few days run across instances where the OneBox for local keyword searches has been appearing lower down in the page. Check it out:
This was a search for “San Antonio Sea World”. Read on for another example and comments.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 05/14/2007
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Filed under: Google, Local Search, Maps Google-Maps, Local Search, SERP-Layout, User-Interface
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
