Webware

Google is turning its sights squarely on the local ad market, with plans to promote its local business listings in storefronts around the U.S.

Stickers bearing Google's logo and a QR code have been distributed to 100,000 of the most popular businesses in Google's Local Business Center database, and starting this week consumers will be able to use code-scanning applications on modern phones to look up the Google listing for that particular restaurant, store, or dry cleaner. The stickers will be prominently displayed in store windows of participating businesses, and represent a shot across the bow of companies like Yelp which offer similar branded services.

Google's Local Business Center allows pizza joints and dress boutiques to place listings on Google Maps with basic information such as hours and location and also get access to data about how Web searchers are hitting their profile, such as the ZIP code from which searches originate, said Michaela Prescott, head of geomarketing at Google. Over 1 million businesses in the U.S. have listed themselves with Google, she said.

Much has been made of Google's interest in courting the big-name advertisers of the corporate world, but the company is also very interested in the mom-and-pop stores of the world, which fit nicely into its strategy of delivering targeted advertising to specific niches. Later this week, Google plans to hold an event in San Francisco for small business owners in hopes of educating them about the services that are available on Google.

The company analyzed which local listings were generating the most activity, and declared those to be "Favorite Places on Google," and therefore eligible for the sticker promotion. Shoppers who happen by the store can scan the sticker to bring up the business' Place Page with listing information as well as reviews, photos, and links to sites with more information about the business.

Prescott said those links will include reviews hosted by Yelp, perhaps the most well-known local listing, and reviews on the Internet. Yelp also distributes window decals to local businesses that reassure visitors that "People love us on Yelp!" (whether that's true) in hopes to promoting the site as the place to look for local reviews. Updated 8:45 a.m. - A Google representative later clarified that while several review sites will be aggregated, Yelp is not one of them.

Google has taken the concept a step further, however, in the use of the QR codes to link to the Place Pages. Owners of smartphones with a camera (Google specifically said that iPhone, Android, and most BlackBerry owners would be supported, but others may work as well) and QR code scanning applications will be able to launch this information in their phone's browser.

So why is Google getting into the decal business? "I think it comes down to (the fact that) mobile is fundamentally different; it is about connecting the person to the physical place," Prescott said.

Obviously, lots of people search for local information on Google, but this program gives Google a way to capture eyeballs that aren't sitting in front of a desktop or laptop PC, promoting its mobile sites and therefore driving additional traffic to ad-supported sites. Expanding its local presence also allows Google to sell even-more targeted ads to other companies, since they know they'll be advertising to people in a position to take advantage of their services.

Google has been ramping up its local presence for quite some time, but seems to be experimenting with different strategies these days. It recently suspended a trial of a program called "Local Listing Ads," which was designed as a simple entry into Google that didn't require the business to manage a regular AdWords campaign.

And it also recently introduced a service that lets businesses put coupons in the Local Business Center that smartphone owners can redeem from the screen of their device, rather than having to clip them out of a newspaper circular.

Microsoft engineers should get a pat on the back from the suits at Microsoft HQ (shown here): Bing Maps Beta is cool.

(Credit: Screenshot by Tom Krazit/CNET)

SAN FRANCISCO--Microsoft's Bing took a major step forward Wednesday in adding rich mapping and image data to its search engine, but until it assembles more data, pretty pictures aren't enough to beat the Google Maps juggernaut.

Bing Maps Beta was released during a presentation at Microsoft's offices here. It's a Silverlight-based application that runs inside Bing Maps and adds Microsoft's version of Google Street View--called Streetside--to Bing Maps, as well as enhanced "bird's eye" images that let you swoop over cities.

I spent some quality time Wednesday afternoon with the new Bing Maps Beta, zooming through the streets of San Francisco and New York and testing out various searches. The best part about Bing Maps Beta--by far--are the rich transitions between high-resolution street-level or bird's-eye view photos as you move around a city, making it feel like you're actually driving down the road.

Microsoft's Streetside cameras have yet to make it down Amphitheater Parkway to Google's headquarters, and still haven't mapped an awfully large portion of the San Francisco Bay Area, not to mention the heartland.

(Credit: Screenshot by Tom Krazit/CNET)

Unfortunately, that's also the worst part; you'll have to download Microsoft Silverlight to make the rich imagery come alive (although you can still use Bing Maps without it), and 10 minutes of poking around with the application put a noticeable drain on system resources. If I left the window open, but didn't do anything in Bing Maps, my activity monitor dropped back to a moderate pace, only to max out again once I started playing with the Streetside feature or scrolling around a map.

But what Microsoft has assembled is impressive. The images are high-quality, and the location fixes are quite precise. The bird's-eye views have been improved with more perspective on roads hidden by buildings and name prominent buildings right on the map.

Scrolling around a city in bird's-eye view also allows you to view geotagged picture galleries created with Microsoft Photosynth. Click the little blue Streetside man (Google's little Street View man is orange) to choose between Streetside or Photosynth views, and if you click on a green icon in a given location, you are presented with photo galleries shot of the location. You can check out exhibits in museums such as New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, for example, zooming into the building from the bird's-eye view.

Clicking on one of the green icons surrounding the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will bring up Microsoft Photosynth galleries of exhibits and the terrain around the building.

(Credit: Screenshot by Tom Krazit/CNET)

Microsoft is launching Bing Maps Beta with Streetside coverage of about 100 metropolitan areas in the U.S., but it's really only useful for traveling or searching medium-size cities or larger; suburban data is quite light. And even within cities such as San Francisco, Streetside is limited to essentially the downtown areas. Microsoft representatives said Wednesday they plan to add more data as soon as possible, but it could take quite a while.

A more generic search for a city or town such as San Francisco within Bing Maps Beta brings up a Wikipedia article on the city, weather information, and links to Photosynth galleries on the left hand side of the page alongside a map of the area. Clicking on "more details" brings up links to more photos, local news and "popular landmarks," although Microsoft should probably rethink the listing of the Port of Oakland as a popular San Francisco landmark.

Search for a specific address, such as CNET's downtown San Francisco office on 2nd Street, and Bing Maps Beta provides helpful icons to bars, restaurants, gas stations, and other locations within a given radius when you click on the "What's Nearby" icon.

It's pretty easy to get directions between two given locations, such as Microsoft Research's Mountain View, Calif., labs and CNET's downtown San Francisco headquarters. Bing lacks Google Maps' nice addition of Street View photos of each turn--since it doesn't have nearly that much data--but makes up a little bit of the gap with a helpful "if you reach X street, you've gone too far" reminder at the end of the journey and also listing prominent landmarks at certain turns.

Bing Maps Beta had plenty of suggestions for things to do around CNET's downtown San Francisco offices, but I had to zoom in very far to find my favorite bar. Maybe that's a good thing.

(Credit: Screenshot by Tom Krazit/CNET)

Microsoft has an awfully long way to go before it can duplicate the reams of Street View data that Google has assembled, as seen with its directions feature. Its rival certainly noticed Microsoft's announcement Wednesday, putting out a blog post of its own highlighting the fact that it has added Street View images of Sea World and second-rate New England learning institution Boston University. (Go Eagles)

At the moment, Google Maps has Bing beat when it comes to speed and comprehensive data. In addition, Google also surfaces some of the same helpful data, such as photo galleries and even videos.

Bing, however, offers a much richer look at the world. It does this at the expense of performance, but it presents a credible alternative to Google Maps for travelers and residents of major cities.

(Credit: Google)

Before Wednesday, you could star a map as a favorite on Google Maps online, and you could star one on Google Maps for Mobile, but you could never connect the two.

A small but significant update that Google added to Google Maps for Mobile 3.3 now syncs your starred locations between the map app on your Symbian and Windows phones, and your online account.

To start your syncing, press Menu and then Starred Items. You'll need to log into your account from the Starred Items screen to start syncing favorite maps. If you're upgrading from a previous version of the maps app, you'll be asked if you'd like to sync your favorites. Say yes.

Then, you're able to mark your favorite places in one location and have it surface in the other, as long as you remain logged in. This type of syncing is ideal for quickly locating that dinner spot you're headed to, or for pulling up driving directions to or from a starred location. Sure, it might make you lazy, but it'll also keep you from wasting precious time first looking up a location and then seeking directions or a phone number.

You can download Google Maps for Mobile by pointing your mobile browser to m.google.com/maps.

Wikipedia killed the encyclopedia business, in print and online, as it's hard to make a revenue model work that involves paying people to create content when there are hordes of enthusiastic experts around the world willing to do the job for free. The business of mapping may be similarly doomed, as indicated by PublicEarth, a new wiki-style database of places launching Monday, and by the continued improvement in authoring tools at the crowdsourced mapping service OpenStreetMap.

PublicEarth

PublicEarth is an open database of places. Michael Rubin, who was an architect of Netflix, wanted to bring the same "element of delight" of connecting people to things they enjoy. Netflix did it for movies, and Public Earth is doing it for locations.

As with other crowdsourced place databases, anyone can insert a location. And as with most of the other products, PublicEarth uses Google base maps. The difference in PublicEarth is in the execution: It's slick, in a good way. For map users, PublicEarth lets you quickly find categories of locations -- romantic, kid-friendly, historic, for campers, etc. -- for places you are going. When you're looking at a map of places, you can get a lot of data by just rolling your mouse over hot spots, without clicking. "We learned how expensive a click is," Rubin says.

PublicEarth is a good system for a crowdsourced database of places.

(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)

The system will have a recommendation engine that learns what you like. So if you've been using the system and then head to a new town you can just see the "recommended for you" locations.

The real value to PublicEarth is that it can find places that aren't, as they say, on the map. It's very easy for users to create a point of interest, draw a boundary line around a park, or trace a route to walk or hike. If enough people get into this system it could be a great resource for travelers. Which is the business model.

The PublicEarth team wants to make this service the go-to database of unusual places, and to partner with standard booking sites like Hotels.com, OpenTable, and travel solutions like TripIt. Getting traffic from those sites will get people into the system, and then sending booking and ticket traffic out to venues will generate revenue.

PublicEarth is also being marketed to activity groups like RV and sports clubs, parents groups, birdwatchers, and so on. It can be used by social networks to collect and collate locations aimed at specific interests, which can help people with those interests when they visit a new region.

Of course, success hinges on contributions, and it's not easy to create a user-maintained location database that sticks. There's also competition: Wikimapia and Yelp come to mind. But if PublicEarth can affiliate with other travel resources it could work out. It is a very strong product. It has the potential to compete with the guidebook market.

OpenStreetMap

PublicEarth is an open database of items on top of a map. OpenStreetMap is a crowdsourced map itself. The project was started before Google Maps came on to the scene, and while the search juggernaut's global road map is certainly more popular, there's a lot to be said for the OpenStreetMap approach. The fact that anyone with an interest in an area can create, correct, or update a map means you can get a lot of very specific data onto the map, created by people with very specific, nearly microscopic, knowledge of their regions.

And since the OpenStreetMap data itself is open, developers can do anything they wish with it. With a commercial map like Google's you have to push everything through one API, but with a truly open system you can create your own maps from the data, perform calculations on map points, and so. OpenStreetMap would be a great mapping database for the calculation engine Wolfram Alpha.

The MapZen iPhone app will help you map on the go.

(Credit: CloudMade)

Later this month a new map editor, MapZen, is coming to the system from CloudMade, a company that commercializes the OpenStreetMap project. MapZen will make it easier for mappers to create and correct roads and points of interest. An iPhone app, currently in approval limbo, will also make it easier for anyone to walk and map. And new social tools should be good for to help groups of "map buddies" coordinate their work.

The MapZen/OpenStreetMap combo also lets you do very specific and modern cartography. There's a junction editor, for example, that lets contributors specify turn restrictions by time of day.

CloudMade will monetize the system by offering search features and routing (with awareness of the junction turn restrictions), and possibly by working on location-based advertising.

OpenStreetMap currently matters more to people in less-mapped regions than to dwellers of hyper-mapped U.S. cities. But ultimately the system may enable new location-based apps and services thanks to its wide-open system.

The crowded map

Google has already added a form of crowdsourcing to its mapping services: Its traffic system gets location and speed data from its mobile users. (Users can get their own raw data through Latitude, if they wish.) But Google relies on its own private mapping data, and its own servers to deliver maps to users. It's an expensive model and it doesn't serve all users in all locations equally. The crowdsourced mapping model is a serious competitor to the proprietary map business. I wouldn't have thought it could work, but Wikipedia shows that it's a mistake to dismiss the power of millions of individuals, each willing to chip in a little bit, to create great reference works.

The full MapZen app lets you re-route roads. Please be careful.

(Credit: CloudMade)

It's now easier to find unaffordable real estate in San Francisco's Mission District through Google Maps.

(Credit: Google)

Another day, another improvement to Google Maps that increases time spent on the site.

A few days after sending shock waves throughout the portable navigation industry, Google's back adding features to Google Maps that will once again draw the attention of the real-estate industry. Google Maps has been showing real estate listings since this summer, but the company added a few tweaks Thursday designed to make it easier to search for a new home with Google.

If you're looking at a particular slice of the world through Google Maps, you now have the option to select "Real Estate" from a drop-down box in the "More..." section on the top of the map. And for those unable to afford real estate in San Francisco--or unwilling to pay the shockingly high prices offered in this town--Google Maps also now offers rental listings.

Google has always taken pride in the short amount of time users spend on its site, emphasizing that its goal is to get you the information you need as quickly as possible and get you on your way to that destination. But with features like these in Google Maps, you can spend almost the entire home-search process on Google, only clicking through to the real-estate company's page, once you've found the four or five places that pass muster.

It's possible that makes for a better search experience, but it also increases the amount of time spent within Google's domain. Advertisers like that.

Facebook's Ethan Beard outlines what the company is up to in the next six months.

(Credit: CNET / Josh Lowensohn)

PALO ALTO, Calif.--Facebook on Wednesday took the wraps off its brand new development road map, unveiling changes and features the company is planning to implement within the next three to six months.

Many of the changes are smaller, simply rearrangements of certain parts of the user interface. However, the company is also making some radical moves like enforcing badly written applications and enabling developers to acquire user e-mail addresses as well as create Facebook-like sites outside of the social network's walls.

Ethan Beard, Facebook's director of platform marketing, who gave the presentation in Facebook's headquarters here, said that the one thing the company kept hearing from developers was that they needed to know what the company was working on ahead of time--and not just for short-term development, but a year down the line. "You want to know what's going on inside of Facebook," he said. "And today is to provide you with a lot more predictability."

That predictability revolves around the company's road map, which now sits on a new developer site. Beard says that it will remain updated with new items, planned changes, and APIs as they are announced. The company is also making publicly available a bug list, which will show developers problems with the site that Facebook is working on, as well as how they are being prioritized to be fixed.

The changes for users

The new user navigation menu takes place of the long bar that used to sit on the bottom of the page.

(Credit: Facebook)

So what are some of the big changes users will see? The first is that Facebook is doing away with many of the visual and organization changes it's made in the last two years. That includes the removal of the Windows Start bar-like app launcher and notification bar that sat at the bottom of the page. That's being moved over to the left side of the page where things like filters currently reside.

The new navigation bar will house new quick jumps to menus for both games and applications--something for which Facebook is making a notable distinction. Both will serve as a way for users to get a bird's-eye view of what's happening in games or the applications they've been using, as well as what their friends are up to. The company will also be making it easier for users to add third-party applications to the left side navigation bar with some new code that makes it a one-click affair.

Alongside the new left side navigation Facebook is also trying to make more of a distinction between notifications that are from apps and those that are sent from other users. This change involves taking notifications out of the sometimes-dreaded notification box (which will be soon be getting the ax) and giving developers a new way to notify users with alert badges that pop up as counters. And for notifications that are sent from other users, these will soon be found in users' Facebook in-boxes instead.

The changes for developers

One of the biggest upcoming changes for developers deals with Facebook's level of user privacy protection. The company will be letting users give app developers their e-mail address. In return they can remove their own Facebook in-box from app notification equation. This also applies to Facebook Connect, so third-party companies that use it for log-ins can send important messages directly to a user's primary e-mail instead of their Facebook in-box where it might get lost.

The Connect program will also be joined by a new developer API called Open Graph that essentially lets site owners create a page on any Web site that has the same features as one of Facebook's fan pages. These will allow users to sign up to be a fan with their Facebook credentials and use parts of the site as if they were on Facebook proper. In turn, their actions will be able to show up on their Facebook profile and news feeds. Beard said that the Open Graph API is simply a continuation of the move to add Facebook objects as well as people to third-party sites. "The graph does not necessarily have to exist in facebook," he said. "It can also live on the Web."

Facebook is improving its analytics with a new system that developers can use with third-party analytics tools.

(Credit: CNET / Josh Lowensohn)

Fan pages are not the only thing to escape Facebook's walled garden though. Beard outlined the company's plans to offer developers a way to view a deeper level of analytics for their apps. The reports, which Beard says are much better than the Facebook's current Insight system, will be able to be sent to third-party analytics engines where they can be stacked up alongside performance metrics Facebook wouldn't have otherwise been able to provide.

Keeping bad developers out

Besides some cosmetic and back-end changes, Facebook is also stepping up how it handles developers and applications that don't conform to the site's rules and regulations. Part of that is simplifying its platform policies from 14 pages to just three. Beard says the extraneous language has been cut down, so that hopefully more people will read it.

In addition to policy, Facebook is doing away with its six-month-old verified apps program in place of verifying every single app that passes a certain use threshold. This means that Facebook is going to be evaluating every app on its service to make sure it meets the company's guidelines and getting rid of ones that might have otherwise flown under the radar.

Other tidbits

•  Facebook canvas pages are now getting a special blue bar on top that removes much of the Facebook branding and user interface. Beard said that the move was largely to help developers make their canvas pages more immersive.
•  Profile boxes will be disappearing, and tabs will be slightly more narrow.
•  The new Facebook games tab may implement leader boards
•  Facebook is reworking its friends selector so that when a user is picking friends to invite or send a message, it will let them use the same filters they use to group their friends. Facebook is also working on a way to suggest a shortlist of users based on recent, or overall activity.
•  Developers will be getting a live view into the Facebook Platform status. This is kind of like Twitter's status blog and will show all known problems as well as how hard Facebook's APIs are being hit.

More information about the new developer APIs can be found on Facebook's developer site.

Don't try this on game day, but the new Google Maps Navigation application will show you how to take a spin past Boston's Fenway Park.

(Credit: Google)

You can almost hear the portable navigation industry swearing already.

Google is announcing plans Wednesday to release a new Android application called Google Maps Navigation. When combined with a GPS-equipped mobile phone running Android 2.0, it provides turn-by-turn directions powered by Google Maps and a slick user interface that combines features such as voice recognition and Google Street View. Google Maps Navigation, like seemingly everything that emerges from Google, will be free.

"Mobile platforms--Android and others--are so powerful now that you can build client apps that can do magical things connected to the cloud," said Google CEO Eric Schmidt in a briefing for reporters at Google's headquarters on Tuesday.

The standard Google Maps Navigation view.

(Credit: Google)

Companies in the cell phone navigation industry have seen this day coming for quite some time. Right now, the beta application only works on phones that will use the Android 2.0 software, which is scheduled to be available very soon with the expected arrival of Motorola's Droid phone on Verizon's network.

Google's Vic Gundotra appeared to demonstrate the application on the Droid: he wouldn't confirm it, but it was a shiny black Android 2.0 phone running on Verizon's network and bearing Motorola's stamp, so we're probably not going too far out on a limb here. (Update, 7:24 a.m. PDT: Says Google's Wednesday morning press release: "The first phone to have Google Maps Navigation and Android 2.0 is the Droid from Verizon.")

However, Google is working with Apple on bringing it to the iPhone, and it's not ruling out licensing the software to makers of portable navigation devices used in cars throughout the world, said Gundotra, vice president of engineering at Google for mobile and developers. The process involving Apple is slightly different from the usual App Store submission process, because Maps is a built-in iPhone application, he said.

The application works like any navigation system that you may have used, but it combines Google Search and Google Maps functions that are normally only available on the desktop and brings them to the smartphone. Perhaps the most interesting and useful feature comes from Google Street View, allowing Google to provide a Street View image at every turn that the application suggests during your journey.

Google is notoriously slow and calculating about changing it the user interface of its services.

In fact, Google hasn't made any major changes to the look and feel of Google Maps since its launch in 2005.

On Friday, the company launched several refinements to Maps--the biggest changes to its look since launch. While you might not notice these changes immediately--unless you are a hardcore Google Maps user--they are designed to enhance the readability of the maps.

Notice how roads and names are called out more effectively in the new version.

(Credit: Google)

As seen above, the thick street outlines that can make maps harder to read have been eliminated.

Google describes the update here:

(L)ocal and arterial roads have been narrowed at medium zooms to improve legibility, and the overall colors have been optimized to be easier on the eye and conflict less with other things (such as traffic, transit lines and search results) that we overlay onto the map. Hybrid roads have gained a crisp outline to make them easier to follow, and the overall look is now closer to an augmented satellite view instead of a simple overlay.

Google Maps' comparison of London in the old and new views.

(Credit: Google)

(Credit: Screenshot by Matt Hickey)

For most people, Sir-Mix-A-Lot is synonymous with his hit "Baby Got Back." But for his real fans, or fans of early hip-hop in general, the greatest song Mix ever did was "My Posse's On Broadway," an homage to my home neighborhood in Seattle. It's a detailed step-by-step trek with Mix and his posse as they hit up local landmarks like Dick's Burgers and generally have a good time.

It's a great, fun song, and Google Maps user Adam Cohn has done fans a favor by making a map of Seattle that details every stop along the way. This is one of the most fun things I've seen in Google Maps in a long time.

An image of the map is above, but for a more interactive version you can check out Cohn's map for yourself. To make it more fun, below is the video for the single so you can follow along while you follow along. Try not to get the song stuck in your head.