Reports that Google is considering an acquisition of Yelp fit right in with an increased focus on local search.
(Credit: Screenshot by Tom Krazit/CNET)Online reviews powerhouse Yelp might just be what Google needs to help rid the world of 40-pound tomes with yellow pages.
Throughout the second half of 2009, Google has had its eyes squarely on one of the last remaining online advertising markets it does not dominate: local. With a series of moves, Google has shown a clear interest in combining Google Maps, search results, and its small-business-oriented advertising technology into its next big source of revenue growth as offline local businesses come online.
However, Google management seems to have decided to step up the pace. TechCrunch and the New York Times reported overnight that Google is in discussions to acquire Yelp for $500 million or more. Yelp has grown into a huge destination for those looking for new places to have fun, turning it into one of the more pervasive brands among the digerati.
And it's not just bars and restaurants anymore: dentists, churches, and top-notch local golf instructors can be found on Yelp. That makes the site a huge repository of locally sorted data on how people are spending money, and that's the kind of thing that gets Google and its advertisers excited.
"We want to make search a way to discover things that are interesting about a place. A big interest of ours is helping you get to a place and also helping you identify what is interesting about the place when you're choosing one," said Carter Maslan, director of product management at Google and overseer of all things local. Maslan declined to comment on the reports about Yelp (as did Yelp itself) but he was more than happy to talk about the huge opportunity that Google sees in local search.
Local business listings have been available on Google since 2005 through the Local Business Center, which allows business owners to essentially claim their establishment on Google and add basic information such as their phone number, hours of operation, and a link to their Web site.
That operation has been expanded in 2009. Over the summer Google asked a list of celebrities to name their "favorite places" as part of a promotion for a Google Maps feature that lets users identify local businesses they enjoy. For instance, Kerri Walsh, the gold-medal winning volleyball player, added her thoughts to listing pages for Lake Tahoe's Lone Eagle Grill and the Pump Room at Chicago's Ambassador East Hotel, spotlighting two local businesses that aren't necessarily on the national radar.
Google followed that up by launching Place Pages, which the company described as "a web page for every place in the world" when launching the service. Place Pages are very Yelp-like in their design. They feature reviews, photos, and, of course, ads--far more than could be crammed into a simple listing.
Location, location, location
Just last week Google unveiled plans to send local businesses decals declaring "We're a Favorite Place on Google!" That's a clear nod to Yelp's strategy of handing out similar decals to business owners, although Google took it a step further by adding unique codes that could be scanned by mobile phones to bring up additional information about the business.
The motivation behind Google's recent moves and its possible acquisition of Yelp is simple. The number is squishy, but Google estimates that anywhere from 15 percent of 40 percent of all search queries have some sort of local intent. A large number of those searches are also done from mobile phones, a number that will only grow larger as sales of the devices themselves continue to grow. And, of course, maps are required to find local businesses.
That gives Google three ways to target someone looking for local information. They'll see an ad on the search results page for a local query. They'll see an ad on the Place Page for that business, which might soon be more attractive with Yelp content. And they'll see listings and ads on Google Maps when they try to find directions to that business, which might alert them to nearby businesse--which starts the cycle anew.
And to top it all off, there are still a ton of small businesses that have yet to build out a presence on the Web, giving Google an opportunity to capture that content itself by providing listings and Place Pages for small-business owners that don't want to deal with maintaining their own Web site. This is true "long tail" content, in that demand for any one search result is relatively small but it's almost impossible to estimate how many results will exist over time.
Yelp's unique brand of user-generated content would fit very nicely into that equation. However, owning Yelp would also expose Google to some of the more controversial aspects of Yelp's strong local presence, such as allegations of intimidation and pay-for-play reviews. Yelp has denied the charges, but given Google's position under the antitrust microscope, any sort of extra scrutiny will not be appreciated.
At around $500 million, Yelp would be one of Google's largest acquisitions to date and its second major deal since CEO Eric Schmidt announced the company was once again in shopping mode. Even if the deal falls through, it's a clear sign of the company's interest in expanding its online advertising empire to the local market.
But it's perhaps also a sign that Google realized it needed a little help in getting there. After all, every decision about expanding a business comes down to build versus buy. Sometimes it's just easier to write a check.
Google made two significant enhancements to Google.com on mobile phones Wednesday.
The first, history sync, now makes it possible to carry over a record of your search queries when you switch between mobile and desktop versions of Google.com. Dubbed "Personalized Suggest," Google will now remember your searches and will add them into the list of search suggestions you see as you type into the search bar. The new feature saves you from browsing through your history to repeat a query.
Of course, you do have to be logged in to Google for this to work, and you've got to have Web History switched on. Enable it on a phone by selecting "save searches" in the Settings menu on Google.com. At launch, the feature is only available in the U.S. on Android, iPhone, and Palm WebOS phones.
Google Local on mobile.
(Credit: Google)The second addition today similarly gets the mobile and desktop versions of Google.com talking to one another. Google has redesigned local search to make finding places of interest while on the mobile Google site much more finger-friendly. Click or tap "Local" on the mobile browser and you'll see a Start screen with categories you can browse to find restaurants and other businesses nearby, similar to what you can do on Google Maps. You'll need to have the My Location feature enabled.
There's also a category for viewing the points of interest that you starred as favorites on a Google Map. Starring essentially bookmarks the location's Google Place page. Bookmarking isn't anything new, but the browsable layout is relatively new to Google, which generally favors bare links to graphical enhancements. This treatment has the mobile Google site looking like a mobile hot-spot-finding app you might find in an on-phone app store. We have to say, it's a nice change.
The rejiggered Local Search kicks off in the U.S. and China, with support for more regions in the works.
A Canadian start-up is offering a way to do local searches from within AIM or Live Messenger through a free service called Poynt.
Multipled Media's Poynt service lets you search for local businesses and view listings on a map all within the IM window. Last week, the company added the ability to search for movie listings and watch trailers.
Poynt displays local business listings on a map in Windows Live Messenger and AIM.
(Credit: Multiplied Media)It wasn't immediately obvious to me why I would want to do a local search in IM rather than toggle over to a Web browser, and an analyst agreed with me to some extent.
"It addresses a big audience that's using IM and has an instant-messaging window open all the time," said Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence. "It involves a little bit of a behavior change because people aren't used to doing that through an IM window, but there's an interesting opportunity."
But we both see a lot of potential for Poynt on mobile devices, and toward that end, the company is working to enable it on BlackBerry devices in mid-2008, according to John Lowe, chief executive of Multipled Media. On mobile devices the service will use GPS (Global Positioning System) to set your location.
I gave it a spin on my computer, locating Poynt as a contact on my AIM and Live Messenger services. Once you start communicating with Poynt there are some easy-to-follow commands for using the service. You set your location using a landmark, address, city, or ZIP code.
Then you can choose SuperPages in the U.S. and Yellow Pages in Canada and search by store name or store type, or movies to see current films by theater, genre, or title. You can also see show times, cast listings, and synopsis and search for movies playing on specific dates.
The listings can be displayed on a map that opens up in an adjacent interactive window in Live Messenger (although for some reason that feature wouldn't work for me) or in a separate browser window for AIM.
Multiplied Media aims to make money off sponsored listings and a revenue share from transactions, such as buying tickets online.
The company is working on an Apple widget for the Mac and functionality on the iPhone, as well as something for Facebook. Multiplied Media also plans to add user reviews, possibly through a partnership with a provider like Yelp, Lowe said.
Despite an interoperability agreement between Microsoft's and Yahoo's IM services, the Poynt service won't work on Yahoo Messenger until the company specifically develops the capability. However, both iChat and Gmail use the AIM functionality and so Poynt is available through those interfaces, the company said.
When looking for a new spot to eat or shop, I tend to turn to Yelp (controversy aside) more than to other business rating sites. But I could be missing crucial comments made by someone outside of Yelp.
Happily, I just checked out a cool service that displays ratings from around the Web at a single glance. The browser add-on Palore aggregates business reviews from a variety of Web sites and displays them next to Google and Yahoo's local search results in Firefox and Internet Explorer.
Currently Palore has data for some 2.4 million businesses in big cities and it draws reviews from Zagat, OpenRatings, CoffeeList, WineSpectator, Judy's Book, as well as menus from MenuPages. Plus, you'll see ratings from Google and Yahoo Local on the map. Unfortunately, its pop ups don't display the reviews that Google and Yahoo's pop-ups show. And as Palore is still being built, it's missing ratings for most U.S. businesses; restaurants remain the strong point for now.
Palore pops up business ratings from around the Web.
Icons such as a wine glass, coffee bean, menu, wheelchair, stars, dollar signs, and even a heart for dating spots, indicate the ratings available. Just click an icon and a Palore bubble pops up more details and links. Palore is also touting its capability to flag green businesses. A carrot icon shows eateries with meat-free and organic options rated by LocalHarvest and HappyCow, and the Fair Trade symbol indicates a thumbs-up from TransFair USA. There's a Kosher symbol, too. It would be cool if Palore also drew data from green business ratings services such as Alonovo, Five Limes and Sustainlane. Sure, Google and Yahoo compile reviews from various sites, but Palore's icons tell you something before you click (although I wonder how long it will take big search engines to add what Palore is doing, rendering it unnecessary).
Plus, once Palore shares that a restaurant got high marks from, say, both Zagat and WineSpectator, it lets you click the phone number and dial from within the browser. Voila, dinner is reserved. You get one half-hour of free calls each day via Palore's integrated VoIP service.
Palore is free and free of ads, and the download was quick in my tests. Although it remains in beta testing, I didn't run into operational glitches. However, dear Palore people, please don't send my username and password via e-mail in clear type. Dear reader, as long as Palore commits this security no-no, you should set up an account with a fluffy password that you don't use for your banking Web site or e-mail account.
Google has a new telephone service in the U.S. called Voice Local Search. It's the equivalent of dialing 411, but free, really fast, and it pulls multiple listings like you'd get from a search in Google local. Mobile phone users can get listings sent to their phone via SMS, including the telephone number and full address. You can also be connected to a business for free, a great feature that got dropped from my previous favorite free 411 service 1-800-Free-411.
The entire service is controlled by computers, and the voice recognition is pretty capable. I tried confusing it with foreign restaurant names, and even a few made up ones, and if it didn't get it, it would at least try and give me reasonable recommendations that sounded similar. This is the perfect service for people who want to pull up an address without needing a smart phone with a data plan, or a friend near a computer or the Yellow Pages.
The one thing still missing is residential listings, and advertisements. The latter of which will most certainly be added, knowing Google. In the meantime, enjoy ad-free 411 goodness by dialing 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411).
[via GigaOm]
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