Search Engine News

(Cross-posted from the Lat Long Blog ) What do Alex Trebek, teachers and Googlers have in common? Last week, these individuals and groups all came together at the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA to celebrate exploration and learning. Google hosted its first Geo Teachers Institute, an intensive two-day workshop in which 150 educators received hands-on training and experience with Google Maps, Google SketchUp and Google Earth, including features like Mars, Moon and SkyMaps. Attendees from around the globe not only learned how these products work, but also discovered tips and resources for…

More from Blogspot

Google’s StreetView technology, which is embedded into the Google Maps product on the browser, and on mobile phones like the iPhone and Android, has long wowed users with its option to view the road inside a 360-degree panorama. But Microsoft Research’s latest effort, which is being unveiled at this week’s Siggraph computer graphics conference, approaches viewing streets from a different direction. Literally.

More from news.cnet.com

ReachLocal delivered its first quarterly report as a public company today, noting that its active advertiser count has climbed 27 percent from 13, 200 to 16, 700, and that its consolidated revenues climbed 47 percent from $47.97 million to $70.362 million. It also reported adding 72 percent more senior sales people, going from 143 to 246; and 54 percent more junior sales people, going from 256 to 395. “During the quarter, we added to our local Internet Marketing Consultant (IMC) sales force, expanded our geographic footprint into five additional markets, executed the beta launch…

More from blog.kelseygroup.com

As Google continues to expand its Local product set and its importance to businesses it must also work towards making its system more transparent. Google Local search results still continue to be the wild west of online marketing with almost zero transparency and zero customer service for those affected. For an increasing number of local businesses a majority of their search traffic and conversions are generated from their Google Places listings but what happens when the traffic is turned off? There is no email notification to advise the account holder that anything has happened until they…

More from Search Engine Journal

Not so long ago, there were only a few companies out there that bothered to customize their websites for foreign markets. Those who chose to do so made minimal effort—they simply translated their English copy into the local language and started doing business. Their incentives to create more sophisticated, tailored offerings was minimal; [...]

More from feeds.searchengineland.com

Google has a real buddy in the airline industry with Virgin America. During last year’s holiday travel season Google offered free WiFi on all Virgin America flights . Now, Google and Virgin have expanded the in-flight maps offered to travelers as they can now get topographic information about where they are and more. Google’s LatLong blog tells more ‘ ….as a part of our continued partnership with Virgin America, we’ve completely updated the Google Maps data on the touchscreens of every airplane seat. As before, the map shows you almost exactly where you are, and you can…

More from www.marketingpilgrim.com

This year we held the third edition of the Google Online Marketing Challenge — a global university competition that gives students hands-on exposure to online marketing. Each team receives the equivalent of $200 to work with a local company and create an online marketing campaign. Teams have three weeks to mastermind a strategy before submitting a campaign report to an international judging panel of professors. We’re delighted that 3, 034 teams from 60 countries participated in the 2010 Challenge, representing an increase of 39 percent from last year and making the Challenge one of the…

More from Blogspot

Google is working to fix at least a pair of bugs in the Google Places dashboard, both of which affect the analytics reporting related to a local business listing. One bug is a delay in the analytics reporting inside Google Places. Earlier this week, users noticed that stats were only available through July 12th— more [...]

More from feeds.searchengineland.com

Remember when Google won the bid to migrate the City of Los Angeles over to Gmail and other Google Apps? Yeah, it’s not going so well. In fact, the migration is going sooooo slowly that Google is having to compensate L.A. around $135, 000 for the delay. So, what’s the hold-up? Well, apart from the fact that this is a local government organization–the poster-child of inefficiency–it appears the LAPD is the bottleneck: ‘ …while over 10, 000 city employees have now been switched over to Google, she hopes to have up to 6, 000 more moved in mid-August. After that, Levin said…

More from www.marketingpilgrim.com

I moderated a panel at the Geo-Loco conference in San Francisco yesterday on the subject of monetizing LBS. With the session title “How to Make Money From Location Based Services”, the panel riffed on evolving user behavior for mobile local products, and the trailing (but likewise evolving) advertiser interest. The former point is clear to everyone, and most of the day’s content focused on how geo local and geo social apps are exploding in usage and engagement levels. The check-in is becoming a form of currency in local. Not only does it ground itself in physical places (hence…

More from blog.kelseygroup.com