Marketing Pilgrim Published: “Google Places Hotline Number Seen In the Wild!” plus 4 more

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Google Places Hotline Number Seen In the Wild!
Yahoo Search Revenue Continues Slide
IntoNow Offers Coupons for Commercial Checkins
eBay Gets into Geo-Location Market with Company Buy
Facebook Allowing Too Much Free Speech?

Google Places Hotline Number Seen In the Wild!

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 11:41 PM PDT

While I know complaints about Google Places complete lack of support to cut through its mess of duplicate listings, spam, misinformation etc falls on deaf ears at the Googleplex, it doesn't mean that there is NO way to get in touch with someone about this critical component of local search.

In a blog post from yesterday Google Places Community Manager Vanessa Schneider responded to a request for a meeting with a Google rep in the latest market to get the Places treatment, San Diego. Her response read

Hey Sandi –

You can call our hotline to request a visit: (619) 928-9401

Thanks,

Vanessa, Places community manager

Have you ever been so hungry that you literally would try anything to satisfy the pain? Well, if you have any experience with Place Pages and the myriad issues they can cause even the most seasoned local marketer to pull out their hair, seeing the existence of an actual Places hotline number is truly a case of something is better than nothing.

Sure, this number is designed for this San Diego marketing push but why not give it a shot? Desperate times call for desperate measures is what I say. If you have any questions about Google Places try it and see what happens. That Google Hotline number again is 619-928-9401.I called it after hours and the promise was that “Google Voice will try to reach a member of the Google local business outreach team in San Diego”. You could even leave a message for them. With Google that’s almost like getting an audience with Page, Brin or Schmidt.

Maybe you are wondering why I even bother to do this? It's a direct result of the answer that was given to me by the same community manager to a comment I put on the Places blog two days ago for a post about a Google Places product manager, Mat Balez. My comment read

Mat – What is the best way to talk to a person (not in a help forum and using an actual voice rather than something digital) about Google Places issues and concerns?

And what response did I get? Here's community manager Vanessa again with

Hey Frank —

We don’t provide phone support for our free services — the Help Center and forum is your best bet:

http://www.google.com/support/places/

Thanks,
Vanessa, Places community manager

Hmmmm. Isn't that the exact answer I asked NOT to receive? Google just doesn't get it.

Oh and free service? Sure, it's free to claim and optimize your Place Page in Google but it's connected to potential revenue and lots of it. Now that Google has retired the Tags offering that required a verified Place Page in order to even take part it's obvious that their next big local push will be with the Boost product. Why? Because rather than being a simple flat rate product with limited income like Tags, Boost allows for variable spending with no cap thus much more revenue potential for Google. Mike Blumenthal unpacks this idea quite well in a post from the other day.

Also, Google essentially is saying that they will only provide real support if they deem your city worthy. If you’re not on their radar then you are S.O.L. when it comes to any hope of support for Google Places outside of folks trying to figure stuff out on their own in the “Help” forums. Help is in quotes because oftentimes those forums turn into a lot of “Have you seen? questions and the “I’m not sure this works for everyone….” advice.

I continue to marvel at Google's complete cluelessness that there is a very large portion of the market that needs help getting through the Places maze. If they get that help they actually want to do something else. They want to spend money with Google. Free service? Sure but it's a true freemium because there is plenty of revenue waiting on the other side that pesky 'free service'.

So Google, let's try this again. Many, many people want to spend more money with you but you don't seem to want it? Maybe Bing does. Hey Stefan Weitz and Andy Chu of Bing are you reading this? What do you think your opportunity is? Isn't servant leadership in these days? Wouldn't it be cool if you were the anti-Google and did the opposite of what they do. You know, provide actual support and service for the SMB’s of the world? I bet people would listen and be interested.

Would you?

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Yahoo Search Revenue Continues Slide

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 10:37 PM PDT

During Yahoo’s earnings report Carol Bartz tried to push the recent slide in Yahoo search revenue off on Microsoft. Danny Sullivan refuted that idea by saying that the real reason may be that Bing organic results are better thus making it less likely for a searcher to click on a paid ad.

Either way, there is no denying that Yahoo Search is having a rough go. Take a look at this chart from the Business Insider and the story is pretty obvious.

So is Yahoo ever going to be a real player in search? With continued distance growing between Yahoo and the real two horse race of Bing v. Google it almost seems strange to refer to Yahoo as a search engine anymore even though they still generate considerable revenue (albeit declining) from their search efforts.

So be honest. How do you see Yahoo in search? Good? Bad? Ugly? Near extinction?

IntoNow Offers Coupons for Commercial Checkins

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 02:47 PM PDT

Imagine if you could make a TV commercial “clickable.” IntoNow has taken the first step with their new feature which allows you to check-in to commercials in return for a prize.

First up is Pepsi MAX with their "Clubhouse in the Corn" commercial. When you see the commercial on TV, you activate the IntoNow app on your phone. The app uses SoundPrint technology to “listen” to the commercial, verifying that you are indeed watching it, then it rewards you with a coupon for a free Pepsi. Pretty nifty, huh? It’s like the video version of a QR code.

I was an early IntoNow user, but gave up on it in favor of GetGlue since IntoNow was light on bells, whistles and style. Now it looks like the application has undergone a few updates and it’s looking pretty good. Still, I’m not ready to give up my GetGlue sticker rewards, certainly not for a Pepsi. But if they start giving away coupons for Diet Coke or chocolate, I’ll say GetGone to GetGlue and get into IntoNow.

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eBay Gets into Geo-Location Market with Company Buy

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 02:04 PM PDT

eBay is about to branch out into the geo-location and deal market with the acquisition of a company called Where. The “Where” phone app, helps you find the best places to eat, drink and be merry based on your current location. They also run an ad publishing network that specializes in hyper-local ads.

Where has been around since 2004, and is said to have 120,000 merchants and advertisers working with them and 4 million users. (Though I must admit, I’ve never heard of them, have you?)

As a number of outlets are reporting, it appears that the merger began with the concept of adding Paypal as a payment option for Where deals and snowballed from there. Going forward, Where will be under the Paypal umbrella which could be another step toward the development of that illusive digital wallet.

The move also helps eBay bridge the gap between online and offline sales. It does seem that the auction company is much more interested in becoming a retail outlet which saddens me. As a collector of odd things, eBay auctions have been a great source of joy for me for many years, but I fear that in the future the site will be nothing but a discount version of Amazon.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the O’Reilly Where 2.0 Conference is currently in full swing in Santa Clarita. Speakers from Foursquare, Facebook, OnStar, eBay and Where, will be on hand to discuss location-aware technology.

Facebook Allowing Too Much Free Speech?

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 08:26 AM PDT

Today's a big day for Facebook. President Obama will be doing some kind of town hall function at the Facebook headquarters as he seeks to reach into the pockets of the rich through more taxes. That in itself should be fun to watch since he is in the land of billionaires but what is getting more attention is a quote from a Wall Street Journal article from Facebook lobbyist Adam Conner as the social media giant looks to expand in areas where free speech is not the norm (China folks, it's China).

Conner’s curious statement was

“Maybe we will block content in some countries, but not others,” Adam Conner, a Facebook lobbyist, told the Journal. “We are occasionally held in uncomfortable positions because now we’re allowing too much, maybe, free speech in countries that haven’t experienced it before,” he said.

(UPDATE: No new news but I wondered if anyone else finds it more than a little ironic that Facebook’s lobbyist’s name is Con-ner. Get it?)

Hold on there big fella! Isn't Facebook the defender of the free world having been the linchpin of the revolt in Egypt? Isn't Facebook all about information for everyone all the time? Isn't Facebook for the people, by the people etc etc?

Apparently not when so much money is on the line in a huge market like China. Where Google said it wouldn't comply with China's censorship policies and effectively left the market, Facebook is playing softball with free speech, at least according to their lobbyist in the nation's capital.

The Journal spoke with some power brokers about what Facebook faces if it decides to play intermediary for what's free speech and what isn't in other parts of the world.

Facebook’s plans may not sit well with congressional leaders already incensed with the company for sidestepping congressional inquiries on its China plans. Last spring, Sen. Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee’s panel on human rights, rebuked Facebook for refusing to appear at a Capitol Hill hearing on “global Internet freedom.”

The company hasn’t joined the Global Network Initiative, a group that includes information-technology companies like Google and Microsoft and human-rights groups that have agreed to common principles of conduct in nations such as China, which restrict speech and expression.

What's interesting is that while the press has played up Facebook's role in the fight for freedom around the world the company itself has stayed relatively mum on the subject.

Neither Facebook nor its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, have said much publicly about Facebook’s role as a tool for pro-democracy activists in Tunisia or Egypt. In Tunisia, where Facebook took technical steps to counter government efforts to steal users’ Facebook passwords, the company said its efforts were driven by a safety and security breach—not politics.

So now with China looming on the horizon as a possible market to conquer (likely through a partnership in the country) it seems awful convenient that Facebook throws open its headquarters doors to the leader of the free world for some campaign work (oh, let's be real, that's what it is). By cuddling up to the Whitehouse does Facebook expect that Washington will turn a blind eye to activities it pursues in other parts of the world that are all about the benjamins and less about the freedoms?

If this quote is any indication it looks like a risky play to say the least.

“Blocking content in some countries—but not others—would deeply damage Facebook’s brand and raise troubling questions about its commitment to human rights and Internet freedom,” said Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the top-ranking Republican on the Senate’s human- rights panel.

So while all of this political yow-yowing and posturing is business as usual for the Beltway set what about you? If it were discovered that Facebook was engaging in content censorship so they could do business in countries that represent big dollars but have horrible human rights records, would you be upset with Facebook?

If your answer is no let us know why and if it’s yes let us know why as well. Would you be upset enough to stop using the service? Would how Facebook maneuvers politically around the world impact how you use the service in the future?

I get that these are not marketing questions per se but the lines have blurred so much in the world because of the amount of information that is available to people today. As marketers what would happen if there was a huge investment of time, money and energy into Facebook marketing campaigns only to see end users walk away from the service in protest? Or is the idea that people would actually take a stand against Facebook and give up their online 'friends' as an act of protest just pollyannish because in reality no body cares enough to actually do anything about it?

So many questions. Do you have any answers?