The Free Site Hosting | Reviews & Top Hosts

When the Nexus One was released, comparisons to the iPhone were unavoidable, and a respect in which the Android device came up short was multi-touch.  Now, though, an over-the-air software update should allow Nexus One users to pinch and zoom to their hearts’ content.

Pinch-to-zoom functionality’s will work when people are fiddling with the phone’s browser, its gallery, or the Google Maps application.  That’s bound to come as a pretty huge bonus to folks who thought they would be permanently without the feature.  It’s possible this update will spur a few additional purchases, too.

And the pinch-to-zoom addition doesn’t represent the end of the update, either.  "[W]e will provide a general fix to help improve 3G connectivity on some Nexus One phones," promised an official blog post.  Which is important.

What’s more, Google Goggles "will now be available directly on your device by launching it from your All Apps menu.  Just use your Nexus One camera to start searching the web."

This should all act to make the Nexus One quite a bit more competitive.  It’ll be interesting to see if sales enjoy a boost in the weeks ahead.

Related Articles:

> Google Gets Letter From FCC Over Controversial Fee

> Google Tries To Carve Out Its Place In Mobile

> Nexus One Sales Of 5-6 Million Units Forecast

Last week, Google introduced personalized suggestions for Google Maps. This lets signed in users who have web history enabled find places faster as Google suggests places based on past searches. Now they have launched the feature for Google Maps for Mobile on Android.

"If you often use both a computer and a mobile phone in your daily routine, it can seem like a hassle when they don’t stay in sync," the Google Maps team says. "You might spend time on your computer looking for a great used bookstore, only to forget the name of the place when you are ready to get directions from your phone. Sure, you could print directions in advance, but we believe smartphones are ’smart’ because they save you time."

In addition to the personalized suggestions, Google has introduced starring in Google Maps for Mobile on Android. This provides users with a way to save places to access later.

"So whether you’re standing at Amoeba Music with your phone or making plans to go there on your computer, you can star it so it appears on the map next time you’re on either device," the team says. "When viewing place details, just press the star icon next to the place name; these starred places are automatically synchronized between desktop and mobile, and can be accessed from both the ‘More’ menu on your phone and from the My Maps tab on your computer."

Google actually just introduced a starring feature for Google News as well. As I mentioned with reference to that, this gives users another reason to have a Google account, which could just be one of Google’s motives for offering this feature.

Both starring and personalized suggestions in Google Maps require you to be signed in with you Google account. The suggestions require you to have web history enabled.

Related Articles:

> Google’s Place Pages Just Got More Useful

> Could Billboard Ads In Google Maps Street View Become A Possibility?

> Google Maps Learns To Acknowledge Landmarks

Google is now including reviews from more sources on its Place Pages for businesses. They’re no longer coming from just review sites. They’re coming from news sites, blogs, and more.

Mike Blumenthal, who writes for the Understanding Google Maps & Local Search blog, has an in depth analysis of this change and received confirmation on its existence from Google Maps Product Manager Carter Maslan.

"This change portends a dramatically changed review landscape where both the volume of reviews for some types of businesses will rise and the dynamics of reputation management will change. It could very well shift  the balance of power away from centralized review sites and could be one more impediment to any recovery of the IYP sites," says Blumenthal.

"Google Maps is now using the new capability of sentiment analysis to better understand content and add ‘reviews’ from non traditional sources like newspaper articles and single blog entries that appear across the internet," he says. "This new capability will dramatically increase the reach of hyperlocal blogs, change how businesses manage the review process and could, over the long haul, change how and where reviews are generated and aggregated."

It is not particularly surprising that Google would reach to more sources for review-like content on Place Pages. Considering the breadth of information Google indexes, it seems fairly obvious that when Google brings together information about a business it would pull from a wide variety of sources.

Blumenthal is right in that this highlights a possible need for some reputation management adjustments for businesses. However, it doesn’t seem like anything alerts won’t be able to help you keep track of, and you should probably be using those anyway if you are concerned about maintaining a good online reputation (which can increasingly affect your offlline reputation).

Provided that they offer customers a positive experience, Google’s inclusion of more sources in Place Pages could work to the benefit of businesses. It’s hard to earn a good reputation if you don’t deliver something positive to begin with. These new additions should only make it harder to hide from a bad reputation.
 

Related Articles:

> Google Adds Place Pages to Google Earth

> Critical Local Search Factors To Pay Attention To

> Will Google Eliminate the Need for Small Business Websites?

Realtor.com, the website for the National Association of Realtors, has launched a Real Estate Search iPhone app.

Users can search for every property listed on Realtor.com by price, location, property type, MLS ID number, square foot, lot size, open house events, distance from a user’s current location and age.

The real estate iPhone app allows users to send a link of a specific property via email, Twitter or Facebook to family, friends or a realtor.

"The Realtor.com iPhone app places the power of Realtor.com in the hands of millions of highly mobile consumers that depend on us to deliver the largest collection of properties with the freshest and most accurate information available on the market," said Errol Samuelson, president of Realtor.com.

"By combining our unmatched search power with the ability to instantly share listings and feedback by email, Twitter or Facebook from an iPhone, millions now have mobile access to a phenomenal property search experience superior to other apps already on the market. We expect Realtors and their clients will appreciate the ease and convenience that our app brings to their experience as they work together to find the ideal property."
 

Related Articles:

> New Google Phone Has Tech Community Licking Chops

> New Google Maps For Android Gets Experimental

> Apple Fans Respond To The "Droid Does" Advertising Campaign

As 2009 came to a close, Google managed to get SEOs riled up for one last controversial topic. For some time, SEOs and web designers have been noticing that Google has not been showing local listings in search results for queries related to their businesses – even location-specific ones.

Should SEOs and designers be worried about local listings? Comment here.

As Matt McGee mentions in a Search Engine Land piece, even a query like "candy" without any geographical indicator will bring up a seven-pack of local results, but a query for "seo" or "web design" or even something as specific as "web design vancouver" will bring up no local listings whatsoever (although the organic results still heavily favor local businesses in location-specific queries).

Needless to say, some SEOs and designers are taking this as something of a slap in the face, justified or not. Search engine optimization and web design are both services after all, and just about every other type of service you can think of will yield local listings in a Google search.

While this phenomenon was originally thought to be a bug, Barry Schwartz of RustyBrick fame points to a Google Maps Help thread where a Googler going by Joel H. tells a different story:

Today, we’re intentionally showing less local results for web design / SEO queries. For example, [web design sacramento] doesn’t display local listings today. We believe this is an accurate representation of user intent. In some cases, we do show local listings, however (as NSNA/php-er noted) [web design in bellingham]. I’m sure some of you feel we should be displaying local results for queries like [Web Design Vancouver]. I understand that concern, but based on our understanding of our users, we feel this is the right decision for now.

I’ll give the usual disclaimer that we’re constantly working on improving the user experience and results will vary over time. So, this could change in the future, but I wanted to be explicit about what we’re doing today.

So if you use the word "in" in your query, you are more likely to get the local results. Some still have a hard time finding the logic in this move.

"I’m all for their interest in balancing for user intent – it’s their business, their product – but I’m missing the logic here," comments Bill Sebald. 

"I find this disturbing," says Scott Clark. "If I have a physical location in a given area, offer a service to customers in that area that is close to their query, then onebox listings should appear as they do for other creative-class industries."

Not all SEOs have such a problem with what Google is doing though. "I want to be found by people everywhere, not just in the small city I happen to live in at the moment," a content writer comments.

"But you would think that if people typed in a city name or other location, they are actually looking for local results and the maps could be useful," they add. "Although if you have optimized your website for your location, you should get found anyway. And I do all my work online, people don’t need to visit me or even know where I am located so in that sense the maps aren’t always useful or necessary."

People are saying that in some countries, they are still seeing local results for the type of query in question. It is possible that Google has just not rolled out the changes everywhere yet. The quoted content writer suggests that Google just doesn’t know the user-intent of all of its countries’ people as well as it does for the countries where the changes exist.

What do you make of Google showing less local results for SEOs and web designers? Will it hurt local businesses? Share your thoughts.

Related Articles:

> Google Adds Place Pages to Google Earth

> Google Comes to Brick and Mortar Store Windows

> Critical Local Search Factors To Pay Attention To

Real estate website Zillow.com said today it broke multiple records for site traffic and user activity in 2009.

An average of 8.2 million unique users visited Zillow each month during 2009, which is an increase of 57 percent year-over-year.

"2009 was a wild year for real estate, with continued home value declines, government intervention, record low mortgage rates, and an enormous amount of consumer uncertainty about what the future holds," said Spencer Rascoff, Zillow’s chief operating officer.

"As a result, people flocked to Zillow for information and advice. Uncertainty always benefits information providers, and 2009 was the year that Zillow solidified its place as a clear leader in providing millions of people with real estate information."

Other highlights include:

• 37 percent year-over-year growth in page views
• 3.9 million for-sale, rental and Make Me Move listings are posted on Zillow currently, up 43 percent-year-over-year.
• The Zillow iPhone App has proved to be popular with more than 870,000 downloads since its launch in April 2009. Over 2 million homes are viewed on the app each month.
• 171 U.S. newspapers began using Zillow’s search and listings technology to power their real estate websites in 2009.

"It’s clear to us that more and more people want Zillow’s real estate information on location, while touring neighborhoods and homes, and we expect this trend to magnify in 2010," Rascoff said.
 

Related Articles:

> Zillow, Newspapers Form Huge Advertising Network

> Zillow.com Reducing Staff By 25%

>Google Maps Offers Real Estate Listings

A good drive can be one of life’s most enjoyable experiences.  But a bad one is, of course, no fun at all, and poor directions are often responsible for making things take a turn for the worse.  So Google appears to be overhauling the way in which it tells people to get from one point to another.

Ever follow some computer-generated directions in a strange city?  It’s possible to wind up creeping along after dark, braking to peer at every street sign, just knowing that you’ve missed your turn.  On the other hand, a human would save you some trouble by instructing you to drive past the Hilton and take a right at the blue Fifth Third building.

Google has picked up on this.  A post on the Official Google Blog stated today, "We found that using landmarks in directions helps for two simple reasons: they are easier to see than street signs and they are easier to remember than street names."

And now, at least in India, Google Maps is mentioning landmarks to help people orient themselves, to describe turns, and to confirm paths.  You can see an example of the end result below.

It’s likely that this improved approach to giving directions will be implemented in other countries at some point.  Google hasn’t promised anything, though, so the order and timing of any rollout remains unknown.

Related Articles:

> Google Maps Introduces Useful Popups

> New Google Maps For Android Gets Experimental

> Google Maps Adds NYC Subway Layer

We’ll admit from the start: this change will not revolutionize the world.  It probably won’t even bring a single new person to Google Maps.  Still, a nice little interface tweak’s been made insofar as Google Maps now displays business info when users hover over any points of interest.

Try not to think of this as saving anyone a single click.  The change will matter most when people would otherwise be clicking all over the place, trying to find out more about 10, 15, or 20 different businesses scattered across a map (think restaurants, or maybe coffee shops).

Google was careful to take into account the times the times that businesses aren’t scattered, too; no one will have to repeatedly zoom and re-center a map in order to separate out a pile of similar companies.

Instead, as Michael Bürge wrote on the LatLong Blog, "When hovering over a cluster of multiple results, a list of everything underneath the mouse pointer is shown, including the number of stars for a business listing.  This makes exploring large sets of search results quicker and easier."

Again, not earth-shattering news.  Just a nice little modification that may come in time for all of the out-of-school and off-work get-togethers that family members and old friends conduct during the holiday season.

Related Articles:

> Verify Your Place Page In Google’s Local Search Results

> New Google Maps For Android Gets Experimental

> Google Enhances Real Estate Search

When you find a business on Google Maps and click "more info", you will be taken to that business’ "Place Page." These are the pages that Google introduced a while back that essentially gather content related to that particular business in one place. One might find photos, coupons, reviews, etc. on the Place Page.

Businesses can tell Google if they want specific things there, but if you don’t claim your listing, Google will put whatever it wants there. Now, however, Google is letting users know when owners have verified their Place Pages. If it is verified, there is now a link with a checkmark beside it at the top of the page that says "owner-verified listing."

If the listing has not been verified, users are now greeted with links that say "Edit the place," or "Business Owner?". The latter give you an opportunity to verify the listing if you are indeed the business owner. The former lets users make edits to the page. Obviously, you’re going to want to verify your listing to prevent any reputation-tarnishing information from appearing.

As we discussed recently, the local search landscape continues to change dramatically, and paying attention to things like this is only going to become increasingly important, not only from a reputation management standpoint, but from simply a visibility standpoint as more people gravitate to the Internet (especially with mobile) to find local business listings.

A hat tip goes to Mike Blumenthal for pointing out the changes to Place Pages.

Related Articles:

> Google Adds Place Pages to Google Earth

> Critical Local Search Factors To Pay Attention To

> Will Google Eliminate the Need for Small Business Websites?

Update: Google has now announced that it is expanding availability of Google Maps Navigation to devices running Android 1.6 (Donut) and higher, such as the T-Mobile myTouch 3G and the G1.

Original Article: Google has launched Google Maps Navigation for Android 2.0 devices in beta. This acts as a GPS navigation system with 3D views, turn-by-turn voice guidance, and automatic rerouting.

"But unlike most navigation systems, Google Maps Navigation was built from the ground up to take advantage of your phone’s Internet connection," says Google Software Engineer Keith Ito.

Because of that Internet connection, Google provides seven features that are available:

1. The most recent map and business data
2. Ability to search in plain English
3. Ability to search by voice
4. Traffic View
5. Ability to search along a route
6. Satellite View
7. Street View

The following video demonstrates how Google Maps Navigation functions:

GPS users may find the "search along route" feature to be particularly helpful. It is designed to let you search along your route to give you results that will keep you near your path. You can search for specific businesses by name or type and turn on popular layers such as gas stations, restaurants or parking. Since Google will provide the most recent map and business data, this is likely to be a more efficient tool than similar options from other GPS systems.

Verizon’s Droid is the first phone to have the Google Maps Navigation and Android 2.0. Google Maps Navigation is only available in the U.S. currently. More information on the feature can be found here.

Related Articles

> Google Makes Biggest Design Changes to Maps Yet

> Google Updates Maps with New Dataset

> Google Revamps Mobile Local Search Experience