Small Business Shift

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Update: Scroll to the comments to see a fix if this is causing you trouble. Mike Blumenthal reports that there is a ubiquitous bug in Google Places today, causing phone numbers to be displayed incorrectly after any Places edits. He writes: Any Places edit seems to cause the smooshed phone number bug in Google Places. […]

CityGrid Media (publisher of Citysearch, Urbanspoon, and Insiderpages, among others) is releasing a new version of its API, which will include Infogroup data. The press release states: Under the agreement, CityGrid will bundle Infogroup’s core business data together with its own enhanced places content and a growing list of third-party premium content, including social media […]

Google is opening up a forum for asking questions about Google Places. It’s something they did last year, as they say in the announcement: A little more than a year ago, we collected your questions and feedback on Google Places for business via a Google Moderator page. You sent us some great feedback, and we […]

Google announced this morning that the company has acquired Zagat, the longtime provider of local ratings and reviews. This is a big surprise, but fits well with Google’s local search strategy – focused on outright domination, by owning more local content than anyone else. For a sampling of their other recent activities: Google Moves To […]

A few weeks ago I highlighted a disturbing offer to remove your competitors from Google Places for just $5. Not long after, Mike Blumenthal wrote a post discussing companies being marked as “permanently closed” – presumably by competitors. Amazingly, anyone on the web is allowed to make this type of update. He then very mischievously marked Google’s headquarters […]

There’s a thread at Google+ started by a Googler discussing one reason why the company doesn’t provide much in the way of support. It says: If you have a billion users, and a mere 0.1% of them have an issue that requires support on a given day (an average of one support issue per person […]

Google has just announced a new educational portal designed for small businesses. It’s to help businesses and their advisers better understand all Google’s offerings. In the search giant’s own words: …we hope that this collection of short videos, handouts, and resources will arm you with best practices and tips that you can use right away. The […]

I’ve written previously about why your business should and should not use Twitter. But a recent report from Exact Target really pins down one of the great things about the social network. As the report states: Twitter users are the most influential online consumers, and their influence spreads across all areas of the internet. It says […]

This great article at Slate asks the question: Why are restaurant websites so horrifically bad? The article discusses the overdone animation, slow page loads, difficult navigation, and general lack of easy-to-find content that plagues the industry. I think it’s true that the restaurant industry suffers from these issues even more than most, but it’s something […]

eMarketer highlights an interesting study from Hiscox – which shows low usage of social media by small businesses, and even less importance ascribed to the area. On the other hand, most viewed word-of-mouth as critical to their success. The article says: 50% of respondents said the marketing tool they could not do without was word-of-mouth. Just 4% […]