Welcome to "Around the Web"
You'll find commentary and links to articles from other sites here.
Learn more about this section of Small Business Shift in the original announcement.
You'll find commentary and links to articles from other sites here.
Learn more about this section of Small Business Shift in the original announcement.
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% […]
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