No More Google "Places" what say ye pundits?

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/30/tech/web/google-places-plus/index.html


(CNN) -- Google Places is gone, replaced by a new feature that combines its Google Plus social site and renowned restaurant reviewers Zagat.

Announced Wednesday, Google Plus Local is the latest push by Google to incorporate its networking site into more of its other products, with the goal of creating a single, seamless Web experience.
Plus Local is designed to let users discover and share information about local restaurants, shops and other sites.


"Finding the best places to go is an essential part of our lives, as are the people and resources that help us make those decisions," Google product manager Avni Shah wrote on the company's official blog. "In fact, the opinions of friends, family or other trusted sources are often the first we seek when looking for the perfect restaurant for date night or the cafe that makes the best latte ever."


A new "Local" tab on the side of a Google Plus page lets users click and search.


Results will include reviews from Zagat, which Google bought in September, as well as ratings and comments from friends. The results also will appear when Google users search for a local site using Google search or Google Maps.


Companies listed on the less-social Google Places can be converted over to Google Plus. According to the blog Search Engine Land, roughly 80 million businesses' pages already had been converted Wednesday morning.


Google Plus reports being up to about 100 million users since opening to the public in September. That's a far cry from Facebook's roughly 900 million accounts.


Some in the tech world were saying Wednesday that Google Plus Local might be a way to begin catching up.


"What Google still lacks in Google+ is a way of getting different businesses' networks to interact with each other -- meaning, Facebook may have its own Facebook Places, but it also has a range of apps from others, like Gogobot and more, that enhance that experience," wrote Ingrid Lunden of TechCrunch.

"Google is still largely relying on its own data to get the job done. That could make the experience more cohesive, or (the problem Google+ has been having up to now) a little too quiet."

Very very smart move by Google. It will force people to use G+ because small businesses will need G+ in order to promote themselves and whenever they actively market their G+ page they will also be indirectly pushing consumers to start using G+ more as well.

In short this is a very good way to turn G+ into less of a ghost town.

artificial_genius said:

In short this is a very good way to turn G+ into less of a ghost town.

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That was my very first thoughts too. G+ sucks right now.

It goes to show G+ is failing,it is no longer a social club but google trying to ram it down peoples throat.G has made some bad moves lately.I can see something in the relatively near future bypassing google for local and your smartphone holds the key.

My response to this is that it will not as big of a splash as some at Google think. The reason being is that the local business still shows up in general search like old 7 and 3 box. People looking for something local won't give a shit if where the listing is so long as they can see the Business Contact info, Location, Reviews. Consumers won't jump into G+ unless they want to review a place.

well are they not forcing people to use sign up and use Google+ on android phones? And if that is the case, I can see some usefulness to this. As more and more people are forced by google (like apple does) to use google products injunction with each other the more it will grow. They may never grow as big as facebook but they may just have an idea going here.

The disturbing things is that google's attitude apparently has become, "We are going to force/coerce/browbeat the people into using google pus and punish them in the SERPs if they don't."

:damnit1:

Google wants more market share, and they know how to get it. Honestly though having small biz on G+ actually makes sense, as it will make the whole pages much more orderly. I don't rank on Google places but I always found it annoying that half the reviews were fake, and not necessarily the best businesses are actually being shown.

Hopefully this can change that?

So is this just for restaurants?

bhspiderz said:

My response to this is that it will not as big of a splash as some at Google think. The reason being is that the local business still shows up in general search like old 7 and 3 box. People looking for something local won't give a shit if where the listing is so long as they can see the Business Contact info, Location, Reviews. Consumers won't jump into G+ unless they want to review a place.

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Pretty much this.

It's really not much of a change yet. It may be if they drastically changed the google places ranking algo to include elements of G+

Talk about being desperate for people to use their social network...

Probably trying to capitalize on facebook screwing up so fantastically these past few days.

Name 10 offline people you know that have google + and use it regularly. Exactly.

Russell Wright from Network Empire stated that the G+ team is putting $500 million into making G+ the next big thing. I'm trying to find the link.

from a marketing point of view I kinda like the content rich pages that pop up. Only part that sucks is the review stars were erased and replaced with a x/30 score. I did notice that if you used the hreview trick to get rich snippets popping up they will pop up in local results. Same with author photos.

These types of behaviors will continue until they all g services force u to have a google + account. This is their strategy for taking down fb.

I wonder if they could be sued for anti trust like m$ in the 90s. An anti trust suit would reallly be great.

Any ideas about the best way to market on Google+ Local?

It looks like google for everyone to join G+

They deleted tons of youtube accounts - ACTIVE ONES , youtubers lost tons of subscribers , and when users register with new acc they needed to join G+ too and now this

Looks like google want to beat facebook , and they doing it well

ferma231 said:

It looks like google for everyone to join G+

They deleted tons of youtube accounts - ACTIVE ONES , youtubers lost tons of subscribers , and when users register with new acc they needed to join G+ too and now this

Looks like google want to beat facebook , and they doing it well

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FB doesnt have a chance. Google is just doing it systematically rather than going ok any google owned service or property requires a g+ account (it will eventually).