Comments on: It’s Time to Set Local Business Data Free

By: Cristiemandal

Cristiemandal — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:58:13 +0000

They should try making an alliance ensuring better local business reviews. Trying to take all the control, in my opinion, is going to eventually fail to keep up.

By: liliag

liliag — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:06:20 +0000

It ain't easy to keep a database with all businesses in a certain area. As you said, many get closed and that data isn't updated anywhere. I hope Google will try to find a solution because Google Maps is indeed a useful application.
Lilia Gephardt @ Custom servers

By: RyderChadwick

RyderChadwick — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 20:35:36 +0000

It's hard for local businesses to survive now, when we have an economical recession. Without proper advertising, they aren't popular and thus nobody calls them when in need. They don't even get settled well, get a Voip telephone and sign some papers when they find themselves in the position of being forced to shut down the business because they aren't able to make a profit. It's a sad situation, I am familiar with companies that had good ideas and came a stumer.

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By: msaiwn

msaiwn — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 07:56:26 +0000

My guess is that all these companies will be implicated in managing local businesses data, but Google will be by far the first at this.

Trianz

By: Local Business Marketing

Local Business Marketing — Tue, 04 May 2010 12:55:14 +0000

I think that Google will eventually create and dominate a local business database and provide it to upcoming local directories and api's in exchange for geological and traffic data.

By: Tweets that mention It’s Time to Set Local Business Data Free | Location Meme -- Topsy.com

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:33:35 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Susuh, lawrence coburn, Chad Catacchio, fraser37, Location Meme and others. Location Meme said: It’s Time to Set Local Business Data Free http://bit.ly/9rsOVP (two day old post, we had Twitter fail!) [...]

By: lawrence

lawrence — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 01:46:30 +0000

Thanks Marshall. I think that the non-evergreen content aspect is manageable via TOS. Companies like Yext and Priceline already provide cache-able local biz data, but require you to check back frequently for updates.

I also think there is huge potential demand for a business location db – in addition to all the legacy local directories, there is the whole new class of geo apps that will all likely need to build out destination pages for all of the businesses covered by their services, as not to leave search traffic on the table.

By: Marshall Kirkpatrick

Marshall Kirkpatrick — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 19:43:51 +0000

Good articulation of long-standing issue here. Hopefully this won’t be evergreen content as the issue will soon change. Can’t help but wonder – surely though things like the Yahoo Location Database API and the Twitter geolocation API have not been taken immediate advantage of – surely a business location database would be, right?? It’s a direct path to commerce, no layer of creative abstraction and value add required, right?

By: Dennis Yu

Dennis Yu — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 04:51:53 +0000

Lawrence,

Well-put. The sale of local business data is going the way of the print yellow pages– an apt analogy because the old books get out of date fast and the underlying business model is flawed. Revenue should be driven from businesses that have a good reason to work with a provider, not because someone is paying to rebroadcast that data. Value comes from higher in the chain– to drive phone calls or measurable leads.