I did just get one of these in the mail. So here’s my question. I run my business out of my house, so if I stick it on the wall, I’ll be the only one to see it!

Not really useful for me, but it seems like they want the business owner to update their listing by the wording on the card.

Although it did make me feel good that Google sent me a card that said I’m one of their favorite places!

I think that Mike and Stever hit 99% of what I wanted to say, but the other thing I’d add is just a general comfort level with mobile usage is going to help Google in the long run wrt ad dollars. Something akin to what Yelp is doing where someone can scan in the QR code, see a place of business, but that the ad served on the mobile device might be for the business across the street? Additionally it might get more business owners to upload coupons, inventory, etc. as you guys have already pointed out…

So strange to think of the bike shop having PPC but an unclaimed listing. Yet, I’m just not surprised. It feels to me like finding a claimed listing is remarkable when I’m searching for local things. True, we live in a bit of a backwater compared to SF or NYC or Washington DC. But still, there are simply scads of businesses in the nearest major towns, and my sense is that the majority of them are out of the local loop.

It will be interesting to see if this effort on Google’s part does raise awareness. 100,000 businesses still seems pretty minor, but if they can use the user behavior to implement next campaigns on a wider sale, we shall see…

Thanks so much for stopping by, Dave!
Miriam

I did 3 searches in suburban areas near me; plumbers, dentists and bike shops. I looked at 29 records in G Maps (1 dup record) 12 were claimed by the owner. 17 weren’t claimed. I suspect that the majority of businesses haven’t claimed their records and the majority of small businesses don’t advertise with PPC.

Its a huge market for Google to access.

Every business owner knows about Google. They might not have a website. More likely they aren’t advertising with Google. They might have no idea about how to try and impact G Maps rankings.

They see those posters. They get a sense that the business is being frequently visited by searchers using Google. They might just want to work their way into the Google world, and ultimately start advertising.

While their appeared to be a fair number of plumbers and dentists advertising, there were only 2 PPC ads for bike shops. Of the 2 ads, one was from a bike shop and the other from yellow pages. Contrary to my reasoning above and that of other commentators, the bike shop that was advertising hadn’t claimed its listing.

Regardless, once you’ve claimed a listing Google continues to make you aware of PPC opportunities. Sooner or later they make hook you.

I’m sure its about self promotion.

I think all 3 of you fellows are right that this needs to be viewed in the light of good self promotion for Google, but the civic-minded person in me wants that to include benefit for the public, too.

Now, I’ll tell you, Mike…if Google could somehow upload real-time store inventories to retail stores (a la Milo but it would have to be more complete) and I could scan something on the front of the store that would tell me what was in the store, I’d go for that! Avoiding wandering around crowded stores that don’t have what I need would certainly save time in my life. Some type of really useful data like this being part of Place Pages would provide all the reason I’d need to view Place Pages as a truly helpful end destination, worth taking out a cell phone for before walking into a business. As it is, right now, there just isn’t much content there that would cause me to do this. But, that could change.

Thanks so much for letting me know your thoughts on this!
Miriam

“Scan this then leave a review please.”

Yes, that’s a really good point and could make getting instant reviews at the time of service a lot easier, if the customer is game.

Could you elucidate for me, Steve, your favoriting/MyMaps scenario. I really don’t make use of those functions beyond playing around with them. Once I know where a business is, I’m not likely to forget it. How do you use this function yourself? To remember phone numbers you frequently call for certain types of businesses…maybe doctors or something like that? I’d like to know as maybe this would start to draw a picture of some genuine benefit to the general public.

So nice of you to leave a comment, Steve!
Miriam

Yes, this point you make is a good one:

“In addition they are gathering early data on the penetration and behavior of those use cell phones to use QR codes.”

I can see the value in this for Google, but I am not seeing strong value for me (the person who might encounter such a poster out on the street). Having already found and arrived at the business, haven’t I really already made my decision to go there…whether this is a restaurant, a lawyer’s office or a public library? It seems a stretch to me to envision a scenario in which this benefits the user in a meaningful way. It seems artificial.

So, while I’m giving kudos to the business owners who received this poster, and I can certainly see how this benefits Google in terms of publicity, I am still unconvinced of its merit for the user.

Thank you for stopping by!
Miriam

They seem to be very good at getting user participation in order to increase effectiveness of their offerings – the map data points being a superb example of that. Scary smart that.