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Google has released what is called the "Near me Now" feature for the iPhone and Android browser. The feature shows nearby businesses by category based on the user's location.

"'Near me now' was designed to address two user problems," explains Google's Mobile team. "First, we wanted to make it fast and easy to find out more about a place in your immediate vicinity, whether you're standing right in front of a business or if it's just a short walk away. For example, you may want to know what other customers think about a restaurant before you go inside (see quick video below) or what they have been raving about on the menu before you order. By selecting the 'Explore right here' option, you can find out more about a place 'right here' with just a few clicks."

The restaurant example is illustrated in the following clip:

"Second, we wanted to make searching for popular categories of nearby places really simple," the team adds. "Imagine that you emerge from the subway station and you want to grab a coffee, but you don't see a coffee shop around you. You can simply search for all nearby coffee shops by using 'Near me now'. To search other categories of places not shown, 'Browse more categories' provides access to our local search product with more category choices."

The feature is available in the US only at this point. It works for iPhone (OS 3.x) or Android-powered devices with version 2.0.1 and up. Users have to enable their location for the feature to even appear.

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You may recall that a lot of entities -including Google, Yahoo, and Bing - released some top/best of/worst of 2009 lists back in late November and early December, seemingly forgetting about the last one-twelfth of the year.  Bing returned today with more data about search trends, however.

As with the list of popular status updates that Facebook released yesterday, we'll trust that you're able to read the information for yourself.  There's not a whole lot of useful analysis we can provide, either.

Perhaps the one thing worth mentioning is that Bing conducted an "End of Year" quiz on Facebook before releasing its lists, demonstrating that Microsoft's interest in the social network remains fairly strong.

Otherwise, here's what Bing found to be the top search terms of 2009:

Related Articles:

> Microsoft Launches Bing iPhone App, Addresses Issues

> Nielsen Also Puts Bing Up In  November

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Google has developed a plug-in for WordPress that adds the social features of Google Friend Connect to WordPress blogs. The plug-in allows visitors to these blogs to authenticate using any OpenID account, including Google, Yahoo, or AIM and then comment on posts without having to register. When a visitor authenticates, it creates a WordPress account.

"You can later add or remove permissions for the visitor from the WordPress site administration pages," explains Mauro Gonzalez, who developed the plug-in. "If desired, WordPress comments can be replaced by Google Friend Connect comments gadgets. In this case, no WordPress account is created, since Google Friend Connect handles both the rendering of the comments as well as comments moderation. Regardless of whether the Google Friend Connect comments gadgets are enabled or not, comment entries display the user profile picture and link to the user’s profile."

There is a set of social gadgets available that includes the Social Bar, Members, Recommendations, and Global Conversation gadgets. "When recommendations are enabled, a 'Recommend' button is displayed below your posts allowing the site members to choose the content they like most," says Gonzalez. "The most popular posts will surface to the top of the list within the recommendations gadget."

When a user of the WordPress blog posts content or comments on a post, this information will appear in the Google Friend Connect activity stream. Features of the plug-in like colors, size, labels, etc. can be customized in Wordpress like anything else.

The plug-in is available on the Google Code site. Examples are live in demos here and here.

Google has introduced a new type of ad for local businesses called Local Listing Ads. They are designed to display when users search for a business in its local area. Google says it's the easiest way to advertise your business to local customers on Google, because they require no maintenance. 

The ads just consist of a business name, contact information (with a unique phone number from Google for tracking purposes), and a link. The units will appear on Google.com in local results at the top of the results page, and in Google Maps.

"Unlike Google AdWords, Local Listing Ads require no management of ad creative, keywords, bidding or budget management," the company says. "After you select a standard category that best describes your business, Google determines the cost that ensures the ad is seen by the highest number of people looking for businesses like yours in your location."

Google says local listing ads provide advertisers with:

- Ads shown on Google.com and Google Maps

-  A flat monthly fee based on your location and business category

-  First 30 days free

-  No bid or keyword management

-  Free call-tracking, announcing each forwarded customer call ('This caller brought to you by Google')

-  Full report on the number of calls, clicks to your ad, requests for driving directions, and clicks to your info window on Google Maps

-  The option to cancel your ad at any time

Following is how your ads would look on Google.com and on Google Maps:

According to Google, over 80% of people look to Google for local information, and this is a way to make you listing stand out. The ads are targeted only to people who are near your business.

As an added bonus, so you know when the ad has been effective, Google says you'll hear "this call brought to you by Google" with every call made from your ad.

Payment for Local Listing Ads is a flat monthly fee, which varies by location and business category. Advertisers pay the same each month no matter how many times people click or view your ad. Google says advertisers will be given the chance to confirm the monthly flat fee that is unlikely to change frequently or be notified of the change 30 days in advance via email and your LBC account message.

Local Listing Ads are only being tested right now. For the time being, they're available in San Francisco and San Diego. It's hard to say when they will become available for all.

Google has people riled up with its latest local search effort Google Place Pages. Place Pages are a Google Maps feature launched last week, which serve the purpose of providing everything you want to know about a place (a city or a business) in one spot. For example, if you search for a specific restaurant, you should get web pages, directions, reviews, images, street view imagery, business hours, etc. Google lets businesses submit specific categories they want to include.

There is concern from some that Google is trying to eliminate the need for users to leave Google and even visit a small business' web site. WebProNews reader Doug Stewart, who wonders if this is an "assault against the small business website," commented, "Google wants people to spend more time on Google. Yahoo wants people to spend more time on Yahoo. Facebook wants people to spend more time on Facebook. Several of these large online "media" [companies] are doing everything in their power to keep the eyeballs on their website (unless you pay them for an outbound link)."

Do you think Google's Place Pages are good or bad for business? Tell us what you think.

Google has always claimed to do everything with the user's experience in mind. Unfortunately for SEOs and webmasters, however, it also could mean that people have less reason to go to their sites.

To me, this would really depend on the information that the searcher is hoping to acquire. It's going to be about finding the right balance of useful information and providing an incentive to still go to your site (if that is your goal). The Place Pages would certainly bring a new element to the online reputation management table. You're going to want to keep an eye on what's showing up on your Place Page, and address the situation accordingly. They can include user-generated content.



Another concern that has been voiced about Place Pages, is that Google could start ranking them in natural search results - outside of Google Maps. In fact, Erick Schonfeld points out that this is already occurring for at least the Burdick Chocolate Cafe (the example Google used when it announced the feature).



This could theoretically reduce clicks to actual sites, but again, this would just emphasize the need to manage your reputation on your Place Page. Your site is likely to be easily located from the Place Page anyway.

Blogger Eric Fredline says Google's Place Pages are "designed for optimization," but that something is missing. "For one, Google would need local merchant’s to define some sort of ‘conversion event’.  This is conceptually as easy as defining a new ‘block type’ that will appear on the landing page and be optimized," he says. "For example, a restaurant might view a phone call or an Open Table registration as a conversion event.  If it’s a phone call, I imagine the merchant could be encouraged to use Google Voice to provide a closed loop analysis of the conversion event."

"Perhaps more likely than having individual merchants doing this (at least in all cases) would be a small army of SEO and SEM experts doing it on the businesses' behalf – but within a closed looped system managed by Google," he adds. "Google could potentially create a whole new eco-system."

Another interesting factor of Google's Place Pages is the fact that they have sponsored results on them. This could raise more concerns, such as competing ads showing up on a business' place page. In Google's chocolate Cafe example, the Page is showing ads for chocolate companies like Godiva and Ghirardelli.

There are a lot of questions about the Pages, and answers will likely come in due time. In fact, Google Place Pages will be discussed in more than one panel at next week's Search Marketing Expo, which WebProNews will be attending. We should have more information on it then. 

The Place Pages come with their own structured URL. The example Google gives is http://maps.google.com/places/us/cambridge/brattle-st/52/-burdick-chocolate-cafe. You can see how it is structured by places/country/city/street/address/business name. Google discusses the feature here.

Google says that while not all businesses have a place page yet, they will soon. Businesses can update their info through Google's Local Business Center.

What is your take on the role of Google's Place Pages? Share your thoughts.

Google recently launched a new Internet statistics site, called simply "Google Internet Stats." The site provides industry data from third-party sources for use in research.

Categories covered on the site include technology, consumer trends, media consumption, media landscape, and macro economic trends. Each of these has several sub-categories. For technology, you can see data on broadband, devices, mobile, and speed. For consumer trends, you can look at data for community, entertainment, information, and eCommerce. For media consumption, you can look at changes in media usage, demographic usage, media consumption rates, media multi-tasking, personalized media, and experiences. For media landscape you can look at either all media or just online, and for macro economic trends you can look at the UK or the rest of the world.

The site is only available in English, and covers mostly UK statistics at this point. Google says the information will be updated regularly though, and users can submit stats.

The site uses data provided by: B2Bonline.com, BARB, BusinessWeek, Coke, Commission of the European Communities, Comscore, Core Metrics, Datamonitor, Deloitte, The Economist, eMarketer, Enders Analysis, Eurostat, Film Distributors Association, Financial Times, Forrester, GFK, Google Insights for Search, Greenbee.com, Guardian, HarvardBusiness.org, Hitwise, IAB, IFPI, IMF, Internet Retailing, Internetworldstats.com, JP Morgan, KMPG, Media & Marketing, Mediascope Europe, Mindshare, Motorola, Net Imperative, New York Magazine, Nielsen, NMA, Ofcom, Ipsos MediaCT, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, QuickPlay Media Inc., Retail Week, Reuters, TGI Net, Times Online, TNS, Verdict Research, Wall Street Journal, WARC, YouTube, ZenithOptimedia, and GM.

"We think the Consumer Trends section will be particularly useful..." says Evelyn O'Keeffe of the Google Analytics Team. "Take a look at what your website visitors and customers are doing online and think about adapting your site design/advertising to suit their behaviours."

She also throws out a reminder that Google has an Insights for Search tool, which can keep marketers and webmasters up to date on the latest search trends. We've talked about this tool in the past here.

Along with Yahoo's big new "Y!ou" campaign, the company has begun rolling out the new Yahoo Search. They unveiled the new design last month, which compliments the recently launched redesigns of the Yahoo Home Page, Yahoo Mail, and Yahoo Messenger.

"The new page is designed to help you easily find and explore the things that matter most to you. The Yahoo! Search team is delighted to demonstrate our commitment to innovate in search technology and deliver an amazing user experience," says Larry Cornett, Vice President, Consumer Products, Yahoo Search.

Yahoo names the following as key highlights of the new Yahoo Search:

Intelligent Search Results – Allows you to explore results from key sites and narrow results using different types of SearchMonkey structured data. Over the past few months, even more enhanced results for product, local, entertainment, reference, social, and tech sites have been displayed automatically. With the new search page design, we have made it easier to see these riche results from an increasing number of sites.

Feature-Rich Experience – Provides quick access to search features that make people’s online lives safer and easier, including Search Scan/SafeSearch (which helps protect you from viruses, spyware, and spam while you search) and Search Pad. Now it will be even easier to return to the research documents you have created while searching.

Search Assist Expansion – With the new design, our powerful query assistance is still available directly below the search box, but we’ve also incorporated it into the left-hand column for quick access lower on the page, even when the Search Assist layer is hidden. You can use this column to easily explore and discover concepts related to your query. We have added Search Assist to the search box on every Yahoo! page in the U.S. with the launch of a new universal header.

Along with the change to Yahoo Search itself, comes a "revamping" of Yahoo's image search and video search results pages. In the left-hand columns on these, you wil get links to related categories.

"Rather than building this new experience on top of our existing front-end technology, our talented engineering and design teams rebuilt much of the foundational markup/CSS/JavaScript for the SRP design and core functionality completely from scratch," says Cornett. "This allowed us to get rid of old cruft and take advantage of quite a few new techniques and best practices, reducing core page weight and render complexity in the process."

Yahoo says the new Yahoo Search includes improved page load time, improved perceived load time, and inline data URI images. It's now available in the US, the UK, France, Spain, Mexico, and India.

The web was abuzz yesterday with talk of a new Yahoo marketing campaign, which is all about "Y!ou." This campaign was formally announced today, and a new site dedicated to it has even been set up by the company at YouAndYahoo.com. Yahoo says it is the single-largest integrated marketing campaign for the company ever.

Yahoo says it's asserting its place at the center of people's online lives, and has announced that the company has "realigned all aspects of its business around simplifying and enhancing the web experience."

"Today the Web and your world are inseparable," said Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz. "Hundreds of millions of people use Yahoo to get the information they need, connect with friends and family, and be entertained. We are about creating online experiences people find meaningful, relevant, and fun."

"Our vision is to be at the center of people’s online lives—to be at the place where their world meets the larger world,” said Elisa Steele, Yahoo executive vice president and CMO, speaking at the IAB MIXX Conference and Expo in New York City. "Our new branding will focus on people—the power and promise of 'you.'"

"This is much more than an advertising campaign," added Steele. "It’s about how Yahoo delivers its promise to the market in everything we do. Our brand strategy shows our commitment to delivering personally relevant online experiences."

The campaign will actually launch on September 28 in the US (and on October 5 in the UK and India), although in some ways, you could probably say that it has already launched. After all, they've already got us all talking about it. It will extend into next year, and reach major and emerging markets worldwide, such as Brazil, Canada, France, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, and Taiwan.

Yahoo claims the campaign stemmed from a "massive research effort," which found that users want the web to be "more personally relevant."

Google has quietly announced that Google Docs documents that are published will soon be crawlable. This means if you have published documents as web pages, or used the publish/embed option for a document, and it has been linked to on the web, it can be indexed by Google and other search engines.

"This is a very exciting change as your published docs linked to from public websites will reach a much wider audience of people," says Google Employee "Marie F," on the Google Docs Help Forum.

The change does not apply to documents that are set to "allow anyone with the link to view (no sign-in required)." Any concerned users, who do not wish for their published documents to be indexed can un-publish them by:

- going to the "share tab"

- For documents and spreadsheets, choosing "publish as web page". For presentations choosing "publish/embed"

- Clicking the button that says "stop publishing".

Google notes that Google Apps users may find that they're unable publish documents to the world if the admin of the domain has disallowed publishing outside the domain.

The company said they will be launching the change in a couple weeks. Keep an eye on the help forum for an update on when the change goes live.