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Google Adds Location Targeted Searching
miradu writes "Many Slashdot users may remember that the winner of last year's Google programming contest's entry was a location specific search. Now, Google has made a version of Daniel's idea available to use on Google Labs. Google Search By Location lets you search for things near some zipcode, or city/state. It then gives you a map with each search result pinned on it. V"
On the other side of things, Google stands to make a killing here. Google can sell a new class of ads to people like plumbers, who don't need a webpage. In fact, they could possibly host a minimal web page for those kind of advertisers who just want to show some simple text and services.
Hey, perhaps Google wants to give me some kind of idea fee???
Newsfollow.com
At first, I thought this was going to function by mapping the web server IP address to a geological location. This is much better. It is a logical extension from the feature where Google gives you street addresses when you search on business, etc. This could be really useful for finding local clubs and organizations that share a common interest.
Phoenix
Would it be more effective for a small business that depends on local business (such as a house roofing or a plumbing company) to have a business name and a website that includes the name of the city? For example, "www.dallasplumbing.com" or www.dallas-plumbing.com? Which would be better at getting higher up in the google query? It would seem that with this IP location factor in the query that maybe such a URL scheme would be effective? Your opinions, please.....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
It's kind of cool, but pretty lame. Most searches matched something on the edge of the page with and address from the other edge. They just weren't related. About 1/5 pages weren't even online anymore. For some reason, the location search doesn't include a cache link, but you can get the cache via the normal google interface.
How is this different from Yahoo Yellow Pages ( http://yp.yahoo.com )? I've been using that service for half a decade. It searches by zipcode / address as well.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
Here's what Google values, from their Job Opportunities [google.com] page:What intrigues me personally is that this contest took place in an online collaborative environment. Does this mean that Google is considering opening up to remote working -- as in, I can live in Dallas and "work" in the Googleplex? As much as I'd love to work at a place like Google, there's no way I'm moving to California.
That would be a trip.
I tried the search and it failed on my quite a few times, but the potential is huge. The first thing that came to my mind was real estate.
I've gone out looking for land with realtors that can't even find the lots they're supposed to be showing, and look how much they take in transaction fees for their "service." It' not like they do the Escrow themselves. I suppose it's a bit different for houses, but for land sales they act like they're doing you a favor.
Not only that, but I've gone in with aerial photos and maps from the County that all come off of county maintained computer databases and the realtors inevitably insist their little hand drawn map that doesn't even accurately map the parcels is the more accurate solution.
This could be the beginning of something huge for Google.
There are a couple of wireless companies that do location based searches based on handset GPS coordinates. I worked on a location search application a long time ago using smart phones. It's not new. We even had a webpage that allowed you to track where the user was.
Slashdot seems to be very pro-Google, and I admit to using their search the majority of the time as well, but everyone should at least take a glance at google watch. Of most interest is the privacy section. If any other site were to track the stuff Google does, /. would be up in arms protesting.
"Google currently does not allow outsiders to gain access to raw data because of privacy concerns. Searches are logged by time of day, originating I.P. address (information that can be used to link searches to a specific computer), and the sites on which the user clicked. People tell things to search engines that they would never talk about publicly -- Viagra, pregnancy scares, fraud, face lifts. What is interesting in the aggregate can seem an invasion of privacy if narrowed to an individual."
Please note, this isn't a troll, and I'm not wearing a tin-foil hat (maybe I should?). Imagine the following scenario: a bomb goes off in the US. By tracing searches for "anarchist cookbook" to zipcodes within the area of the bomb blast, the FBI could have access to information that makes TIA look like a better alternative.
Maybe this isn't such a good feature after all...
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
Check out www.smartpages.com
It is an online yellow pages. Each listed company has a small 'web-page' that provides a link to the actual external web-page, if available, as well as a mapquest map, address and main contact phone number.
I use that site ALL the time looking up potential service vendors for the company I work for.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
I mean, beyond the 10K he made in the contest. Did Google give him a job? Or did they basically get this great idea (and a lot of others) for the low-low price of $10,000?
First, a quick search of most active username on kazaa.
Ah, there we have it. Now, let's find some info on this bastard.
-- --
Google 'Search by location' search term: kazaaliteuser@kazaa.com
Google 'Search by location' region: USA
Google found 2.304.942 search results:
Alabama
A. Allan
1425 21st Street South, Suite 208
Anniston, AL 12205
A. Andrews
517 Beacon Parkway West
Anniston, AL 25209
A. Baccus
106 W Third St
Birmingham, AL 35674
This is great... combined with something like GoogleAlert you could watch for anything new springing up in your neighborhood!