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Google's $10 Local Search Play
thefickler writes "Google has come come up with a novel way to boost the information it has about local businesses. As part of its Business Referral Representative program, Google is offering individuals up to $10 to visit local businesses and tell them about Google Maps and Google AdWords, collect information (such as hours of operation and types of payment accepted), and take digital photos of the business. Reaction to the program has been mixed."
They are already doing it with Dodgeball which they never did much with and could have provided them with free access to this data.
That's good if it helps boost the amount of information available to GOOG-411.
Back when i was in school, the job i was working didn't quite pay enough to cover all of the bills...being able to toss a notebook in the car and go hit a bunch of places for 10 bucks a pop would have been a godsend for me and most of my friends. This is especially true if you plan; hit 10 places in one day all in a row (heck, if you live in a downtown area, just take out the whole street in an afternoon).
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
It's research to see if they can actually find a company that hasn't heard of Google advertising.
The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything. - Oscar Wilde
This is taking advantage, totally.
...but this is a superb example of taking advantage of someones ignorance of the true value of the data they are providing.
Of course the decision is totally up to the individual as always...
Do no evil? PSSSH, yeah right...more like Do Know Evil.
...Don't forget to factor in your time spent processing the materials, talking to the shop owners, getting to and from the shop, etc...
...and that's not even considering potential gas costs...
Anyone feel like doing a breakdown on cost/profit margin on this? Urban versus rural areas?Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
Cool and stuff, but "... in the U.S.". WTF? Should be noted first in the article.
To go and track down and get the info for all the stripclubs and brothels/"gentlemen's clubs".
"Thank you for using Stop-n-Drop, America's favorite suicide booth since 2008"
While rare, I can see someone getting their panties in a bunch over their place of business being photographed without permission...
Then we have the "hey! I got an idea! let's photograph the inside of a Wal-Mart!" (where the photog will promptly get thrown out...)
Could be wrong (they might've covered, you know, permissions), but I can see lots of kids getting snagged in something like that. /P
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
First of all, I would like to say that this sounds like a great way to make some money on the side. However, the amount of work required to earn a maximum of $20 ($10 + $2 +$8) per business you refer seems rather large. "...visit local businesses and tell them about Google Maps and Google AdWords, collect information (such as hours of operation and types of payment accepted), and take digital photos of the business." That to me, looks like HOURS worth of work. I am to go inside a business talk about various google products, collect business information that some business won't even release easily (or at all), and take photos of the business. And in the end you might not even get the full $20. I don't know. It's not like I'm asking for increased pay or anything. It's just that google is asking for a lot.
Just like paid surveys...
How would you know that people aren't just making things up to get the money? Just because you pay them doesn't mean the results will be correct...
Then again, Google is a search engine, and it's not like everything you find on Google that is web based is correct anyways...
goatse emporium.
Location: Christmas island.
picture
Hours of operation: open 24/7
Payment accepted: large bills
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
It's only $2 bucks for all the legwork. $2 bucks, and that only once Google is happy with your hard work.
The remaining $8 bucks comes once a business "Confirms" the info is accurate. They do that either via a mail-in card, or online. In other words, a teeny tiny fraction of the businesses you hard-working stiffs collect, will likely ever follow up on this part. And among the ones who do, what do you bet that if there's any correction, ANY, then the $8 bucks is forfeit?
It's great for Google, bad for the pavement pounders. Best bet is to hire your 12 year old kids to do the leg work for you, give them the $2 bucks and a valuable lesson in hard work and communications. Then any "confirmations" that pan out, keep that for yourself.
Kids gotta learn about payroll deductions sometime.
In from thei tions
http://www.google.com/local/referral/termsAndCond
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
Compensation. For each month during the Service Period, Google will pay Contractor (i) for each Customer for whom Contractor has collected and submitted Customer Data to Google in accordance with these Terms and Google, in its sole discretion, has accepted or approved of the Customer Data submitted by Contractor for such Customer, a one-time fee of two U.S. dollars ($2) (a "Base Referral Fee") and (ii) if such Customer is a Verified Customer, an additional one-time fee of eight U.S. dollars ($8) (a "Bonus Referral Fee" and together with Base Referral Fee, "Referral Fees"). A Customer is a "Verified Customer" if and when Google receives written confirmation (whether by mail, email or on-line via a URL designated by Google) from such Customer that the Customer Data submitted by Contractor for such Customer is current, complete and correct. Payment of any Referral Fees is contingent upon Google's receipt of a completed W-9 Form by Contractor. Notwithstanding any of the foregoing, the Referral Fees will not be considered earned by Contractor should Google, in its sole discretion, determine that it has previously received Customer Data for such Customer by a party other than Contractor and so inform Contractor no later than five (5) business days after Contractor's submission of such Customer Data. Google shall pay Contractor Referral Fees earned during each month, with payment for that month being made within thirty (30) days of the end of the immediately following month, if Contractor has earned at least twenty-five U.S. dollars ($25) for such month. If Contractor has not earned at least twenty-five U.S. dollars ($25) in a given month, then Google will defer payment until Contractor has earned at least twenty-five U.S. dollars ($25). Payment will be mailed to Contractor at the address provided by Contractor on Contractor's IRS W-9 Form. For the avoidance of doubt, (x) Google has no obligation to accept or sell Google products or services to any Customer and (y) in the event that a Customer purchases any Google product or service, Contractor is not entitled to receive any compensation or payment in connection therewith.
This would be a great thing for those who want to help out the small businesses in their area. They can go out and literally put them on the map. The more people that are aware the small shops exist, the more likely people will be to shop there.
I know that I, for one, don't neglect smaller shops because I would rather go to Target. For the most part, I do it because I am unaware that there even is a small shop that could serve my needs.
If the service and idea is good, throwing money to the customer as the main reason is a bit microsoft-ish as says a lot about the service's value.
The localization issue is going to be a difficult problem, cause to 'control' the reasons of a individual (deciding between a $1 walmart vs. $20 mom-n-pop item) is pretty uncontrollable--those would purchase on principle only is niche and just plain stupid.
I see this more as way to expand business for adwords, while not having to have a huge sales force on the books, generating costs, travel, expense accts., etc. The small business is likely the largest growing segment for their advertising (boom/growth/market share) bottom line. To get to that segment, grass roots seems to be the approach here, market-by-market. Slick.
I live in Montreal. Montreal's metropolitan area has a population of 3.6 million people. This is equivalent in market to Los Angeles and Chicago, your second and third largest cities. Montreal is entirely neglected by this program. Additionally, Toronto's metro area has a population of over 5 million, second in size on this continent only to New York City. Again, Toronto is entirely neglected by this program. I understand Google Labs technologies such as street view and traffic require the participation of local governments, but a program like this one is driven entirely by market... and not only are there Canadian Google users, but lots of them, too.
Google could be making real money in Canada, and yet they choose not to. Why is the Canadian market ignored yet again? Google has access to prime revenue streams: we can be paid in currency that Google already does business in, our cities are already well integrated into the Google Maps grid, and Canadian business can and does take advantage of Google's paid placement programs.
While Canada itself is a significantly smaller overall market than the United States itself, I don't understand why the international border comes into play at all. After all, our urbanized centres easily compare the market sizes of the American cities that Google is focussing efforts on... and isn't that what counts when it comes down to it?
Google, please include Canadian cities in your future service rollouts. Our advertising dollar is every bit as useful to you as an American one.
Urban Detail
As a small business owner -- an IT business, at that -- one of the first things I did was make sure I was listed with Google. I followed up with the phone books.
The thing is that many of my acquaintances are small business owners. And I decided to Google their businesses while I was registering mine. Most came up with name and address -- even though they didn't register to be listed with Google. Some didn't come up at all.
I went to them. I explained the situation. Google acts as a phone book to many of us. And they display the business result in prime screen real estate for free! If they're listed, the more information they provide, the better. And if they don't provide any information, they're basically illegitimate in my eyes.
Basically, I see this as Google's quest to get small businesses listed in their "web 2.0 phone book".
More importantly, section 3 (b):
"...that Contractor is legally authorized to work in the United States."
Pity. I was disappointed in the inaccuracy of Google's listings for my city when I tried to compare the walkability of my house to my friends'.
I had considered submitting more accurate information to Google, but didn't want to spend the effort, because they're a for-profit company, so what's the benefit to me?
This could well have enticed me to provide thorough, accurate listings for stores in my downtown, but since I'm not eligible for the QPQ, I'll go back to my other priorities.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
- we pay a lot of money to acquire data from partners;
- we focus a lot of development resources on improving data quality (and this is a non-trivial problem, spanning years of development)
- we use human editors where appropriate
Google, in contrast, seems to just scrape the web (including Yahoo!) and attempt to parse the results. Like the magic 8-ball, the result is sometimes very accurate and sometimesThere are no shortcuts here; there is no clever algorithm that will yield an accurate Local database in the face of innacurate primary sources and willful abusers.
I think this purported $10 offer reflects Google's dawning realization of that fact. I'll let others comment on the attractiveness and credibility of the offer.
If you are 20, I assume you are broke. Therefore random business owners don't care.
I can kind of see why Coke or Pepsi would try to "grab" you, to establish a lifetime of brand loyalty. But right now, I really don't see how "Tim's Deli" could really care one way or the other why random-20-year-old would care.
The reason "Tim's Deli" should care, is because of me! I am a 40-mumble-something and I do have money. And you know what? I don't use the freaking "yellow pages" either! I search online, even for local stuff. And*, I have money.
* proof that I am over 40-mumble-somthing is the fact that I asterisk'd the questionable use of "And" as the start of a sentance.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Hmm, is anyone else at all reminded of the CIC from Snow Crash? Being paid to go around and find information that someone 'may' be interested in, one day? The only difference is that you won't be paid per hit that the store you scoped out gets, though that could work too, i suppose.
Immolation is the sincerest form of flattery.
That's awesome...I'd never seen that Walkability thing before. My house scored a big fat ZERO. And I'm pretty sure it's accurate, too. Nothing closer than a mile and a half, and that's just a gas station convenience store. Well, I guess they missed a bar/restaurant, but that's further away than the aforementioned gas station. I love living in the woods. :D
-G
Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.
This isn't about taking pictures. This is a door to door commission sales scheme. The "Business Referral Representative" gives a handout to the business owner, encouraging them to sign up with Google. "As a Google Business Referral Representative, you'll visit local businesses to collect information (such as hours of operation, types of payment accepted, etc.) for Google Maps, and tell them about Google Maps and Google AdWords." Google pays $2 for each sales call, and $8 for each sale.
Door to door selling is hard. It's classified as a hazardous occupation by the U.S. Department of Labor. In some areas it's illegal; in others you need a license. Almost nobody does business to business sales door to door, anyway; you call first and try to set up an appointment. And there's no point in calling on any retail outlet that's part of a chain; their advertising will be purchased centrally.
At $2 per sales call and $8 per sale, this is a lose. If you have enough talent for selling to make it doing this, you can get far better commission sales jobs.
Worse, there are no territories and no scheduling. You have no idea if someone else already tried to sell an area until you go there, which from a sales rep perspective means there are days when you make nothing. Plus, that approach to sales really annoys customers; multiple visits make the selling company look clueless.
I signed up last week. Not even a confirmation email though.
From their terms and conditions:
"8. Rights to Developments. As between the Parties, all software (including modifications and documentation), products, inventions, documents, writings and other materials conceived, prepared, made, discovered or produced by Contractor during the Service Period, including without limitation Deliverables that relate in any manner to the Program or business of Google (collectively, the "Developments"), shall be the sole and exclusive property of Google."
More discussion may be found at blogoscoped.
I for one believe this is an elaborate conspiracy to get more Something Awful forum members.
These pay rates make WalMart look positively generous.
I've always thought that one of the best ways for Google to do work on this is to do a large campaign (online, direct mail, magazines, I don't care), where they cross promote their services. So for signing up a company gets $10 that can be spend on Adwords. This way you help SME's into using adwords for their business. I noticed recently that when I searched for a store in my town that would have a specific thing, I would watch out much more for Adwords than if I search for grand ideas.
All in all I feel that Google could do way more to integrate their business lines and do cross promotion and selling. Google Analytics is great, but why is there no one stop shopping for the search words that people that visit my site use? "Oh they're looking for Google Adsense for Charity, yes that's me, let me buy a keyword with one click."
Use Adsense for Charity
Actually your dollar is still worth less than ours...
You don't know much about urban sprawl in America. You can take most of the populations here and triple them. While it says LA has only 3.8 million people, the LA metropolitan area has almost 13 million. That's 3 times as many people, and the per capita income for LA is $35,1881 American dollars while Montreal's is only $28,595 in your funny-money.
Businesses have a much lighter right to privacy, and it would be difficult to show how submitting a photo to Google (for use as a free service to help people find their business) could cause harm.
...out in force today.
Many of the comments missed the long-term view. Let's suppose that it works the way Google intended. Then, some of these small businesses then go out of business, change location, change their name, come under new management, etc. Who tells Google?
Keeping directory information current is a friggin' nightmare. Good luck to them.
This is not a unique idea, we at O'WONDER have been offering people in the UK 33% of our £295 lifetime membership fee to rep our directory at gonumber.com. Note, we are a directory, not a search engine, so our results are more succinct. We're initially just covering a few areas of London, but working to expand once we improve the service later in the year. Want to rep for us? Drop us a line to owonder.com/contact. Our price is high as membership is for life and we don't resell our data.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This would be my sales pitch.
Hi I'm a Google Business Referral Representative and I would like to take pictures of your shop. The images will be displayed on the internet via a Google search so when a thief doesn't have the time to case your premises for goods, exits and such they can find there answers through Google....
You wouldn't have to worry about your personal safety though as google through its search engine offers many links to lock picking and bump keying so people can use your services while your at home. This would allow you to change your business model to that of a 24 hr store in the internet age.
And hey you'll be helping me out because they will pay me $10 for this info and I can use this money to pay for my grammar and spelling tutor.
But wait theres more Google also offer a service to catch these criminals its through there street view system although the images might not be that current but after all this is a free service so what do you expect.
Can I offer you some Google Insurance???
WTF - Because I'm a honest person and you gotta say it like it is:)---
Me: Okay sir, just a few more quick questions and I'm out of your hair. By the way, don't forget to check these and make sure they're correct once they get posted online. Lots of customers are going to look at this information, and we want it to be right.
Owner: PISS OFF!!!
Me: Um, okay. Should we continue?
Owner: Yes, please.
Me: Good. It says on the door that you're open from 10 AM to 9 PM, is this correct?
Owner: I'm sorry, but we can neither confirm or deny the hours posted on the door.
Me: What??
Owner: That's patented, proprietary information.
Me: Wait, what? I'm only asking about the hours posted on the _door_.
Owner: Next question, please.
Me: Okay... Well, it says here on your cash register that you take Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and Debit, but you do not take checks. Is _this_ information correct?
Owner: Possibly.
Me: Possibly?
Owner: I SAID PISS OFF!!!
Me: Okay, don't to forget to check the information on local.google.com...
Owner: Thanks, sonny-jim!
---
Totally typical, I'm sure.
Big Brother watches whether you want it or not. This is purely voluntary and entrepreneurial--for Google, the local business, and the people recruited to gather information. We know /. isn't exactly unbiased in many areas, but W.R. Hearst-style yellow journalism is a bit beyond the pale.
This sounds like a job for the boy scouts to me!
Google is not the only company offering cash for search results. In fact, they're not even the first.
Mahalo[1] has been doing this for months now, and the payout starts at $10 (not $2) and goes up from there. You can sign up to be a part-time guide at the Mahalo Greenhouse[2].
[1] http://www.mahalo.com/
[2] http://greenhouse.mahalo.com/
I wonder how other directories will feel about having their info snapped up and submitted to Google? I'm sure something like Toronto.com (an example from my neighbourhood) has most of the info that Google wants on many of the businesses. One could probably copy and paste all this info and all that would be left to do would be to walk down the street and snap picture after picture of each storefront. We've already heard comments that this would be a great revenue source for college students and we know how much they like to copy/paste... Seems like maybe this is could be a clever avenue for Google to have deniability when other websites are plagiarized.
Between this and Google's Street View, my little homegrown website (A2BizInfo.com) is dead.
I could see a team of a few people actually making alot of money....have a whole room full of people getting the info from all the shops one by one, offering a great service to get placed on google for only 8$ dollars, give us all the info we need or better yet, send me the info through mail or email
include a picture or we can send someone out , but cant garantee the picture to be the best of your store....then we will contact you as soon as this is setup (google contacts them they think everything is good) and for those shops that prefer someone to do the picture send someone out on a run of multiples that way he doesnt waste time for just one, but many at once....
the epitome of Renaissance Man, so only things that they find personally useful or interesting are worth anyone else's time and effort. Everything that they aren't personally interested in is useless crap. In addition, since each /.er is the center of his/her own universe, all other points of view are also useless crap.
It's a pretty significant (and unfortunate) bias here.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Like I said - it would be rare, but it is something to consider.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I have been an independent IT contractor since I was 18, and started what is now a strong small IT consulting business when I was 20. Now 25, I still have alot of grad student friends who would love to make a quick $10. However, I'd throw them out of my office if they tried to sell me this. We get tons of solicitors despite the "No Solicitation" signs in our office park and it distracts my staff from doing their job.
Furthermore, I actually view a Google listing as detrimental to our credibility within the scope of the consulting we do. We work with several major companies and partners and provide services to C-level executives. They all do background checks on their suppliers, and when we're listed with a shop doing PC technician work, our clients get the wrong impression of what we do. Disclaimer: there's nothing wrong w/ PC technician work, but CIO's don't care about those deals when they're looking for strategy consultants. Google listings misrepresent us simply because we're small.
Aside from the fact a business can move, there are alot of businesses that don't have one physical location. www.regis.com sells virtual office space (among others). Lot's of new companies are going the virtual route to save money, but they're never in the office even though they're open for business. They have to schedule time after talking with a potential client, but the client can't come to them.
Having been a contractor, I also know there are alot of ramifications of the W-9 tax situation. A W-9 is basically a corp-to-corp agreement. This is what makes me feel Google is feeding on ignorance. Most people don't understand that once you receive income on a W-9 basis you are legally a sole-proprietorship subject to business taxation rates. That means you and all of your assets are at risk. While a small business probably won't file a suit against you, there is still a liabilty that Google is passing off to the individual. Basically, they aren't responsible for anything, and they're paying you less than minimum wage, which is what it would cost them to send out reps. On a W-9, you also have to file quarterly taxes if you hit a certain dollar value. However; you have to take into account everything you may earn at a normal job. With amounts this small, the IRS probably won't care, but you're still taking a risk with taxes. I should also point out I worked for a very well known credit card company at one point, and tax records do play a role in calculating your credit or acceptance. I took several finance classes in college, sat down with my lawyers/accountants/tax advisors, and it still took me quite a long time to initially figure out how all this stuff works... so I doubt the general public or your normal college student is going to know what they're getting into. Not to mention insurance... and you're even more screwed if you send people out to do the work for you because now you're employing people (and you have to meet minimum wage).
Anyhow, perhaps I'm blowing this out of proportion, but this seems like a very shady practice to circumvent legal and ethical business practices. Kind of reminds me a little of telemarketing without the do-not-call lists. Plus, what's stopping Google from selling these listings when they "legally" attained a product from another company? The whole thing just bothers me. Sorry for ranting (therapeutic for me).
why not simply pay the business directly
that is, if a business, or any enterprise wishes to be included, they'd receive the $10 for taking the time to update Google's info
The world needs an open business directory, the yellow pages are way overpriced.
No, your site is *lame*. (A2BizInfo.Com? Why not A2Biz.info?) You show perhaps .1% of all Ann Arbor businesses: less than 2 blocks of State Street that front the Diag. Where's the Diag party store, for example -- you didn't even make it all the way down to William St. Hovering over the too-large thumbnails doesn't pop up any labels to identify the stores. (And your "map" is a table?) Your mapSearchView page doesn't work. And, FTLOG, why have you embedded the .CSS code in your page instead of using a stylesheet? Since your pages are in PHP, why don't you just use a form to get your data and dispense with all the crufty JavaScript code? Your pages have *no* meta-keyword content, so search engines will ignore you. And I really can't believe that you didn't at least Google those few businesses you *do* have before putting "web site not available": you could have *at least* made that into a Google search. Seriously:
Kaleidoscope Books & Collectibles.
No, man, trying to rationalize that "Google killed me!" just doesn't fly in this case.
I think the true irony would have been if you had made it down to the corner of Liberty and Division, only to look up and see the new local branch -- of Google. That and the fact, that, while you're whining about GoogleStreetView -- *you're using Google's Adwords yourself*!
Little? Yup! Homegrown? Somewhat questionable, my well-intentioned friend. Website? Um.... well, technically. I just hope that building kewl websites isn't your big post-college career move.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.