Communications Tower, Torre Telefónica, Barcelona, Spain

Hola, all readers out there. Some of you already know that I moved back to the Netherlands but I wanted it to be official

Barcelona is where I have spent the last 10 months of my life and it is actually the location where I decided to start this blog about Local Search. My first post dates back to the 21st of May 2008. Yes,…this blog is still a youngster! But I want to thank all of you who have made this early stage possible.

Barcelona, Truly an aspiring surrounding – I’m also very thankful for the possibility of exchanging office location for a while. Barcelona was a great experience with different culture, habits, food, big city life, better coffee and many other amazing things.
I will continue my job, back in the office where I used to reside, at Onetomarket, the Netherlands – from where I’ll keep you updated on Local Search related issues, especially those affecting Europe (so subscribe now! ).

I already know I’ll be returning to Barcelona often. Quiero decir; hasta la proxima vez!

And for those not familiar what change this will mean geographically* I included a map

View Larger Map

* bet there are

Post from: Local Search - martijnbeijk.com

Changing Location

It seems that Europe is getting ready for the Street View feature in Google Maps. In the past couple of months there were reports of Google Street View cars visiting various cities in Europe, for example, here in Madrid and Barcelona, Berlin, Amsterdam/Rotterdam. And just this afternoon a colleague shot this picture outside our office while drinking a coffee.

Google Streetview Car Barcelona on Gran Vía

Well after reading this, wedding proposal 2.0 in streetview, I am wondering if businesses are ready for the Google Van visiting your streets. Did you spend some bucks on new outdoor print already? Maybe now is the right time to refurbish your neon’s a bit.

I think it will be nice to see your business in Streetview alongside the placemark you added to Google Maps using the Local Business Center or KML files.

Update: I noticed this post on Chris Silver Smith his blog naturalsearch about text recognition in StreetView and how it could improve Google Maps. It’s a recommended read.

Post from: Local Search - martijnbeijk.com

Are you ready for Street View?

There is no such thing as mobile internet, it is the same internet!

This was one of the (quite obvious, but often misunderstood) messages of Mobile 2.0 Europe, which I was attending on behalf of my employer Onetomarket.It was a very interesting event, especially the panel rounds. Most fun part was the discussion between the community/businesses and the mobile operators, which in the end almost turned into a row. Fact is that mobile operators need to change their attitude. You can read my recap on the Onetomarket blog in Dutch or Spanish.(Use Google Translate for English version, but beware )

Finally, Stuff I did’t mention was the Top 11 of Mobile Trends which were given by Daniel Applequist (correct me if i’m wrong! )

• Smart browsing (and browsers)
• Web standards
• Mobile Ajax
• Mobile Search
• Advertising
• Mashups
• Awareness software and devices
• RFID and QR-codes
• Location, geotagging
• Mobile social networks
• Mobile user-generated content & media

Post from: Local Search - martijnbeijk.com

There is no such thing as mobile internet – Mobile 2.0 Europe

Map spam is starting to become a problem in Europe as well. Most of us might know (almost infamous) Mike Blumenthal for his ongoing vendetta against map spam and battering Google in the process.

According to this article it says that Maps Guide Jen made the statement that businesses were only allowed to have only one listing per business location.

Well, while doing research I encountered the following business listings in Barcelona, while searching for hair treatments and narrowed it down to the results you see in the example (click image for full size)  shown.
Although it is ‘only’ 7 business listings for the same address, the only thing they seem to have changed is the title and the description. This company seems to get away with offering multiple different listings for each and every service they might provide, ranking well in multiple keyword searches in the specific business. Let’s see how Google will solve this problem, and from what I can tell from Matt Cutt’s comments in this blogpost, they’d better watch out. 

Post from: Local Search - martijnbeijk.com

Google Maps spam appearing in Europe – not only a problem in US