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Google to Offer Embedded Maps for Webmasters

A simplified way to “embed” Google Maps is apparently coming from Google next week, according to this story, in the Sydney Morning Herald: Google will shortly roll-out a new feature on its mapping service that will allow users to easily embed maps directly into web pages. The feature, which operates much in the same as with YouTube videos, was conspicuously missing when Google launched its My Maps service on Google Maps in April.

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Google & Yahoo : The Saviors of Newspapers

Google has officially expanded its newspaper print advertising program to 225 newspapers, offering advertisers a potential $1,000 financial incentive to try the newspaper program (click to enlarge): From the press release: The program started in November 2006 with a test that included 50 newspapers and a small group of advertisers. Since then the program has grown to more than 225 newspapers representing 32 of the top 35 DMAs and...

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eBay’s Kijiji Launches in the US, To Challenge Craigslist

Modeled on Craiglist, eBay has been operating classifieds marketplace Kijiji for some time outside the US. Now the company has entered the competitive and somewhat crowded “classifieds” marketplace here. Offering free classifieds, the site (without eBay branding) seeks to make inroads vs. vertical competitors and marketplaces such as Oodle, MSFT Expo and LiveDeal (now owned by YP.com) as well as newspapers (online and off). This is an uphill battle but it also raises ethical questions...

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Google Now a Phone Company : Acquiring GrandCentral

TechCrunch is reporting a rumor — and it’s often correct in these — that the telephony “management” startup GrandCentral has been acquired by Google for $50 million. This is not Google as phone company per se, it’s Google as a system to manage calls on top of the existing telephony infrastructure. Google Talk is an IP telephony system that can be used for PPCall (but really hasn’t been yet). If the rumor is true, it’s...

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What Should Yahoo! Do?

I and others have spoken of the need for morale boosting and a new vision/strategy at Yahoo! That’s much easier said than done and what does that actually even mean? I don’t have complete visibility on the company and only see parts of it — like the three blind men and the elephant. But here’s a little unsolicited advice for Yahoo! from where I sit.

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Privacy Is Search’s New Click Fraud

In this Google Blog post, Google discusses its privacy protection efforts and its response to the recent EU complaint and investigation about data retention. In this long post Danny Sullivan expresses his views on the issue of data retention, the EU and Google’s position (generally favorable to Google). I don’t want to discuss the merits of the particular data retention issue. I want to discuss a potential shift that’s happening around perceptions and privacy....

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Google Calendar and the ‘Widgetization’ of Google

Google yesterday added more calendars to its public calendar directory. This becomes another distribution channel on Google. There’s also a sharing feature built in: as part of the underlying functionality of Google Calendar, people can share calendars with one another. The bigger picture is that Google now has desktop Gadgets, Gadgets for iGoogle, Mapplets for Google Maps and third party calendar adds for Calendar. These are all Widgets with Google as platform and distribution...

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Yahoo Real Estate Improves HomeValues : Zillow & Yahoo Answers

Drawing partly on its relationship with Zillow, Yahoo! is launching an improved “HomeValues” section as part of Yahoo! Real Estate. It’s also integrating more community features (as Zillow and Trulia recently have) into the section: Through an expanded partnership with Zillow.com, users can access additional home details, including tax assessments, sale history and neighborhood comparable sales, as well as educational content for home owners, buyers and sellers. In...

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Google Neighborhood Search

Trulia has it, Yelp has it, Ask.com has it (there may be others) and now Google has it: neighborhood search capability. The benefits and rationale behind this are obvious — aligning the capabilities of the engine to the way people actually think and live in the real world. It’s absolutely essential for real estate but also an important capability in the quest to improve local search. From the Google Lat Long Blog post: You can...

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LocalGuides.com : Local + Social + Vertical

Google has taken up so much “shelf space” with coverage recently it’s hard to get to much else with any depth. But there are lots of other interesting things going on. One of those things is Local Matters’ new consumer destination LocalGuides. Launched yesterday, LocalGuides combines local information with recommendations and lists around specific tasks or ambitions. Here are “Berkeley Furniture Shopping” and “Eugene Bathroom Remodel.” There’s more “context” here than one...

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