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Did You Move? Yahoo’s LocalWorks will Correct Your Address All Over the Web

posted on June 19, 2013

yext missing listingAccording to a 2012 study by Yext, $10.3 billion in annual offline sales are potentially lost from missing or incorrect information online.

In my own travels I’ve seen profiles with old addresses, wrong phone numbers and dozens of mentions with the wrong hours. If your Google listing says you’re open until 5 on Sunday and I come at 4 and you’re closed, I’m not coming back.

The upside of the internet is that information spreads quickly. The downside of the internet is that information spreads quickly. If you move to a new location, updating every company mention on the web is impossible. But now, thanks to Yahoo, you can make a dent in the bad data.

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Facebook Attempts to Make Page Insights More Useful

posted on June 19, 2013

facebook insightsClick on the Insights tab on your Facebook Page and you’ll find a wealth of information. There are graphs and grids, percentages and mini bullhorns. So much data! And yet, every time I try to interpret the data, I come away more confused than ever.

I’m a smart girl. I read. I ask questions. And still, Facebook Insights leave me more perplexed than not. I’m being straight with you, so hear me out.

Part of the problem lies the contradictions: I have less “Fans” but more “Friends of Fans.” I have two posts with the same Reach, same Engaged Users but one has a virality score of 1.91%, the other is zero. How is that possible?

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In Spite of Data ‘Fears’, Facebook Looks to Get Even More Information on Users With Free Wi-Fi Service

posted on June 19, 2013

facebook-icon 1Hey, you can’t blame Facebook for wanting more data on its users. Marketers want it and will pay for it so Facebook is looking for new ways to provide it.

The latest comes in the form of a free wi-fi offering that is being used in the San Francisco area. Wired reports

The idea of offering people free Wi-Fi in exchange for their physical coordinates began at Facebook as a one-off experiment, a project by two engineers during an all-nighter in May 2012. Since then, Facebook has gradually spread what it now calls “Facebook Wi-Fi” further and further beyond the company’s corporate walls, deploying the system to cafes in Palo Alto and San Francisco and even into a line of routers made by Cisco.

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Google Looks to Distance Itself From Its Competition Amidst NSA Data Leak Fallout

posted on June 19, 2013

google-logo1In the wake of the leaks by Edward Snowden, many tech companies have been looking to distance themselves from the controversy by releasing how many requests they receive for information from the US government. The latest to take that step was Yahoo! yesterday which followed suit with the likes of Microsoft, Apple and Facebook.

Google is taking this battle to the next level as reported in the Washington Post

Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests the court makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it is forced to give the government.

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Small Business Lessons from the Lemonade Stand

posted on June 18, 2013

INTERNATIONAL DELIGHT LEMONADE STANDSLike many kids, I once tried selling lemonade in my neighborhood on a hot, sticky, New Jersey summer day. I was excited when customer after customer handed me a dime in return for a short Dixie Cup of overly-sweetened drink mix. When the lemonade ran out, I was rich! What to buy. . . what to buy. . .

Then my mother informed me that businesses have to pay expenses before claiming the profits. She tallied up the cost of the cups and napkins, sugar and lemonade mix and presented me with the bill. Whoops. Guess I should have charged more per cup. Rather than revise my business plan, I filed for bankruptcy and closed up shop. Thankfully, the bank of mom agreed on a greatly reduced settlement.

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Study Shows Young Millennials Are More Like Katniss, Less Like Harry Potter

posted on June 18, 2013

keep calm millennialsBaby Boomer, Gen X, Millennials – each label stands for an age group which, in theory, has similar wants, needs and goals. But a new study commissioned by MTV shows that there’s a big difference between the upper and lower age brackets that fall into the Millennial category. Keeping with the theme: older (or first wave) Millennials are like Harry Potter but younger (age 13-17) Millennials are more like Katniss of The Hunger Games.

At first glance, these seem like cutesy pop culture references designed to capture the search engine spiders. But when you dig in deep, you’ll see that the comparisons fit – sadly.

The study, “The New Millennials Will Keep Calm and Carry On” leads us to these two points.

The Harry Potter Crowd:

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Google’s Local Search Carousel Comes to Desktop

posted on June 18, 2013

Local search, especially for restaurants, is getting much more interesting as Google rolls out its local search ‘carousel’ to desktop search. It is available in English in the US only for now.

Basically, how one ranks in the carousel will be the new ‘victory’ for local search. The post on Google+ announcing the update tells us

Starting today, when you search Google for restaurants, bars or other local places on your desktop, you’ll see an interactive “carousel” of local results at the top of the page.

Give it a go—type or say “mexican restaurants,” or try any similar search for restaurants, bars or hotels. Click on one of the places in the carousel to get more details on it, including its overall review-based score, address and photos. If you want to see more places, click the arrow at the right of the carousel. And you can zoom in on the map that appears below the carousel to restrict your search to only places in a specific area.

While some iPad and Nexus tablet users have seen this new look since December, we’re excited to expand to desktop. The interactive “carousel” is rolling out in English in the U.S.—we’ll add more features and languages over time.

Take a look for a search I did in Raleigh.

Google Local Search Carousel for Restaurants