By Frank Reed on January 8, 2010

Google Tells What is “Near You Now”

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What’s with Google and their constant upgrades and innovations? What is it with these guys? You would think that they are trying to improve and stuff. The latest, and personally I think one of the coolest, service introductions is the “Near You Now” feature on Google.com for mobile.

It’s pretty simple. Your location is known by Google (if you allow it of course) so it simply tells you what is “near you now” with regard to restaurants, local services (i.e. animal hospitals, dentists, drugstores, gyms, parking lots etc), coffee shops, lodging, shopping and a lot more.

Google’s blog tells us a bit more:

“Near me now” was designed to address two user problems. First, we wanted to make it fast and easy to find out more about a place in your immediate vicinity, whether you’re standing right in front of a business or if it’s just a short walk away.

Second, we wanted to make searching for popular categories of nearby places really simple. Imagine that you emerge from the subway station and you want to grab a coffee, but you don’t see a coffee shop around you. You can simply search for all nearby coffee shops by using “Near me now”. To search other categories of places not shown, “Browse more categories” provides access to our local search product with more category choices.

Pretty slick. Watch out other local apps like Yelp. This one really works although I can’t figure out why my location keeps coming up with Chinese characters but I’ll survive (neither me or my iPod have been to China unless that’s where it was “born”?). Anyway, “Near me now” is currently available in the US for iPhone (OS 3.x) or Android-powered devices with version 2.0.1 or later.

While this video demo is one of the cheesiest ever, it does show how the service works. Try to ignore the music, I dare you.



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11 comments on “Google Tells What is “Near You Now””

  1. Barry Welford Says:

    January 8th, 2010 at 10:01 am

    … they just keep adding more sizzle to that steak. That’s why they deservedly are dominating search. The opposition is blah.

  2. Kenneth B Says:

    January 8th, 2010 at 10:32 am

    “Near You Now” is their anything that Google don’t want to do? I mean this does seem like a good idea how ever that what we have other services like Yellow Pages for.

  3. wordpress Says:

    January 8th, 2010 at 11:16 am

    I don’t know what is ‘“Near You Now’.
    .-= wordpress´s last blog ..Make Docstoc DocCash to make money =-.

  4. Link Wheeler Says:

    January 8th, 2010 at 11:31 am

    I must admit there is a serious monopoly happening in the search industry and we all know the name of the culprit!

    IDM Reply:
    January 8th, 2010 at 1:06 pm

    Just like microsoft and Intel, monopoly is all around…LOL

  5. Frank Reed Says:

    January 8th, 2010 at 1:15 pm

    @IDM – A monopoly implies that there is no opportunity for competition which is not what I see here. Of course, depending on which side of the bed the government wakes up on it could be seen differently.
    .-= Frank Reed´s last blog ..Hey SMB’s! Be Careful of Some Social Media ‘Advice’ =-.

  6. Andre Colt Says:

    January 8th, 2010 at 10:20 pm

    Near you now is amazing .Google continue to rise and develop such as this kind of technology.They still continue to help people to make a task more easier and that’s the technology people wants.5 star for Google!!!

  7. Near me now gestartet | TechBanger.de Says:

    January 9th, 2010 at 12:17 am

    [...] Geldautomaten, Bars und Coffeeshops, die typisch für standortbezogene Suchabfragen sind, funktioniert es noch viel einfacher, weil man diese bloß aus einer Liste auszuwählen braucht. Die Ergebnisse [...]

  8. SEO блог о поисковых машинах. » Архив сайта » Google Говорит то, Что “Около Тебя Теперь” Says:

    January 10th, 2010 at 10:45 pm

    [...] В то время как этот видео демонстрационный пример – один из самых дрянных когда-либо, это действительно показывает, как обслуживание работает. Попытайся проигнорировать музыку, я отваживаюсь тебя. Источник [...]

  9. Craig Says:

    January 11th, 2010 at 8:05 am

    Google is making it easier for people and its the right thing to do help people and get bless in return not to push to people what they are selling..it simple, needs are more likely to sell high than wants

  10. Luci Says:

    January 11th, 2010 at 8:19 am

    Looks like a great app – one that would actually be useful! So long as people have reviewed the places near to where you happen to be.
    Best bit about this has to be the video, lovely piece of cheese that is… Google let themselves down there – whilst the ad does a good job of explaining what the app does, I didn’t actually like the video as an ad itself
    .-= Luci´s last blog ..SEO Video Tutorial – Paid Links #33 =-.