We all know that the the digital channel is continuing to grow. Advertising as a whole may not be growing tremendously but growth in the digital space is being fueled by a an increasing exodus from traditional advertising options that are no longer cutting it in the Internet age.

Please note that I am not saying all offline advertising is going away. That’s hype and nonsense. That’s online industry stupid talk for lack of a better term. There are offline channels for advertisers that still work well and will continue to do so. In fact,they will be even more strategic as the shift continues to the online space and a true balance is struck by marketers who learn what works best and in what doses regarding online and offline options.

BIA/Kelsey has provided some data about the local space moving forward and it looks like mobile is the big winner. Take a look at the predicted growth of local mobile ad spend through 2016.

Now see how that compares to local spending as a whole.

We talk about mobile. We talk so much about it so much I wonder if we have moved to the ‘dangerous assumption’ phase of the game. That’s the point where it seems to be such a foregone conclusion that since everyone is talking about mobile then everyone is actually doing it and doing it well. If that isn’t a dangerous assumption in the Internet marketing world then I don’t know what is.

Research is showing clearly that users expect a reasonable mobile experience. If we are to believe a report done on Google’s behalf by SmithGeiger and Sterling Research (which was repackaged by eMarketer) then if we are not paying attention to mobile the risks can be quite high.

While the furor over Mapplegate has died down a bit it doesn’t mean that the battle of the online cartographers is over, not by a long shot.

In fact, it is fair to expect that Google and just about any other map player in the space will be attempting to roll out feature after feature to establish position in the all important online map space.

Google’s latest play comes complete with hyperbole and all. Their blog post from the Lat Long blog is titled “Making Google Maps more comprehensive with biggest Street View update ever” Woo hoo! Here’s what is it says and below that is a sample of what one can expect.

Today we’re making our Street View coverage more comprehensive than ever before by launching our biggest ever update–doubling our number of special collections and updating over 250,000 miles of roads around the world. We’re increasing Street View coverage in Macau, Singapore, Sweden, the U.S., Thailand, Taiwan, Italy, Great Britain, Denmark, Norway and Canada. And we’re launching special collections in South Africa, Japan, Spain, France, Brazil and Mexico, among others.

It appears that for the past several months the folks at Google have been hard at work preparing for the Apple Maps launch.

They were hard at work because they knew they had a potentially formidable opponent and that even related services to local and location based offerings needed to be strong to face this foe. Of course, even in their wildest dreams could they have imagined the apparent train wreck that is Apple Maps and the Apple local experience in general.

So now all that hard work has paid off handsomely. The latest local offering which is for Android only is an app called Field Trip which allows you to get information about things based on your location. The Verge reports

Google has just launched Field Trip, a new app that the company says is “your guide to the cool, hidden, and unique things in the world around you.” It sounds like it works as a virtual tour guide — with the app running in the background, a “card” will pop up with information any time you’re near a site of interest.

Here’s one of the usual heart-strings-tugging videos from Google to promote the app.