We will be taking the remainder of the week off for the US Thanksgiving holiday. Amid the problems and challenges we all face, there's still a lot to be grateful

Google 'Search On' Features Roll Out Google is now introducing the many visual search, shopping and Maps features announced in September at its Search On event. Among them are Google's

Holiday: Big Retailers Sweat, SMBs Cocky Holiday shopping this year is shaping up to be pretty unpredictable. Driven by early promotions, data show many consumers have already started, which could

Google's $392M Location Privacy Settlement Google has agreed to pay almost $400 million to settle a location-tracking lawsuit brought by 40 state attorneys general. Being called "the largest attorney general-led

Local Reviews Have Peaked This week I received a review-solicitation from Tripadvisor. It asked me to write reviews, not review a specific businesses. The headline was "one review does a

Local Packs: 36.2% of Queries Local Packs aren't exactly disappearing but they're not showing up as often either. A week ago a number of reports from Moz, Rank Ranger

AirBnB: Brand Not SEM Most internet companies pay lip service to brand building but continue to favor short-term performance marketing. That typically means paid-search and paid social. AirBnB offers an

TikTok's SMB Opportunity TikTok is getting more local. Beyond isolated but dramatic SMB success stories (e.g., Nerdy Nuts) or experimental features (e.g., TikTok Nearby), I'm seeing more local

Rewind: A 'Backward' Search Engine Inspired by founder Dan Siroker's experiences with hearing loss, Rewind is a new Mac OS search engine that captures every piece of content on your

Twitter Purge Begins If you're still on Twitter, you probably fall into one of three camps: the boosters, the haters or those who want to wait and see. But "Chief

Google Local Pack Decline There's evidence that Google is reducing the frequency of Local Packs. Barry Schwartz has compiled data from Moz, Rank Ranger and Semrush that show a decline

Study: Zero-Clicks Only 25% A much-cited, 2020 study from Rand Fishkin's SparkToro and SimilarWeb argued that 65% of searches on Google were "zero-click." In other words, two-thirds of queries didn't

More In-Store Shopping than Pre-COVID Despite hand-wringing over inflation, consumer spending has remained relatively strong. We'll have to see how that plays out during holiday shopping. But retailers are leaving

Google MAC Rollout Announced this year at Google I/O, My Ad Center (MAC) is starting to roll out. The new controls will give users the ability to influence ads

Meta Forced to Divest Giphy Facebook parent Meta said yesterday that it would sell Giphy. This is the first time Meta has been forced to divest a completed acquisition and

Fake Reviews: New Rules Coming The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been focusing more energy and resources on online review and endorsement fraud. Early this year the agency killed review

Google's New Ad-Favicons Google is seeking to boost brand visibility in mobile search ads. Provided marketers qualify, the business name and logo will be shown on the ad by default,

Meta Wants to Own the Next Platform Meta held its now annual VR event yesterday, featuring the announcement of a $1,500 Meta Quest Pro mixed-reality headset. It's reportedly a

AI Assistant Super App If the Twitter deal happens, Elon Musk suggested he wants to turn it into an "everything app" or "super app" à la WeChat. That's a bold

Google: Review Gating Verboten   Google recently updated its review content guidelines to clarify the following are disallowed: "Discouraging or prohibiting negative reviews, or selectively soliciting positive reviews from customers." This

Twitter Moderation Headache So Elon Musk is buying Twitter after all. One theory holds that Musk thought he would lose at trial. Assuming the deal actually happens, Musk will inherent

Gen Z: Google > TikTok Much in the same way that Google's fixation and fear of Facebook resulted in the ill-fated Google+, Google now seems to be similarly focused on TikTok

Have We Reached 'Peak Reviews'? Consumer reviews are a major local ranking factor, with intense industry focus on review management. At the same time we may have reached a turning

Google: 'Age of Visual Search' Is Here   Google just concluded its "Search On" event, showcasing search innovations. It was mostly a review or update of things previously presented at Google

Instacart Goes After Amazon As consumers returned to grocery stores and restaurants, delivery companies have scrambled for continued revenue growth. Instacart has very imaginatively sought to transform itself into an

Google Kills 'Consumer Surveys' Google is in cost-cutting mode. The company will stop making laptops and discontinued half its "Area 120" projects. And just yesterday it notified Google Consumer Surveys

Paid Search Doubles in Three Years   Almost since its inception, paid search marketing has been the leading category of digital advertising. It has maintained that position even as other formats

Where's the (Local) Innovation? A few years ago I wrote an article entitled "Why is there so little innovation in local?" It decried the lack of interesting new local consumer

Search: Apple and Andi This week Apple finally released iOS 16. Among other changes and upgrades, Apple put its search box on the iPhone's homescreen. Before Apple's June developer conference

Instacart's Platform Strategy Food Delivery services may be holding their own but they face intensifying pressures from investors, labor shortages, weakening consumer demand and regulatory scrutiny. Diversification and expansion are

Apple Ads Gain on 'Triopoly' The big Apple news this week surrounds its new devices. But an equally important story is Apple's ad business. Apple's opt-in ATT launched in Q1

Is a Yahoo Comeback Possible? This week Yahoo acquired a company called The Factual. It's essentially a news-ranking algorithm that rates the credibility of sources. In my brief experience with

We will not publish on Monday in honor of the US Labor Day holiday. We'll be back next Wednesday. Enjoy the weekend. Google 'Quick Read' Label – Why? Earlier this week

Kochava, Roomster Targeted by FTC   Reflecting a massive shift in attitudes toward data collection, Oracle was sued last week over its ID Graph with non-consensual profiles of "hundreds of millions

Google Takes Digital Ads 'Offline' Many years ago Google aspired to be a unified platform for all forms of advertising – digital and traditional, including radio and TV. To that end,

Nextdoor Needs to Become More 'Useful' This past week Nextdoor announced the outcome of its 2022 "Neighborhood Favorites" contest. The winners, who receive badges on their profiles and $500 in

TikTok Testing 'Nearby' Feed TikTok confirmed it's testing a new "Nearby" feed (in Asia), intended to showcase locally relevant content to users. Another feature reportedly being tested would allow content

Google's HCU to Make Landfall   Last week Google announced it would be rolling out a Panda-like algorithm update rewarding "content made by, and for, people." It's designed to respond to

Google to Punish 'SEO-first' Content Most B2B content today is for lead-gen purposes or designed to rank. So many B2B SERPs are a wasteland of thin content, pitches and listicles

Product Inventory = Local Visibility At one time, there were multiple startups chasing real-time product inventory. The methodologies were varied but almost all of them are now gone, just as Google

Ads Coming to Apple Maps More ads are coming to your iPhone. That's according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple's ad revenue is nearly $4 billion today and the company wants

TikTok, BlenderBot and Search TikTok isn't going to replace Google. But among Gen Z users, it does appear to be gaining traction as a search alternative in selected categories (restaurants,

Nextdoor: Daily Users ~19 Million Nextdoor posted Q2 revenue yesterday of $55M, representing 19% year-over-year revenue growth. This was generally considered a slight miss. The company also lowered its full-year

Cox Buys Axios for Local News Axios, the digital news site delivering journalism via bulleted lists has sold itself to Cox Enterprises for $525 million. Axios' 2022 revenues are projected

Twitter 'Location Spotlight' Rolls Out Last April Twitter launched what amounts to a GMB/GBP profile on its platform for selected businesses with physical locations. Called "Location Spotlight," it's now

Brand Beats Performance Marketing Whether or not we're in a recession, many marketers are acting like it. Tech companies are laying people off and marketing budgets are tightening. However, a

The End of 'Location Intelligence'?   The era of precise mobile-location data, which spawned numerous "location intelligence" vendors (e.g., Foursquare) may be coming to a close. For the past decade

Apple and Amazon Defy Gravity After two quarters of negative growth the US may be in a recession, although that's disputed. Whether or not it's technically so, tech companies are

Earnings: Digital vs. E-Commerce Snap, Twitter, Microsoft and Google revenues have all disappointed Wall Street recently. (Meta reports today, Apple tomorrow.) Yesterday, Google missed on both the top and bottom

LSAs, 'Verified Reviews' and Liability A week ago Robin Dirksen discovered that Google was testing a "not verified" label for local reviews (see below). I assumed it was a "CYA"

Facebook Splits the Baby Facebook has broken its Feed in two. There will now be Home and Feeds tabs in the app. Feeds will feature "recent posts from your friends,

Some Action on Fake Reviews Facebook groups are among the major sources of fake reviews across the internet. However, the company has shown little interest in shutting down the fraud

'TikTok Is My Search Engine' Last week's story about 40% of younger users abandoning Google Maps/Local for social media (triggered by a TechCrunch report) continues to intrigue, with Insider

Amazon: Prime Day 'Biggest Ever' In the weeks before Prime Day there was speculation that this year's event would disappoint. Amazon has now put out a press release saying instead

Google: 40% of Zoomers Shun Search, Maps Speaking at a recent conference, Google SVP Prabhakar Raghavan made a casual remark. "In our studies, something like almost 40% of young people,

What Will Happen to Twitter Now? Back in April, a lifetime ago, Elon Musk made his shock $44 billion offer for Twitter. He filed it formally on April 13. In

Review Extortion, Libel & Liability Review fraud is illegal and it's flourishing. Despite rising awareness of fake reviews, usage is up. An undisputed ranking signal, reviews are also a top conversion

Google to Auto-Delete Location We keep writing about privacy because it's an issue that isn't going away and only becoming more important in the wake of the disastrous SCOTUS Dobbs

In observance of the US July 4th holiday we will not publish on Monday. We'll be back next Wednesday. Apple's Local Car Play Apple will soon enable users to buy

Google's Commerce Boss Heads to Pinterest Pinterest's co-founder and CEO, Ben Silbermann, is stepping down and will become executive chairman. Google Commerce boss Bill Ready will take over the reins

Dobbs Creates Personal-Data Minefield   Following the demise of Roe, many companies announced they would pay for abortion-related employee travel: Apple, Google, Facebook, Salesforce, Yelp, Dicks Sporting Goods, Neflix and others.

Post-Roe: Data Privacy Now More Urgent Now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, data privacy becomes even more urgent for millions of women. Multiple states, perhaps even a majority,

Google Is Full of 'SEO Chum' There's a growing perception that Google is in decline or dying. This is happening even as its "back end" is becoming much more sophisticated.

Two-Factor Fake Review Fix Review bombing is becoming a bigger problem. It shows up with games and, more often, movies and TV. Typically, it's a loosely organized effort driven by

1K Keywords: 34% Are Local Earlier this week we discussed the top 1,000 search keywords (desktop). Two things jumped out: the list is dominated by brand and local queries.

Brands, Local Dominate Top Searches Food near me and restaurants near me are the leading local queries in the top 1,000 keywords according to a recent analysis (using Ahrefs

Debating the Outlook for Facebook A number of speculative articles have recently appeared, some undoubtedly driven by schadenfreude, about whether Facebook/Meta is merely pivoting or foundering. For example, the

Amazon Eyeing 'Local Ads' Opportunity Earlier this week job listings for an Amazon Local Ads "startup business within Amazon Ads" appeared. One listing for a senior BD manager reads, "This

Apple's WWDC Highlights Apple's developer conference, WWDC, happened this week. With the exception of a new MacBook Air, the announcements focused on software. We were struck by Continuity Camera, which

Yep It, Says Ahrefs Last week we discovered Yep, a new search engine from Ahrefs (that's right). It reportedly cost $60 million to build and has its own index (rather

Sheryl Sandberg Leaves the Building In the roughly 48 hours since Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg said she was leaving the company, there's been an outpouring of commentary about her departure

Rumor: Apple Search Engine Next Week Next week Apple hosts its annual developer conference WWDC. Among the announcements will be a preview of iOS 16, but apparently no VR/AR

Note: Monday is Memorial Day in the US; we're taking the day off. We'll be back next Wednesday. Have a great weekend. Report: Ads Drive ~20% of US Economy Advertising

New Google Ads: In-Store Goals, Video, AR Google I/O led with local and announced numerous changes, updates and improvements to search. Yesterday's Google Marketing Live was a kind of

Google Shows 'Local Ad Pack' Because there can never be too many ads, Google appears to be testing a Local Pack consisting entirely of ads. It was discovered last week

New Apple, DDG Ads Market Privacy Two effective new ad campaigns market privacy and take aim at online tracking. One, from DuckDuckGo [https://twitter.com/duckduckgo/status/1526555252236988419?s=12&

Yelp's 'Request Call' Leads Option Yelp continues to build out new non-advertising lead-gen capabilities for businesses. The latest is "Request a Call [https://blog.yelp.com/news/yelp-launches-request-a-call-to-help-consumers-connect-quickly-and-seamlessly-with-services-businesses/] ." It's an

My Ad Center: Will People Use It? In Google's "100 things we announced at I/O" blog post [https://blog.google/technology/developers/io-2022-100-things/], My Ad Center is number 90.

Google's 'Ambient Search' Vision When we collectively talk about "search," we typically focus on keywords entered in a search box (via typing or voice) and the corresponding SERP (desktop or

Apple Wants More Search Revenue Apple may stake much of its future growth on services and advertising rather than cool new devices. That’s according to a report from Business

Second Look at Traditional Media Traditional ads have been in decline for 20 years. However that may be changing somewhat, as a collection of digital challenges prompt a second look

E-Commerce Was Hot – Now Not E-commerce saw triple-digit growth in 2020; however growth has dramatically slowed, as stores have rebounded. A slew of new earnings reports illustrate the recent weakness.

Reaching SMBs: Search and Social A new survey [https://bredin.com/blog/2022/04/bredin-report-how-smbs-research-your-offerings-by-industry-and-age/] from Bredin asked 500 SMBs what "resources" they use to research products and services. The

Instacart, Amazon and the Revenge of IRL Driven by consumer necessity during COVID, which isn't done, online shopping and food delivery grew massively in 2020 and for much of 2021.

Dueling Metaverse Visions: Snap vs. Facebook Facebook parent Meta reported Q1 results [https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_news/Meta-Reports-First-Quarter-2022-Results-2022.pdf] Wednesday. Because they weren't a wipeout (like Q4

Twitter: The 'Cesspool' Cometh? There's a frenzy of speculation going on about Twitter's future. The right is elated; the left is dejected [https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/twitter-elon-musk-latest-news/card/republicans-cheer-musk-s-twitter-deal-while-democrats-see-perils-D33ENTKonJGOWghSjpio]

Major Tech Defeat in New EU Law In a deal reached this weekend, European policymakers approved a sweeping piece of new legislation, the Digital Services Act (DSA) [https://ec.europa.

Report: Local Pack Winners 60X More Visible SOCi released [https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/soci-analyzes-12-9-billion-data-points-to-rank-digital-marketing-performance-of-multi-location-brands-301529757.html] its fourth annual Localized Marketing Benchmarking Report this week. ( Disclosure: I helped create the

What's Wrong with Netflix? The stock market was (briefly) shocked yesterday when Netflix announced [https://ir.netflix.net/financials/quarterly-earnings/default.aspx] that rather than adding 2.5 million subscribers,

Stores Come Roaring Back During 2020 and the phenomenal growth of e-commerce, the question arose: has consumer shopping forever changed? The answer it turns out is yes and no. According

Who Should Control Twitter? As you already know, Elon Musk – the world's richest person – made a $43 billion all-cash offer for Twitter [https://www.wsj.com/articles/can-elon-musk-buy-twitter-11649949297?], after becoming

Search Dominates Digital Advertising According to the 2021 IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report, [https://www.iab.com/news/digital-advertising-soared-35-to-189-billion-in-2021-according-to-the-iab-internet-advertising-revenue-report/] online ad revenue grew at the fastest pace since 2006, 35%

Image, Local and Product Search Convergence It seems like an acceleration is happening in search. Google has been rolling out many of its AI/ML-driven gains in visual search and

Google, Amazon Caught 'Astroturfing' Most of big tech companies use small businesses (SMBs) as a sword or a shield in advocating for or against regulations or public policies. That also

US Antitrust Law Closer to Passing Last week the European Parliament completed work [https://www.nearmedia.co/google-dr-booking-eu-gatekeeper-smackdown-1-fraud-claim/] on its Digital Markets Act. The legislation targets major US tech "gatekeepers"

Streaming's Big Oscar Win Beyond "the slap" – actor Will Smith publicly smacked presenter Chris Rock on stage after Smith took umbrage at Rock's joke about his wife – the big story

Google's New 'Make a Dr. Appointment' Google's evolving mission is not simply to organize and present information but to make it actionable and drive transactions ("get things done [https://searchengineland.

Take our 5-minute monetization survey. We'll love you for it. Start Survey [https://forms.gle/bEkdSQJZAnx9ESXS7] Snippets Not on Local Pack SERPs Moz has come out with a report [https:

Fresh: Amazon Taking Ads into Stores Last year we found out that Amazon's ad business is worth $31 billion [https://www.nearmedia.co/amazons-31b-ads-biz-review-theater-metas-downturn/]. For context, that's 8X larger than

Snap Takes Location-AR Global Snapchat is opening up AR experiences tied to places. In 2019, the company introduced Landmarkers [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNs9kdSAOCA], enabling users to tie

Amazon Now Controls Nearly 60% of E-commerce Analysts have estimated Amazon's US e-commerce share at between [https://www.emarketer.com/content/amazon-clobbers-competition-us-retail-ecommerce-sales-2021] 40% and 44% of total online sales (2019

Google: 'Smaller Stores' vs. 'Nearby' I don't use Google Shopping very often. I therefore missed the addition of a "smaller stores" filter. It may have been added last year but

Instacart Launches in-Store Navigation Almost a decade ago, when Apple's iBeacon was a shiny new object, there was considerable anticipation of "search to shelf" experiences with in-store navigation. A number

Suit: Google 'Deceived' Consumers with Online Ordering As part of the effort to make search more transactional, Google added an "order online" button in the GBP for restaurants in May,

Local Inventory Can Beat Amazon I've argued local inventory (online) can help divert consumers away from Amazon. But it's not inventory alone; it's inventory + convenience. And that inventory must also

Amazon Kills Bookstores for Grocery Biz Amazon's CEO Andy Jassy has made the decision [https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/exclusive-amazon-close-all-its-physical-bookstores-4-star-shops-2022-03-02/] to shutter most of the company's brick and mortar

Uber Hooks Up with Yelp for 'Explore' Uber launched a new feature [https://www.uber.com/newsroom/uber-explore/] in its flagship app that relies heavily on Yelp content and reviews:

Ukraine: Tech in the Crossfire A major front in the war for Ukraine is online. Tech companies, especially social media, are being forced to choose sides. All the major US

Ukraine and Perpetual Cyberwar The tragedy of Russia's invasion of Ukraine is still unfolding. Roughly 50,000 people have fled the country with more to follow. Russia will likely be

Fake Reviews: Bribing Yelp Elites, Amazon Sues We've previously written about review fraud [https://www.nearmedia.co/meh-ta-moment-fake-reviews-gmb-a-big-lead-driver/] and the platforms' inconsistent takedown efforts. Yelp is probably the most consistent,

Trust: Consumers' Top CX Priority Most companies think they're doing a better job of delivering positive customer experiences (CX) than they actually are, according to the new CX IQ Index

Google Follows Apple Privacy Lead on Android Google is brining its "privacy sandbox" to Android devices and, in the process, will effectively get rid of its IDFA-like advertising ID [https:

Super Bowl Ads: But Are They Worth It? Last year a 30 second Super Bowl spot cost $5.5 million. This year it was up to $6.5 million (or

Yelp: 60% of Revenue from 10% of Views Yelp reported [https://www.yelp-ir.com/] Q4 and full year 2021 revenues this week, beating analyst estimates. Growth has come despite a

Apple Taps into Pay Apple just introduced [https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/02/apple-unveils-contactless-payments-via-tap-to-pay-on-iphone/] a way to turn the iPhone into a point-of-sale (POS) terminal for merchants. Called Tap

Angi Hopes Walmart Delivers Cheaper Acquisition Seeking to further diversify its customer acquisition strategy, Angi (formerly Angie's List) partnered with Walmart. The deal, announced [https://ir.angi.com/news-releases/news-release-details/

Take Our Reader Survey [https://www.nearmedia.co/please-take-our-survey/] Facebook's Q4 'Wipeout': Dip or Beginning of the End? This week Meta reported [https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2022/Meta-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2021-Results/

Google Delivers Another Huge Q: $75B Google once again beat analyst expectations [https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/01/alphabet-googl-q4-2021-earnings.html] (.pdf [https://abc.xyz/investor/static/pdf/2021Q4_alphabet_

Spotify: Revenue vs. 'Responsibility' Controversial podcaster Joe Rogan has almost 4x the audience [https://twitter.com/APompliano/status/1478059547688374281] of right-wing pundit and vaccine disinformation purveyor Tucker Carlson. Spotify paid

Yelp: Local Business Back to Normal – Almost US GDP increased at 6.9% percent in Q4, much better than expected. Yet inflation concerns have overshadowed the strong performance of the

Review Gating Is Dead Review gating is the practice of routing satisfied and dissatisfied customers down different pathways. The happy customer is asked to write a review, the grumpy customer

Is Promoting Competition the Enemy of CX? The anti-tech lawsuits [https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/24/google-sued-by-4-attorneys-general-over-location-tracking.html?] and legislation [https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/2992/text]

Amazon Style: The Future of the Store As you've heard, Amazon is opening a new retail store in LA [https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/retail/amazon-reimagines-in-store-shopping-with-amazon-style] : [Amazon] Style. It's a

PlaceIQ Bought by PE-Backed Precisely Precisely, a company that calls itself "a global leader in data integrity software," has acquired [https://www.placeiq.com/2022/01/a-big-milestone-on-the-placeiq-journey/] the original location-intelligence

Shopify: Omnichannel for the Win Shopify is out with another interesting (and massive) report, "The Future of Commerce in 2022 [https://www.shopify.com/research/future-of-commerce]." It's draws from customer

DDG Crosses 1B Searches, Neeva Sets Pricing DuckDuckGo, which has seen meaningful growth over the past few years, said it has now exceeded 1 billion queries [https://duckduckgo.com/traffic]

Metasuit: FTC Lives to Fight Another Day When the FTC brought its antitrust suit against Facebook/Meta in June of last year, the court dismissed it [https://www.nearmedia.co/

Yes, the iPhone Is 15 Yesterday the iPhone officially had its 15th birthday. Does that make you feel old? In 2007, when it was introduced, Steve Jobs called it a

Privacy Driving DuckDuckGo and Brave Growth For the longest time it seemed like search engines and browsers built around privacy would have almost no impact, unable to wrest meaningful share

Why Google Lost the Product Search Battle For at least five years consumer surveys have repeatedly told us that Amazon dominates product search. Different surveys have different numbers: the range

Holiday Spending Grows, E-commerce 21% Despite a resurgent pandemic, US consumers still shopped a lot in the run up to Xmas. According to data [ https://www.mastercard.com/news/press/

Google's Local Algo Update Fallout Google recently confirmed [https://twitter.com/googlesearchc/status/1471546117125029889] that it completed a local algorithm update, between November 30 and December 8. Many local SEOs

Google Local Guides: More Volume, Shorter Reviews A new SOCi analysis [https://streetfightmag.com/2021/12/15/soci-study-finds-62-of-google-reviews-are-written-by-local-guides/] of nearly 170 million Google reviews across 1.1 million business locations

Bleak Milestone: 800K Dead from COVID Later this week the US will hit 50M cases and 800,000 dead from COVID, likely an undercount of the real mortality figure. The

Google's Local Pack Refresh During a previous Near Memo [https://www.nearmedia.co/squarespaces-everything-to-sell-anything-google-vs-lowe-and-has-the-local-pack-outlived-its-usefulness/] we discussed how Google's local results were in need of an upgrade. Google has now apparently

Yelp: 'Our Review Approach Is Best' Yelp released the results of an October consumer survey [https://blog.yelp.com/news/survey-finds-what-makes-reviews-trustworthy-consumers-want-more-than-ratings/] about reviews and consumer trust. Yelp's survey vendor asked

Will Smart Glasses Replace the iPhone? Apple has an entire building and hundreds of employees dedicated to its forthcoming mixed-reality glasses. The expectation is that the first of perhaps multiple

Xooglers Sue Google for Abandoning 'Don't Be Evil' Google removed the phrase "Don't Be Evil [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil]" from its official code of conduct

Cyber Monday Comes Up a Bit Short As with Black Friday, Cyber Monday's spending disappointed. Last year US consumers spent $10.8 billion on Cyber Monday. However this year sales

Black Friday: Not Quite As Black Black Friday didn't quite deliver. With fewer in-store discounts, foot traffic was nearly 30% lower than 2019 [https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/27/

Macy's: Digital Commerce Better with Stores More than a decade ago I ran into Euclid Analytics [https://searchengineland.com/euclid-offers-google-analytics-for-the-real-world-99982] ' founder Brent Franson on a flight from San Francisco.

Survey: 'At Least' Half of Search Is Local For years, I've been trying to get an accurate sense of what percentage of Google search volume is local. Google has offered

Outlook: Small SMB Optimism Declines Earlier this year when the economy was on a tear, there were millions of jobs unfilled, especially among local businesses. Now the economic vigor may

Who's Buying More Online? Affluent Consumers As we head into the holiday shopping season in earnest, there's lots of speculation about the mix of online and offline spending that will

Amazon Alexa Is 7 Years Old On the heels of the failed Fire Phone, Amazon released the first generation Echo (feat. Alexa) in November 2014 [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/

Will You Use You.com? On the heels of Neeva [https://neeva.com/], another search engine has launched: You.com [http://you.com/]. It appeared in public beta on Tuesday

FTC's Emerging Review Fraud Strategy In October, the FTC notified major US brands [https://www.nearmedia.co/fake-reviews-crackdown-amazons-toyland-shoppers-dont-care-about-voice-search/] that "misleading use of endorsements could lead to major financial penalties." Reviews,

GMB to GBP: So What? I know that you already saw: Google "rebranded" Google My Business as Google Business Profile [https://support.google.com/business/thread/133876833/introducing-new-updates-to-business-profile?hl=en]

Amazon's Lock on E-commerce Amazon dominates [https://www.emarketer.com/content/amazon-dominates-us-ecommerce-though-its-market-share-varies-by-category] e-commerce. And it appears there's nothing on the horizon that will change that. A new report [https://fv.

Going Back into Stores Most holiday shopping surveys say a version of the same thing: consumers plan to shop online but stores remain important to their overall experience. This hybrid/

It's Meta Time or the End of Days We're late to the meta-party. I'm sure you've read 20 articles and 10x more tweets discussing or ridiculing Facebook's Google-emulating holding company

Q3 Impact of Apple Privacy Rules 'Modest' Snap said it was hurt [https://www.nearmedia.co/amazon-goes-bopis-isp-surveillance-apple-bites-snap/]. But Twitter reported the revenue impact was "lower than expected [https://s22.q4cdn.

AGs: Google's AMP a Scheme to Drive Revenue The second amended antitrust complaint against Google (.pdf [https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.564903/gov.uscourts.nysd.564903.152.

Amazon Goes BOPIS with 'Local Selling' One of Google's strategies against Amazon is showing online and local product inventory in SERPs. Traditional retailers have sought to compete with Amazon by

Yelp: 85% of Business Locations Have Re-Opened Though the Delta variant is still here, local economies are nearly back to normal, according to Yelp's Q3 economic impact report [https://www.

Privacy Rules Juice Apple Search Revenue Is it just a coincidence? According to a Financial Times analysis [https://twitter.com/PatrickMcGee_/status/1449608262492459011], since the introduction of iOS 14.5,

FTC Begins Fake Review Crackdown Earlier this week, the FTC notified [https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2021/10/latest-ftc-notice-penalty-offenses-tells-700-national] "more than 700 businesses [https://www.ftc.gov/system/

Yelp's New Services for Home Services Last month, Yelp integrated its restaurant tools into a "Guest Manager" SaaS suite [https://www.nearmedia.co/google-local-inventory-astro/]. Now it's introducing new services [https:

Some SMBs Questioning Dependance on Social Millions of small businesses (SMBs) consider social media – Facebook and Instagram in particular – their top marketing channel. But following two recent outages and a

Welcome: If Google and Instagram Got Together... There's a new local search app [https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/07/welcome-debuts-a-smarter-city-guide-app-on-ios-backed-by-3-5m-led-by-accel/] in town, called Welcome (iOS only [https://apps.apple.com/

Haugen: The Algorithm Is the Evil It's only a couple of days since former Facebook PM Frances Haugen appeared on 60 Minutes [https://www.nearmedia.co/fb/]. (You're probably already

Facebook Whistleblower: 'Profits over People' You probably saw or read about the CBS 60 Minutes "Facebook Whistleblower" segment [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-misinformation-public-60-minutes-2021-10-03/] last night. The former employee who

Marketers: Reputation Management Trumps Ads According to a new survey of multi-location marketers, "managing online reputation is now more important than advertising": 57% to 43%. The survey, which includes multiple

Google's Refocused Lens and 'In-Stock' Filter Google is (re)introducing two shopping tools that have been around for awhile: Google Lens and local inventory. Google Lens is the visual-search capability

Local Restaurants on Front Lines of Vax Wars More than 180 million Americans have been fully vaccinated [https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-total-admin-rate-total] and more than 210 million have

Apple's Opt-In Ad Rules Hurt Facebook There are many cynics [https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/24/apples-ios-changes-hurt-facebooks-ad-business.html] who believe Apple's opt-in tracking rules [https://developer.apple.com/app-store/

Apple Maps Has Finally Arrived After a botched original launch and years of playing catch-up to Google Maps, Apple Maps has finally become truly competitive. There are a wide range

LSAs and Lawyers: Heading for Divorce? While nobody knows how much Google is making on Local Services Ads (LSAs), they're popular and growing. LSAs were introduced for the legal vertical

What's My Business: WhatsApp's 'Yellow Pages' Earlier this week we wrote about Twitter's relatively new "About Module [https://www.nearmedia.co/twitters-gmb-profile-intuits-12b-strategy-transatlantic-privacy-fail/] " on its professional profiles for local businesses. David

Twitter's 'About Module' for Local Businesses In April Twitter launched [https://twitter.com/TwitterBusiness/status/1384968745156755458] "Professional Profiles." They offer a verified and expanded presence on the site for businesses

Shopify CAC, Marketing Benchmarks for SMBs Marketers are always looking for good benchmarking data. Shopify offers some [https://www.shopify.com/blog/customer-acquisition-cost] (based on a survey) that reflect SMB

Chase Buying Zagat and The Infatuation Banking giant JPMorgan Chase said [https://finance.yahoo.com/finance/news/jpmorgan-chase-acquire-leading-restaurant-171500485.html#:~:text=NEW%20YORK%2C%20September%2009%2C%202021,recommendations%20for%20where%

News Pubs Liable for Random Facebook Comments In a defamation case that may have broad implications, the Australian High Court ruled [https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/sep/08/high-court-rules-australian-media-companies-are-liable-for-defamatory-comments-posted-on-their-facebook-pages?

Report: Intuit to Buy Mailchimp for $10B Bloomberg reported [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-01/intuit-said-in-talks-to-buy-mailchimp-for-more-than-10-billion] this week that Intuit, maker of tax and accounting software, is seeking to

SMB Survey: 55% Not Buying Digital Ads A new survey [https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/366360/small-businesses-increasing-digital-ad-spend-not.html] of 800 SMBs by social content platform Ripl [https://www.ripl.

Survey: Annual 'SMB' Ad Budgets $109K Borrell Associates published its annual local advertiser survey [http://www.insideradio.com/free/borrell-survey-points-to-strengthening-ad-market-radio-in-good-position-to-benefit-from-gains/article_ce63ca88-0631-11ec-ace2-df5cc2e20782.html] . Conducted in Q2, the sample was 2,

WTF: Google Paying $15B for iPhone Default Search There have been various informed estimates over the years about how much Google is paying Apple to be the Safari browser's default

GoLocal: Walmart's Last-Mile Delivery Service Walmart is doing something that would have been unthinkable in a pre-Amazon world: offering its delivery infrastructure to other retailers. Announced earlier this week, the

Study: Most Search Queries Are 'Mid-Funnel' Marketers discuss the "purchase funnel [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchase_funnel]" all the time without really knowing what it means for their actual

Contrarian Move: Amazon Plans Department Stores At a time when e-commerce is driving retail growth [https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/article/quarterly-online-sales/?], Amazon is planning more physical stores. The Wall Street

'Historic Moment': Amazon Passes Walmart Walmart reported [https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2021/08/17/walmart-releases-q2-fy22-earnings] quarterly earnings yesterday. The world's largest traditional retailer said that sales rose 5.2%

Apple Boosting Search with iOS 15 Apple has been slowly and incrementally improving its Spotlight Search feature on the iPhone over time. With iOS 15,  there are new upgrades and

'Vaxports' Coming to an SMB Near You As the seriousness of the Delta Variant sinks in, consumers are becoming more depressed [https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/13/consumer-sentiment-measure-falls-to-pandemic-era-low-sees-one-of-largest-drops-on-record.html]

Google Picking Winners and Losers in Food Delivery Google is beset by antitrust critics on all sides. In its defense Google often argues its decisions are for the benefit of

Climate Crisis: No More BAU You've probably read about [https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/09/world/ipcc-climate-key-takeaways/index.html] a massive new UN report [https://www.ipcc.ch/report/

Yelp Surprise Profit, Vaccination Attributes Yelp announced [https://www.yelp-ir.com/news-releases/news-release-details/2021/Yelp-Reports-Second-Quarter-2021-Financial-Results/] a surprise Q2 profit and 52% YoY revenue growth this week. The company saw gains

Local and Organic Drive 73% of Page Views If you didn't already know, the two most effective digital channels are organic SEO and local (Google Local Pack), according to new

The (New) Ethics of Targeting and Tracking For 20+ years, digital marketers essentially captured as much data as they could about consumer behavior and identities, as quietly as possible – so

Snap Personalizes Map with 'My Places' It's "places week." On Wednesday Apple relaunched its Maps Connect listings portal, as Places on Maps [https://www.nearmedia.co/apples-new-places-retail-search-advertisers-paying-google-taxes/] . And now Snap

Apple 'Places' Replaces Maps Connect Apple's self-service listings management portal Maps Connect, which launched in 2014 [https://searchengineland.com/apple-launches-maps-connect-self-service-local-listings-portal-206349] , is now "Places on Maps [https://register.apple.com/placesonmaps/