As we all know Google exists to make the lives of marketers everywhere more difficult. In their latest move, Google has decided to get rid of Google Places and use Google+ Local as a replacement. What does this mean? Who the heck knows, but SearchEngineLand wrote a great article about it today. My Hustler-like brain makes me wonder why they are doing this. What I came up with is that it’s a way to force people to use Google+. You know what they say….”if you can’t grow a social network because people love it, grow it by forcing people to use it.” I’m not sure who says that but it’s the obvious plan. The more Google makes their much used services revolve around Google+, the more active users they will get. The more businesses that jump on the Google+ bandwagon (which will be every local business), the more businesses start promoting Google+ to their customers (ie leave us a review on Google+). It’s a diabolical marketing scheme and a major pain in the ass for all of the local businesses who spent time building up and optimizing their Google Places pages.
Your Thoughts?
How long until Facebook Stock drops even more because of this?
Has there been a Google service that’s lasted more than 3 years? They start shit up / buy out, realize they’re only good at search, then kill it off.
Also what does fb stock have to do with this?
@PPC.bz – Yea, most Google services don’t last long, agreed, but it is turning into a point where Google feels they HAVE to excel at social and this is a move towards that.
I think this has very little to do with Facebook stock but i’m ready for the “oh noes” sky is falling crowd to start panicking that Facebook will be beat by Google and sell sell sell more then they already are.
Bit of a pain in the ass after you get one thing down pretty good, but that is the nature of the beast. I see why they did, just like you said, and it makes total sense. G+ is failing and dead right now, but they know where the future is, so this may be the best way for them to get people to use there service. Thanks for the update.
Google also made +1’s influence search rankings so more webmasters would place the +1 buttons on their sites. Although FB like and Tweet buttons are much more popular.
You’re right about getting webmasters to promote Google+ for them.
Great post. I saw that article too.
I like Google for their tools. I use several throughout the day. Social is not a tool I use such as Facebook.
Google has been doing local for a while now and putting a lot of weight behind it in search. If it’s going to be influenced by opinions it needs more checks and balances. So they throw in Google +. And, it makes sense.
So, everyone likes to give their opinion. What’s someone going to do that wants to give an opinion but not join Google+? Many are going to join thinking OK just a little and next thing they know they are using Google+. Bringing people in that may have fallen out with Facebook or never jumped on the “social bandwagon”.
What are you going to really say anyway? It’s Google.
Some Google services don’t last but this is a strong move for Google+. Today is a big day for Google+ and a clever way to get Google+ into people’s lives.
Annoying. That’s what I’ve got to say about this. Sometimes I just want Google to stop coming up with the “next great inventions” and let people enjoy the services they already have in place…
Nice theme with rich content !!!
Google tools are awesome but there most result are approximate, not the actual ones
Google carries countless services out of them only 2 are successful, search engine and mail service…
Rest are useless coz they does not allow users to become used to with their services
Bit of a pain in the ass after you get one thing down pretty good, but that is the nature of the beast. I see why they did, just like you said, and it makes total sense. G+ is failing and dead right now, but they know where the future is, so this may be the best way for them to get people to use there service. Thanks for the update.
good update. I HATE how I go to google+ a post like this or login to my google plus account but I cant as im logged into my other business google account with no Google+ account aswell as being logged into my private account. Google needs to fix this many people have multiple Gmail accounts opened and its too much a pain in the ass to bother with… yeah I could use incognito or logout of my business account but just for google plus? what a pain. They should somehow separate google plus? sorry for the rant I know their is probably an easy solution haha 🙂
It’s their platform! They can leverage it at will.
South African Airways & British Airways (op?r? via Comair) Economie Projet d’offre, ces soci?t?s et ces vols de 1?re monster beats classe entre ces grandes villes & ? certains vraiment petits, y compris Mthatha, Polokwane, Richards Bay, & Maseru. Ton tonus ainsi une couleur doivent se pr?senter comme choisies selon ton tonus du bouille et le dynamisme du peau.
design of website is just awsm
Sad…
soo sad ..