Search Engine Roundtable: Google Maps Tests New Local Panel With Images At Top & Tabs For Reviews. “Google Maps is testing a new local listing interface where it shows more images in the top portion of the local listing and there are tabs to show the business overview on the left and the reviews on the right.”
Business Wire: LA Business Council Institute and USC Sol Price School of Public Policy Center for Economic Development Launch Groundbreaking Database of Over 31,000 Small Businesses in LA County (PRESS RELEASE). “Developed in collaboration with the University of Southern California Sol Price School of Public Policy’s Center for Economic Development, Compete4LA aims to help level the playing field for local businesses seeking to support the region’s major sports, entertainment, and cultural events, as well as major public infrastructure projects. The online database will host and maintain over 31,000 publicly accessible, verified business profiles for Los Angeles County businesses, featuring small firms under $1 million in annual sales and fewer than 20 employees, and other refining criteria.”
Search Engine Land: Google adds LGBTQ+ owned attribute to business profiles. “Google has announced it has added a new attribute to Google Business Profiles for LGBTQ+ owned businesses. This new attribute can be added within your verified Google Business Profile and it makes it easier to find LGBTQ+ owned businesses in their own community.”
CNET: How Meta Is Trying to Put an End to Fake Facebook Reviews. “People may see fewer reviews on Facebook that disingenuously bolster business on the platform, thanks to a new Community Feedback policy. The Community Feedback policy targets reviews on the social network that are fake, incentivized, fraudulent or offensive to ensure that real customers are writing real reviews, according to a blog post from parent company Meta on Monday.”
New York Times: Google Says It’s Time for Longtime Small-Business Users to Pay Up. “While the cost of the paid service is more of an annoyance than a hard financial hit, small-business owners affected by the change say they have been disappointed by the ham-handed way that Google has dealt with the process. They can’t help but feel that a giant company with billions of dollars in profits is squeezing little guys — some of the first businesses to use Google’s apps for work — for just a bit of money.”
Global News: Google apologizes to B.C. business owner after maps error sends customers to wrong location. “[Gerry] O’Neil’s horse drawn tours have been a fixture in Vancouver’s Stanley Park for 40 years. His business is located at 735 Stanley Park Drive. However, O’Neil said about a year ago, customers would enter his business address into the Google Maps app only to arrive at another location in the park.”
Google Blog: Spotlight: The first Google for Startups Ukraine Support Fund recipients. “To help Ukrainian entrepreneurs maintain and grow their businesses, strengthen their community and build a foundation for post-war economic recovery, in March we announced a $5 million Google for Startups Ukraine Support Fund to allocate equity-free cash awards throughout 2022. Selected Ukraine-based startups will receive up to $100,000 in non-dilutive funding as well as ongoing Google mentorship, product support, and Cloud credits. Today, we are proud to announce the first cohort of recipients of the Google for Startups Ukraine Support Fund.”
Marijuana Moment: California Officials Launch New Marijuana Map Revealing Which Areas Are Still Blocking Businesses. “California officials launched a new resource on Thursday, providing people with an interactive map showing where marijuana businesses are permitted—and where they are blocked from opening—throughout the state.”
Washington Post: Inside Ukraine’s new start-up life: Hallways, closets, bunkers. “Nearly three months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the country’s once booming tech community is trying to rebound back to life. As the war continues, tech founders and their employees have settled into new routines, working amid bombs, gunshots and air raid sirens. They build Power Points, take meetings and write emails and pitch decks from apartment hallways, bedroom closets and underground bunkers, trying to meet work deadlines regardless of the circumstances.”
BizTimes (Wisconsin): NVNG launches online, statewide database of startups to increase national exposure. “Madison-based NVNG Investment Advisors has launched an online database that aims to encapsulate all of the state’s startups. Called +Venture Wisconsin, the database was created to increase exposure of Wisconsin companies to national and international venture capital communities.”
Reuters: Google makes $100,000 worth of tech training free to every U.S. business. “Alphabet Inc’s Google will provide any U.S. business over $100,000 worth of online courses in data analytics, design and other tech skills for their workers free of charge, the search company said on Monday. The offer marks a big expansion of Google’s Career Certificates, a program the company launched in 2018 to help people globally boost their resumes by learning new tools at their own pace.”
Dutch News: Sex workers left struggling financially after coronavirus closures. “The coronavirus measures left many sex workers with financial problems, while others continued to work illegally despite the risks that entails, according to a new report by researchers at the Erasmus University medical centre and Soa Aids Nederland. In total 300 sex workers took part in the survey during the two years of the pandemic.”
Search Engine Land: Yelp adds searchable eco-friendly business attributes. “In addition to being highlighted in Yelp’s search results, the new sustainability attributes will appear on Yelp business pages. Yelp today announced a new addition to its platform: searchable, eco-friendly business attributes. It is free for businesses to add these attributes.”
The Verge: Google is using AI to update business hours that are out of date on Google Maps. “Google has shared how it’s using artificial intelligence, including its restaurant-calling Duplex tech, to try and keep business hours up to date on Google Maps. The company says that if it is confident enough in the AI’s prediction of what a business’s hours should be, it will update the information in Maps.”
Brookings Institution: How public health policies protected women-owned businesses during the pandemic. “Our recently published paper explored the potential effect of public policy responses on gender-related differences in enterprise performance. Exploiting the large cross-country variation in public health and economic policy responses, we studied whether good public policies were associated with a narrower performance gap between male- and female-owned businesses.”
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