Archive for April, 2008
suchen.de wins award for local advertising feature
29 Apr. 2008 | Author: 
The local search engine suchen.de managed to take home an award at the Innovation-Prize 2008, for its localized click-based advertising functionality.
Local online search machines and web-directories are an effective advertising platform, especially for small and medium-sized companies. The advertising capabilities of suchen.de were found to by particularly useful by ‘Initiative Mittelstand.’ The management of the local search engine suchen.de, t-info GmbH, received the award for Innovation, in the category “Internet Services” for their advertising facility.
As announced on the website of Initiative Mittelstand, t-info has been honored for tailoring click-based advertising (a standard feature in virtually all the major search engines) to the local search sphere. This means the user only sees an ad, when the content is relevant to his local search query, whether locality, service or product specific. (See our post.)
The advantages serve both the user and the advertising enterprise – the user only comes across relevant search and advertising hits, resulting from his search, and the advertiser is able to target location-specific potential clients, as a result of clear market need (as reflected by the user’s search criteria). Through this specificity or target-group, wasted revenue is reduced and accordingly advertising costs to the companies.
Launched in 2004, the annual Innovation Prize honors the most innovative and relevant products, solutions and services, specifically for the small and medium-sized business sector in the arena of information and telecommunications technology. In 2008, submissions for consideration for the awards topped the 1600 mark, eclipsing all former submissions [see Press Release].
Mobile location-based services on the upswing
A recent study by the USA market research institute ABI Research, predicts a user-explosion for mobile use of location-based services (LBS) in the coming years.
The experts at ABI Research made their findings public in a press release, as well as revealing a rise in the sector annual worldwide income of an estimated $515 Million in 2007, to a staggering prediction of $13,3 Billion in 2013.
The reason for this enormous increase is seen to be the rapid growth of GPS-capable Smartphones, coupled with the steadily building interest in off-board navigation systems, that is, the accessing of route information from service providers. The latter is expected to be the fastest growing part of this market.
In addition, Family-tracking and Friend-Finding, with local search services are seen as an important area of expansion, as well as company tracking of mobile employee locations and fleet management.
Although the prognosis looks really rosy, LBS providers still have a pretty steep implementation curve, to reach the levels of income predicted. Flatrates for Smartphones are seen as being pivotal in promoting the use and growth of this sector.
Posted in Local Search on the go, Local Search per Mobile phone, Studies, News | 
Tags: Abi, LBS, Location Based Services, lokale Informationen, Prognose, Voraussage | 
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Live Search Maps: another update
The German-version of the local search engine Live Search Maps, operated by Microsoft, has recently been pepped up with several improvements.
These new features are described by Toni Pelg, a Business Manager at Microsoft, in a post on Windows Live Blog.
The search results – generated by suchen.de – are now sorted according to the distance from the entered location. Additionally, duplicate results have been reduced significantly. These measures should increase the search speed and the overview clarity.
Not only the search performance has been improved, but also the content has been updated and tweaked. Users are now able to find more German towns and cities, using the Bird’s Eye view [de=Vogelperspektive). Pelg listed the newly updated locations as including Düsseldorf, Essen, Koblenz, Neuwied, Neuss, Detmold, Gütersloh, Gummersbach, Nordhorn and Paderborn.
The most extensive improvements concern the Route Planner. One can now link directly to this page, and use the facility without entering start and finish locations, according to Pelg. This allows the Route Planner results to be added to bookmarks/favorites. Website operators are now also able to embed the results in their web pages. Further it is also possible to print out the generated route plan, by selecting the printer icon (in the menu bar, on the right) and then decide whether to choose the instructions in Text form, Map form or both of these for the printed output.
suchen.de is now accessible via SMS
t-info, the proprietors of the local search engine suchen.de, has added to its locality-based SMS-Service.
This service, known as “SMS-Filialfinder” [en=SMS-BranchFinder], has been offered by t-info for several years– its selection opportunities were however not as rich as now on offer. The mobile-phone user is now able to access the entire local index of suchen.de, which hosts more than five million addresses. This was announced by the company in a press release. Additionally, one can use almost any imaginable search keyword, in using this function.
For those wishing to use this new feature, one sends a search word/string per SMS to the SMS-address 84636. Wherever one finds oneself at that moment, will according to t-info, be relayed via the mobile network to the server. For the first use of this service, the user needs to accept the Terms and Conditions, as to specifically whether t-info may determine the coordinates of the user’s actual location. Once agreed to by the user, the appropriate address(es) and telephone number(s) gathered as a result of the searched terms, will be sent to the user, specifically for their current location.
Especially practical for users without internet-ready cellphones, every received SMS costs €0,69. And the user receives for every search request a maximum of two addresses. If one then requires further search results, one then needs to reply to the first message with the letter ‘M’ (for ‘more’), and then will receive up to two further suggestions.
More information about this service can be accessed at http://sms.suchen.de
meinestadt.de adds new local information
The city-portal now offers improved local weather information as well as information about walking routes.
As of the beginning of April, meinestadt.de, in cooperation with a new partner, MC-Wetter (MeteoGroup), has unveiled new information concerning local weather conditions. Under the “wetter” [en=weather] link, one is now able to find weather forecasts for the coming five days for every German town and region, as well as current conditions, such as relative (perceived) temperature, ‘Bioweather’ or pollen count.
In addition, on the start page, a further new partnership with wanderkompass.de [en=’wander compass’], provides a special section dedicated to walking/wandering/hiking with regional and national updates and news. In a press release, the owners of meinestadt.de, the firm allesklar.com AG, lists over 1,200 foot routes all over Germany. This feature can be found for every German town, city or community under “Reiseführer” [en=Travel Guide]. However, the offering is as yet not complete in its coverage of all towns and regions, for foot-route information. Recently, for example, for Stuttgart, only links to national footways were displayed.
Google Maps refine their results
Google’s local search has recently offered the possibility to refine the search results, using specific criteria.
In the US-version of Google Maps, it has been possible (since February 2008) to limit the results, for example choosing user ratings and/or neighborhoods. A Google software developer Constantinos Michael described these new functions in Google’s Lat Long Blog.
Quietly and unheralded, Google has introduced similar functions to the German version of their local search machine. German users can now limit their results according to a chosen locality and/or the quality of the suppliers (at least, according to the number of stars earned in the user ratings), thus enabling even further personalization.
After the initial search request, the user clicks a “Refine by Neighborhood/User Rating” link, which then generates the requested filtered results. BTW, if one wants to use the “Refine by Distance” option, one needs to have originally entered both a place name, and also either a post code, street or city neighborhood. Without the additional criterion, this option will not be displayed.
Posted in Local Search per PC, Local Search, News, Local Search Engines, Practical features |
Tags: Google, google maps, lokale Informationen, Maps, Nutzerbewertung, web2.0 |
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Google Maps: more 360º photos on-line
The drivers of Google’s “Street-View-Cars“ have been very busy and have added a further 13 USA cities and a National Park to the offering, using their special cameras.
Google programmer Bradley Bossard described the new developments in Google’s Lat Long Blog. Among the cities in question are Albuquerque, Austin, Cleveland, Nashville and Fairbanks, as well as the Yosemite National Park.
In addition to the new 14 areas, Bossard also announced additional coverage of the outskirts of several cities already in the program, including Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. One can even marvel at the splendor of the Redwoods near San Francisco.
All in all there are now over 40 metropolitan areas and places being covered using Google’s panoramic “Street View” offering. In the German-version, the feature is called “Straßenansicht” (similar translation) but as of yet, no German cities have been posted on-line.
Street View is a part of the Google Maps API (Application Programming Interface) and thus is possible to be embedded in websites in 3rd party web-presences. James McGill of the Google Maps API Team announced this feature in a recent post in the official Google Maps API Blog.
Posted in Local Search per PC, Local Search, News, Local Search Engines, Practical features |
Tags: API, google maps, lokale Informationen, Maps, Panoramaansicht, Straßenansicht, street view |
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Phone directory “DasTelefonbuch” gets a new look
The telephone online directory DasTelefonbuch has pepped up its web presence and can be found sporting some new features and an updated interface.
Relaunched in March, above all the design of the portal has been changed. On the start page, the search fields take a stronger central focus than before. Links that were previously more prominent, such as Area Codes and Postal Code Finder, as well as Themes such as Emergency numbers, are now to be found somewhat smaller, placed under the entry field.
Also new: on searching, the user already receives a preview of all available content, in the generated results list. Using this new feature, it is possible at a glance, to scan available additional information (e.g. e-mail or URL) using the detail preview, in addition to the standard details like phone number and address.
This detail view, accessed by clicking the name or the “All Information” link, serves to make the site much more user-friendly and accessible. Previously one was already able to print, e-mail, fax or sms a selected entry, but this functionality was not clear and was easily overseen. This has now been remedied. The new ‘look’, using attractive and easily recognizable icons, placed on a dark grey background, now displays these former practical features under the “Use Contact” section, where one can also find a map-view and a route planner.
A press release also lists other features offered by the website, including the uploading of business adverts, photos or videos, and additional information about products, services or hours of operation.
Google Maps invites its users in
The makers of Google Maps have improved their offering by focussing on the cooperation of their users.
As of mid November 2007, registered members of the local Google sites in the USA, Australia and New Zealand, were able to correct the positioning of local markers in Google Maps.Now the search engine giant offers members of these countries the option of even more active participation in the Local search arena. Registered members are now able to add new locations, such as service options, companies, and also attractions or POIs (Points of Interest). Existing entries may be augmented with additional information or indeed deleted, such as when an undertaking closes down.
Ramesh Balakrishnan in Google’s LatLong Blog discussed these innovations. In order to avoid misuse (or misadventure), Google has set up multiple mechanisms – all changes are listed under a “History” section of the specific location, and the original information is always to be retrieved. The FAQs on the Help page of Google Maps also fdetails that certain locations are not freely editable, for example hospitals, governmental buildings or businesses whose proprietor(s) have expressly specified (through registration with the Local Business Center) that their content is not changeable by 3rd parties.
At posting date, the German version of Google Maps does not yet offer this feature.
Posted in Local Search per PC, Local Search, News, Local Search Engines, Practical features |
Tags: Google, google maps, lokale Informationen, Maps, User Generated Content, web2.0 |
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