Google Knol; Opportunity For Local?

Knol, (short for unit of knowledge) will invite authors on any topic to provide content to Google.

According to Google expect the following;

"Anyone will be able to rate a knol or write a review of it. Knols will also include references and links to additional information. At the discretion of the author, a knol may include ads. If an author chooses to include ads, Google will provide the author with substantial revenue share from the proceeds of those ads.

Once testing is completed, participation in knols will be completely open, and we cannot expect that all of them will be of high quality. Our job in Search Quality will be to rank the knols appropriately when they appear in Google search results. We are quite experienced with ranking web pages, and we feel confident that we will be up to the challenge."

I'm interested on the local take.

Is there opportunity for local business within Knol? On first view plenty. Do you know your local real estate market? Post it up, link to your real estate site and invite comment.
Local commercial painters or wedding photographers can take to pen and start talking.

Arborists can write about care of regional trees and trimming requirements. Caterers, whip out the calender and start writing.

If we know anything about Google we know they love scale and this means opportunity will present itself at the neighborhood level.

This is a great move by Google and proves again why they are the leaders in search and online marketing.

More UGC Sites Favored By Google

Last week I highlighted some of the User Generated Content (UGC) sites Google now favors as an enhancement to listings on Google Maps.
Today I noticed a few more including;

Mapufacture.com (GeoRSS Aggregator)
Booking.com (Priceline Property)
VResorts.com (Virtual Tour Aggregator)
XSWeb.com (Resolves to Global Assistant)
SFInj.com (Hotel Info Aggregator)
Smugmug (Photo Site)
Road Runner (Google Search Partner)
RCI Destinations (Timeshare Reviews)

Added to the sites listed previously;

VirtualGlobetrotting.com
Platial.com
Wik.is
Navitraveler
Travelandleisure.com (not really a UGC site)
Propsmart.com (real estate)
Raditz.net
KeyHole.com (Google property)

It's a little confusing trying to figure out what Google considers User Generated Content but it is clear they like mapping sites. Major partners like AOL (Time Warner) get considerable play as well.

MySpace Appealing To Advertisers

From AdWeek.com via Yahoo!,the MySpace profile for Adidas Soccer has over 83,000 friends much to the pleasure of Adidas and engineered by their ad agency Carat Fusion, a division of Aegis Group.

"Figuring out how to befriend consumers is top of mind these days, as MySpace and Facebook loom ever larger in the daily lives of young consumers. According to the Carat Fusion-MySpace research, social networking users spend 11 hours online per week compared to 9.4 hours watching TV. Non-social networking users watch TV 11.5 hours and spend 8.7 hours on the Web. While social networkers still watch TV, 68 percent said their favorite time to visit social networks is during prime-time TV hours in the evening....."

Regarding MySpace, Sarah Fay of Aegis Group says;

"It is more than a media opportunity. It also shows, she said, that advertisers need to take a leap of faith with social-network programs that some of the extra "momentum effect" will not be quantified for every campaign."

Bottom line, it works and it's not difficult to implement.

Google Maps Now Displaying UGC

Google Maps is now including UGC link options for searchers on the bottom of local search results.

See user-created content New!

On first look some of the sites Google considers include;

VirtualGlobetrotting.com
Platial.com
Wik.is
Navitraveler
Travelandleisure.com (not really a UGC site)
Propsmart.com (real estate)
Raditz.net
KeyHole.com (Google property)

Google also favors pages saved by users of their new My Saved Pages, part of the new MyMaps feature.

How to take advantage of this;
Map your business on Virtual Globetrotting (if it can get by the editors). Join the Keyhole BBS groups. Have your friends and better customers or clients get a Google account and save the map to your establishment on Google MyMaps.
Get accounts at Wik, Platial and the other sites mentioned.

Adding user generated content follows the addition of reviews to Google Maps results earlier this year. Google is favoring what users think about local business, museums and tourist spots etc.
UGC (user generated content), local community and review sites play a big part in marketing your local business. The news today affirms our belief and provides another tool to assist our clients in gaining search share in the categories.

Also on the subject of UGC, how does user generated content size up for advertising purposes? BlueLithium Labs came out with some interesting figures on how UGC ads convert vs. non UGC.

Other Bloggers posting on the topic;
Helen at NonLinear
Greg Sterling at Screenwerk

New Tools

Topix.com is "Calling All Editors".

About editing on Topix

Topix Editors are an elite group of users that post interesting and relevant articles to share with their communities. Editors receive special tools enabling them to find and promote stories on pages that are read by millions of users. Editors can even post their own original articles and photos.
Anyone with a passionate interest for news in their community is encouraged to submit an application.

As location editor you (along with roboblogger) are a gatekeeper for articles and help keep spam out of user forums. Being an editor could act as a great tool for real estate agents who need to keep the pulse of particular locations or markets.


YellowBot (beta) is a new Internet Yellow Pages play with a friendly and inviting interface. You can submit a business which is great. One negative is the GenX phrasiology used throughout the site like "off the heezy" for business ratings or "got peeps" indicating spots on a map. Their demo's must indicate like minded hip urban twenty-somethings or perhaps they really believe such slang is mainstream.
I don't know or care what "heezy" means so I won't use their ratings system. I will suggest clients submit their business but most are there already because Localeze is the bus. info provider.

Finally Microsoft Office Live offers a free website and supporting tools. Christine Churchill has a great review on Search Engine Land.