Will you be surprised to see your local coffee shop holding a “We are famous. Find us on Google Maps” hoarding?
Well, be prepared to see Indian small businesses getting Googled in 2008.
And how will Google get across all these long tail of businesses? In my opinion (and given Google’s intelligence), they will not go the usual route of buying data from companies like InfoMedia.
After all, everybody else is doing it. So, what’s the other option?
Guess who else has the updated address and contact numbers of small businesses? (pay attention to the word “updated” – because many a times, the local info DB doesn’t have the updated data).
As fas as I know, most of the smallbusinesses in India have CDMA phone connections (Reliance and Tata Indicom) and these guys have the most comprehensive listings of small businesses.
Will Google partner with any of these operators and hit the long tail?
In all probability, YES!
A sure shot prediction for 2008 will be stiff competition to local search players from the big giant. What do you think?
Recommended Read: Analysis of local search players.
BTW Onyomo is a pretty good service with very updated contact details. We found our small business’ address was accurate.
Interesting stuff ! what will happen to startups like asklaila/guruji etc? they are taking the normal route of indexing local biz by directory listing + using locals.
What Google is doing is completely unfair.
They are acquiring local listings from various players, promising them reach and usage.
Once they acquire the listings, they are going ahead and meeting the local businesses and putting their hoardings.This is being done without the knowledge of the local partners.
In many ways, this is like Sam becoming a friend of Will. 1 Month later, Sam befriends Will’s wife and has an affair with her. When Sam asks him, “Will, Why did you do this?”. Sam turns around and says, ” Hey, When we became friends, you never said that I can’t have an affair with your wife, right?”
This signals the doom of the Indian online local commerce Industry. Google, you have let us all down.
Its positive I think.. You can not stop the googles from flexing their muscles.. the earlier they enter, the sooner Indian businesses will learn to compete with them… and we are doing good in similar scenarios in other though traditional businesses..
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