While the Google Local Business Center may be no more, it’s hardly dead. In efforts to streamline and simultaneously enhance user experience for         both searching customers and listed businesses, the Google Local Business Center has been reincarnated into Google Places . Some features       of the nifty new Google Places include:

• Google now allows businesses to show potential customers which areas they serve.
• Business photo shoots allows businesses in select cities to showcase the interior of their buildings and offices.
• Customized QR codes will allow smartphone cameras to scan a business’s  image code and be taken directly to the mobile version of their Place Page.
• The Favorite Places program, similar to Yelp’s customer review-driven “People Love Us” or Citysearch’s “Best of” programs will be sending out window decals to 50,000 popular businesses in the United States. These decals will conveniently include the business’s QR code for customer scanning convenience.

Last year, Google acquired VoIP service Gizmo5. While the acquisition has helped fill in some gaps in the Google Voice application,  an actual phone number to a real phone was needed. Now it seems that Google has used the Gizmo5 technology to create a Google Voice desktop app, which similar to Skype, will allow users to make and receive calls right from their computer.

While high schools students and soap operas still corner the market on best friend/eternal rival relations, which young whippersnappers refer to as “frenemies” (an amalgamation of the words “friend” and “enemies”),  it seems that the ridiculous word is probably the best way to describe the current Google-Apple relationship.

Once allies-turned-competitors, (Google’s Nexus One is known as the closest thing to an iPhone killer yet), Apple’s announcement of plans to launch an ad platform via mobile applications is more of a relief than a threat to the online behemoth. Google’s pending acquisition of AdMob, which is currently being reviewed by the FTC, is much more likely to go through with proof that Google is not, in fact, a monopoly. Therefore, Google will welcome it’s biggest rival with open arms.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock on a distant planet, you’ve probably heard that Apple’s latest innovation, the iPad, finally came out over the weekend. In fact, you probably should have heard of it even if you were.

Apple’s new touch-screen tablet computer thingamajig already has a ton of Google applications, including Google Maps, Gmail, and YouTube. Microsoft’s Bing, which has a popular iPhone app, is not yet available on the iPad, although it shouldn’t be far behind. Users can, of course, still manually navigate to the Bing search engine… but it’s just not the same.

“Pogo-sticking” isn’t just your 5-year-old hopping around your driveway on a spring-loaded toy. In fact, it has a much less cuddly connotation for searchers. That’s because pogo-sticking in search engine lingo is when users jump back and forth between the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) and websites looking for the right information. Pogo-sticking behavior is an indication of user dissatisfaction, as the longer a person goes down the pages and back to the SERP, the more it shows that the user is having difficulty finding what they’re looking for.

Ask.com began efforts to minimize pogo-sticking behavior years ago when it implemented the binoculars feature, allowing searchers to preview the landing pages. This feature reduces search times by allowing users to see if the site information is relevant to their needs without having to click on it.

Google  is now looking to cut back on pogo-sticking with a new search option that will alter results to more easily facilitate searching information related to a specific result. Google’s new “Get More” option will appear once a user hits the back button from a webpage to the SERP, helping guide searchers towards results similar to the one initially selected that may better suit their needs.

For those of you who can’t wait to Tweet about everything from what you had for breakfast to the new pen you bought, Microsoft wants to incorporate your broadcasting obsession into your workplace. Microsoft Office Labs has been experimenting with a new microblogging application they’re calling OfficeTalk, which mirrors Twitter’s ability to create individual profiles, read and respond to messages, and post original content.

In a test involving 10,000 users posting daily messages, Microsoft Office Labs discovered that OfficeTalk participants successfully used the application towards professional (vs social) means. The test led Microsoft to believe that the application could in fact be used in the office to increase productivity and efficiency by easing collaboration and rapid communication.

If you’ve ever checked your iPhone for the nearest Starbucks or used your Blackberry to find the best Thai restaurant within 5 miles, you’re not alone.  Google’s Director of Mobile Advertising, Diana Pouliot, recently announced that one-third of all Google mobile web searches are somehow related to the user’s location.

This revelation has led Google down yet another path on it’s never-ending quest to dominate everything anyone could ever want to know about.  Google is highlighting the growing importance of mobile location-based searches by increasing efforts to optimize advertising platforms. Some analysts forsee spending via mobile searches with “local-intent”  to reach up to $4 billion by 2015. Last year’s estimates only hit about $34 million.

Yahoo is also working on attracting mobile environment-based participation from large companies with various locations and/or franchises that traditionally advertise through regional newspapers and radio stations.

Have you spent many sleepless nights agonizing over the lack of  sitelink, product extension, and comparison options for your Google Pay Per Click (PPC) ads?  Well you can finally slumber peacefully, my friend:  The Powers that Be have heard your pleas, and Google has answered them.

Each of the new PPC features will boost exposure and direct traffic to sites using Google advertising tools  in several different ways. The sitelinks option allows up to 10 sitelinks per ad unit, which will ease navigation and connect searchers with timely deals.

The product extensions option catches a shopper’s eye by displaying specific product images above descriptions and prices. This drives direct sales through the vendor’’s Google Merchant Center account.

And finally, the comparison ads list several relevant offers in highly competitive markets,  enabling customers to compare deals.

You may have used Yelp to check out what others are saying about a restaurant, write about your experience at a particular  spa, or search for a good veterinarian, but who’s reviewing Yelp?

A federal court judge will, thanks to a class-action lawsuit filed by two California law-firms. The ten businesses involved in the case have accused Yelp, an online user review and local search directory, of unfair business practices and extorting small businesses. They claim that Yelp has manipulated the visibility of their business reviews and offered to hide negative reviews if they each purchased $300-monthly  “advertising contracts” with the site.

Yelp maintains its innocence, insisting that the businesses suing the company don’t understand how Yelp works. Yelps says it uses an automated program to filter reviews and only removes those which may be inappropriate or fraudulent. Conversely, it allows businesses to pick a top featured review and directly address negative reviews through the site.

One of the top 150 US websites with over 15 million small businesses indexed and 25 million users a month, Yelp, like Google and Twitter, even has it’s own verb. Yelpers can yelp about anything from the local 7-Eleven to the specialty vintage clock retailer at the local antique mall.

There’s something to be said for instant gratification, and if you’re the sort who wants to know where you are without pausing to open a map app, one of the handful of changes to Google Maps for Android (version 4.1) has your name on it.

To turn your wallpaper into a live, real-time map that tracks your location, press and hold the home screen, choose Wallpaper, then pick Maps from the Live Wallpaper folder. Before setting the wallpaper, you’ll be able to choose satellite, terrain, or line map mode and whether you want to show traffic. While a little clunky and distracting depending on how cluttered your screen is, it’s neat that you can still manage to zoom in and out. The live wallpaper works for Android phones running 2.1 of the operating system and up.