The latest from TechCrunch
- Yelp Gears Up To Take On Groupon, Starts Testing Local Deals
- Google: City Of Los Angeles Apps Delay Is Overblown
- Delta's SkyClub Site Reimagined To Be Less Barf Bag Worthy
- Not Only Is Google Places Going After Yelp, They're Doing So With Yelp's Content
- How Will Apple Respond To The DMCA Revision? They Won't.
- Google May Not Have Bought Yelp, But They Sure Are Trying To Own Them With Places
| Yelp Gears Up To Take On Groupon, Starts Testing Local Deals | Top |
| It looks like Yelp is looking to cash in on the local deal craze. As the folks over at deal aggregator YipIt first noticed, Yelp has recently been testing time-limited local deals in a select number of pilot cities. The proof lies in a comment thread that began June 23, when a Yelp user noticed a deal running for $20 for $45 of services at Papillon salon. The user wrote that you can purchase the deal through Yelp with your credit card. Yelp employee Olivia L. responded to say that Yelp was “testing it out for fun to see what kind of response it generates”. The feature would obviously compete with Groupon and a throng of other deal sites , though it isn’t clear if Yelp is testing a group-buying mechanic or if it’s simply offering deals for a limited period of time. We’ve reached out to Yelp for more details (and to confirm that the tests are still running). Given Yelp’s established audience this makes perfect sense for the company — I’d be surprised if they don’t deploy it more widely down the line. In other Yelp-related news, earlier today Google rolled out a new Places application for Android that will be directly competing with Yelp’s directory of local reviews. | |
| Google: City Of Los Angeles Apps Delay Is Overblown | Top |
| Google has long been touting the deployment of its productivity suite and Microsoft Office-killer Google Apps to the City of Los Angeles. The City planned to equip its 34,000 employees with Google Apps, replacing Novell's GroupWise system, the e-mail technology provider that LA had previously been using. But unfortunately, the process of transitioning the government entity over to the cloud-based system has seen a few speedbumps to say the least. In April, LA City administrators began questioning the move thanks to productivity, security and slowness issues with Google Apps. During that time, there was also the possibility of a delay in the full deployment of the system to employees because of these concerns. On Friday, we learned that this delay became a reality, and Google missed its June 30 deadline to deploy Apps to all 34,000 employees. But today, at the launch of Google Apps for Government, a specialized version of the suite to meet government security needs, Google said the situation was in fact overblown. Here’s the statement we were given by Google on the issue: The City’s move to the cloud is the first of its kind, and we're very pleased with the progress to date, with more than 10,000 City employees already using Google Apps for Government and $5.5 million in expected cost savings to Los Angeles taxpayers. It's not surprising that such a large government initiative would hit a few speed bumps along the way, and we're working closely with CSC and the City to meet their evolving requirements in a timely manner and ensure the project is a great success for Los Angeles. As for the delay, Google says that they are working with with the City of LA to “address requirements that were not included in the original contract.” One example of these possible requirements that came up is that the LAPD wants to conduct background checks on all Google employees that have access to Google Apps data in the cloud. Doing these checks of course add more time to the adminstrative clock. Google spokesman Andrew Kovacs declined to get into any specifics on what requirements were “unforseen” but he did say that the delay is actually only a matter of months, and that the full deployment should take place this year. And the delay will results in no additional payments by the City of Los Angeles. So why has this particular deployment become somewhat of a comedy of errors and an apparent communications breakdown? Washington D.C. and Orlando, FL have made a similar move to Google Apps without so much drama. But the City of LA is Google’s largest government Apps transition date, so we could just be witnessing the growing pains of such a large deployment within a government entity. However, as Google starts expanding apps to larger government organizations, the company is bound to face ongoing bureaucratic issues involving security concerns, outdated systems, and more. If Google is actively targeting government organizations for Apps (which seems to be apparent from today’s announcement), then this is probably not going to be the first or the last time deployment is bogged down in bureaucratic questioning. Photo credit/Flickr/ KLA4067 CrunchBase Information Google Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Delta's SkyClub Site Reimagined To Be Less Barf Bag Worthy | Top |
| The airline industry is pretty much the worst offender in terms of being amenable to change, hence the large user experience holes filled by market distruptors like Virgin America , JetBlue , and Southwest . Aside from cloning Richard Branson or crossing your fingers in hopes that skunkworks will change things internally, what’s an old school airline executive to do? Part of the answer lies in paying attention to user suggestions, especially if they’re as elaborate as former Vimeo and College Humor founder and current Boxee CPO Zach Klein’s “one hour rethinking” of the Delta SkyClub complimentary wifi portal, a visualization he created and posted to Flickr while waiting for a flight out of Salt Lake City this morning (which probably should make the rest of us rethink how productively we use our commute times). As any traveler has seen, the landing pages for these hotel and airline wifi portals are usually irrelevant filler, hence the beauty in Klein’s reimagining; Why not fill them with useful personal information like the weather at your destination, your flight boarding time, upcoming travel and even geek stuff like the history of the airplane you’ll be traveling on, creating “a fairly simple page that is dramatically more valuable”? In case anyone was confused on how to serve up this info, Klein goes even further: “My idea is to require your frequent flyer mile number in order to access free WIFI (almost everyone in a lounge has a number) and perhaps even use my Delta.com cookie to autofill it.” We’ve seen unsolicited reimaginings of user interface design before, most notably UX Designer Dustin Curtis’ open letter to American Airlines about their homepage design, which received a “you are absolutely right” response from an anonymous American UX architect. While Delta hasn’t responded to Klein yet, I’m pretty sure another “you are absolutely right” is warranted here. Photo: Zach Klein/Flickr CrunchBase Information Zach Klein Information provided by CrunchBase CrunchBase Information Boxee Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Not Only Is Google Places Going After Yelp, They're Doing So With Yelp's Content | Top |
| Earlier today, we noted that an update to Google Maps for Mobile was the clearest sign yet of Google going directly after Yelp . But it’s actually even more interesting than we thought. Key to the new Google Maps for Mobile is Places, the new establishment-centric area which Google has been building up for about the past year or so. Places is basically an evolution of Google Local, which had been around for some time to pull in the best content for various local businesses. Previously, with Google Local, Google was using content they licensed to populate their review excerpts area. But apparently, that’s no longer the case. Google doesn’t have such an agreement with Yelp and yet Yelp content is appearing in Google Places. And not only that, Yelp data often constitutes a lot of the review content. Google actually used to have a partnership with Yelp to use their licensed content (read: customer reviews) a few years back, we hear. But Yelp apparently pulled out of that deal after Google was being too aggressive in promoting their own landing pages rather than those of the partners providing the content. But a few months ago, Google changed it policies, and began using content from sources they didn’t have agreements with — this brought Yelp data back into the mix. And that’s what’s so interesting here. Google Places is now clearly going after Yelp, and the main way they can do that is by providing users with solid restaurant reviews. Some of that content is coming through Google’s agreements with outfits like Zagats and TripAdvisor, but a ton of it is coming from Yelp content that Google is simply getting by crawling it with their search spiders. And the only way Yelp could block this content from Google’s all-seeing eye is by no-indexing their entire site — a move which would effectively kill them since so much of their traffic comes from Google Search results. And that’s the key to all of this. It’s not just Google Places, Google appears to be squeezing Yelp out of the game across the board. As Google continues to refine their search results pages, they’re clearly putting an emphasis on Maps (and soon, Places ) for results. This highlights Google content, rather than third-parties like Yelp. These are being pushed farther down the results page. And even though Google is using a good amount of Yelp content to populate its review areas, they’re shoving the reviews to the bottom of the results, below the reviews from licensed partners. The problem here is pages like this one for a burrito places in San Francisco. Of the 61 reviews listed, something 30-something of them are from Yelp. And yet the Yelp ones are all displayed below other ones from TripAdvisor, CitySearch, etc. Here’s another example — Yelp reviews start on page 11. Obviously, the ramifications of this go far beyond Yelp. While the New York Times op/ed a couple weeks ago went a bit far in suggesting the government should oversee Google’s algorithm, their main point of Google using their power to bolster their own offerings and squeeze out competitors is a very real concern. And that’s exactly what this Yelp situation is all about — it’s just an especially sexy story since Google tried to buy Yelp last year and were scorned. Speaking of which, some people will probably try to argue that perhaps Yelp should have seen this coming when they walked away from the $500 million+ offer from Google late last year. But this just seems unusually cruel. It looks a lot like Google is using Yelp’s content to bolster their offering — and paying them in swift punches to the face. CrunchBase Information Yelp Google Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| How Will Apple Respond To The DMCA Revision? They Won't. | Top |
| Today’s adjustment of the DMCA has far-reaching legal implications, which will only be evident after a few weeks, months, or even years as various parties exploit them however they can. I’m going to let the experts play in that sandbox. But one of the new rules seems to have had a specific target in mind: Apple. To wit: (2) Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications, when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the telephone handset. The language is a bit confusing, but the end result is the legalization of jailbreaking your phone and side-loading apps. Not that it was ever illegal, although some Apple store employees thought otherwise . Now that it’s been made official, however, one might reasonably expect a bit of give from Apple on this point, since they have taken such great measures to prevent such actions. But I’m pretty sure that apart from a little lip service, Apple will continue with the exact same policies, with the sort of blithe arrogance that simultaneously compels and repels consumers. Continue reading… | |
| Google May Not Have Bought Yelp, But They Sure Are Trying To Own Them With Places | Top |
| Perhaps you recall that late last year, Google was in discussions to buy Yelp . Despite a supposed offer of $550 million plus earn-outs, Yelp walked away from the deal . But that isn’t stopping Google for entering Yelp’s business. Today, Google continues their fast-moving assault on local and location with a revamped Google Maps for mobile . Central to Maps for mobile 4.4 is Google Places, the newer component of Maps which shows you, you guessed it, places nearby. But it’s much more than just another layer in Google Maps, with this release on every Android phone (1.6 and later), there will now be a dedicated Places icon that appears in the Android app launcher. So yes, Google just basically gave Places its own new app. Clicking on this Places app takes you to a screen that shows you an overview of things nearby including Coffee, Bars, Hotels, Attractions, ATMs, and Gas Stations are some of the default ones. But guess what’s first on that list? Restaurants. Yep, the same restaurants that are central to Yelp’s core business. Of course, Google Places lacks the Yelp’s community of reviewers. But as you can see on each restaurant page, they have plenty of their own reviews that they’re pulling in — including reviews from publications like Zagat. With the click of one icon on these pages, you can get directions or call to make a reservation. Obviously, you can also see details such as prices and menus. One thing Google hasn’t connected just yet is the ability to check-in to these places. That’s a newer feature of Yelp’s mobile apps, and of course, the key ingredient of apps such as Foursquare and Gowalla. You can bet that this will come to Google Places too, as the Google Latitude API now allows for this functionality. To find Maps for mobile 4.4, you can search in the Android Market for “Google Maps” (or click here on your Android phone). Google also notes that the revamped Places will be coming to BlackBerry users soon as well. No word on iPhone users. Update : And even more intrigue . CrunchBase Information Google Yelp Android Information provided by CrunchBase | |
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