Just caught Greg’s piece on Facebook’s new mobile local search feature: Facebook Gets Into Local Search with Facebook Nearby for iOS & Android.
While I don’t expect Facebook Nearby to stay ad-free forever, with the entry of Facebook Nearby and Apple Maps, both ad-free, I’d say 2012 has been the most interesting year in the Local Search biz since Google Places rolled out. Many in the industry would argue that the ads do help people find the right businesses and help businesses do a better job at generating lead flow. But in the near term, I see these developments as being both a great win for consumers (more services to choose from) and a great pain for them (local search services can be hard to do well – see death by Apple Maps). But in the long run, the real winners will be local businesses and the agencies that help them navigate these murky waters. More big services competing to service SMBs should, in the long run*, produce better services for those SMBs.
Grab some popcorn and enjoy the show.
*Of course, in the long run we’ll all be pushing up the daisies.
4 Response Comments
As courageous as the Apple Maps venture was, I think local search providers are now very leery. I’m interested to see if Facebook local search will pose any kind of threat to Google Maps. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it… right?
While there are still a lot of issues with Apple Maps, I am still seeing indications that people are using the app. Perhaps not as many as are using Google Maps for iOS, but remember, that Apple Maps is now built into every location-based iOS apps, so ignore it at your peril.
I believe that Google has the best system of local search and Apple shot itself in the foot when he tried to do something similar. The failure was imminent.
I miss Mr. Jobs after he died Apple went into decline and in my view, this is the direction of the company.
Facebook is now entering the world of local search, let’s see what they can do to clash with the almighty Google Maps.
actually there is no compitition between these two but google map is always effective than facebook near by because it directly point to exact location and fb nearby doesn’t provide it…
Regards,
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