As of today, Google Places is now part of Google Plus with the old accounts being merged into the social media and identity service.
The effect of the merger means listings will now appear with the features of Google Plus added, for US based hospitality businesses, Zagats’ reviews are now also integrated into the results.
For business owners, there’s little change in the administration panel and it appears any accounts that are suspended because of Google’s obscure listing policies remain in limbo.
How the complexities of the Google Places policies mesh with the arcane and arbitrary rules applied to Google Plus identities will be an interesting thing to watch.
One area of concern is that the owner of a Google+ Local listing will need a personal profile – for businesses this means a nominated individual has to run the account. Should that individual leave the business, then there will problems with shifting ownership.
I have some questions in with Google’s PR folk about these aspects of the transition and hopefully we’ll get some more ideas on how to deal with these issues.
While this merger of the two services are to be expected, it’s going to be interesting to see how it evolves. Right now it appears Google have dropped the ball on local with their focus on social and identity management.
The identity management aspect of this integration is the key point as Google’s hope is that individuals will check into and rate businesses which in turn will give them a more complete picture of that person’s habits and preferences.
How that pans out depends on how individuals value their personal information, it may be that once people understand the value of this data they’ll demand more than just the warm feeling of sharing their meal review with a circle of their friends.