Google locle.
As I was (presciently!) musing it should last weekend, Google has now significantly upgraded its geographic targeting. When an advertiser buys an AdWord, it can specify geography, not just by city or region as it can now, but by a radius around a specific address or by specific geographic boundaries. (Google links to a couple of services that can help advertisers specify the precise area they want to cover.)
ThatÂ’s far more precise than any other mass-market service Â… and perhaps more precise than most advertisers might want, but itÂ’s an interesting technical feat and it foreshadows more.
The first, more immediate implication is to make AdWords much more targetable, in essence dividing them up in a way that maximizes their value both to local advertisers and to Google. GoogleÂ’s (and OvertureÂ’s) pay-per-click pricing model makes online advertising affordable and effective in a way it wasnÂ’t before for local advertisers.
Google local isnÂ’t going to unleash a flood of newbies onto the Net, but over time it will make being online more and more lucrative for small, local businesses (as opposed to the ship-anywhere bizes that benefit from eBay). And it will make not being online more and more disadvantageous. (There was a time when having a telephone distinguished a business from its competition. For now, itÂ’s having a Net presenceÂ… )
Google’s experience so far with AdWords, and its ability to automate the advertising process for small businesses, portend a sea change in the accessibility of the Net to local advertisers. Obviously, businesses catering to young customers and run by young, tech-savvy owners will be the first to show up in force. Pizza, anyone? Or a café latte?
More metadata
But second, consider GoogleÂ’s AdWords system a subtle mechanism for metadata collection. Right now, you can specify geographic targeting. Someday soon, perhaps, youÂ’ll be able to specify targeting by opening hours, or by language spoken, or by other criteria. For now, that information is used only for targeting rather than displayedÂ…
But just as Google is implicitly if transparently planning to collect huge amounts of e-mail, itÂ’s also beginning to collect metadata about businesses. And it has the market pprsence to make such a collection interesting. For now, the information provided by AdWords advertisers is an interesting database; someday, perhaps it could support a variety of open APIs. (Take a look at SMB meta, courtesy of Dan Bricklin.)
The best analogy, perhaps, is to Wal-Mart’s efforts to get its suppliers to use RF-ID, faltering though they may be. In the long run, suppliers will adopt Wal-Mart’s standards, and other large customers will likely start to use those standards too. Here are some scenarios: Currently, most “commerce” searches are for products and the establishments that sell them. But unless you’re ordering online, those two searches are generally separate. There are few listings for what’s on sale at an individual store. But soon, it could make sense for a store to make limited access to its inventories available online, so that people could know exactly where to buy things.
And, of course, Google could sell anonymous data about those queries to merchants who wanted to stay in stock or pre-order based on what looks hot, or to manufacturers, fashion mavens and so on. .
While right now Google is collecting information through AdWords for targeting, thereÂ’s no reason it couldnÂ’t start using advertiser-entered data for display as well, as it already does with data feeds in Froogle. Some companies may start sending these new kinds of feeds expressly, while others might fill out a slightly more complex , domain-specific form when they advertise. Then hotels could start to compete on the basis of their swimming pool hours. [EDventure]
10:28:33 AM 
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