As picked up on and explained well by Greg Sterling, Google is building out yet another dimension of it’s local content gathering juggernaut with a new “Business Referral Representative” program. Original story: gSpy.

This continues the reinforcement of how Google Maps is being positioned to be a rich gathering place for local content. A combination of content strategies are in play - traffic-for-content distribution deals as well as original content collection. The aggregation of content around places - locations, businesses, addresses - is forming in a systematic march.

Take a look at what Google will now pay to collect via this new collector network…

…you’ll visit local businesses to collect information (such as hours of operation, types of payment accepted, etc.) for Google Maps, and tell them about Google Maps and Google AdWords. You’ll also take a few digital photos of the business that will appear on the Google Maps listing along with the business information.

This raises some interesting questions - why do this when there are 3-4 viable licensed listing suppliers in the US who would trip over themselves to give Google their “enhanced listing file” for a fraction of that price per advertiser? Alternatively, couldn’t Google do what these people did for a fraction of this cost by shipping books offshore and key-entering their content?

it’s not about the flat file…

While this is basic listing stuff, there are two key aspects not found in the ecosystem of YP data vendors. One, this network will be collecting digital photos. As I’ve said in prior posts, the photos inside the business are the important relevant digital media (not street pics). Secondly, “tell them about Google Maps and Adwords” is central to this proposition. It’s not (just) about the file, folks.

It will be interesting to see how (well) this model works - college kids (the obvious collection network target) can work - they certainly can be effective at showing cool technology and are adept at digital cameras. I can’t help but smirk over the prospects of the local dentist captured with that forlorn look of MySpace poser pics ;)

Also interesting is the payment scheme, It’s a $10 rate per business - but, note, it’s $2 for the content and $8 AFTER the business has verified the accuracy. Read: after we have established a real contact connection with the potential advertiser.

This currently appears to only be a US program, fyi. For those of you out there who claim to “own the channel”, think about this. Smart college kids eagerly showing your local advertisers all about the chance to get featured in a prominent spot on Google Maps, for free.

It’s happening people. This is the groundswell stage of content collection and aggregation. Beware of falling into the trap of a “tidy path” to content investment via the gradual progression of SEM click ad services to large advertisers. It just ain’t that simple, if your commitment is to win on scale.

Posted by Perry on Monday, August 6th, 2007 at 8:12 pm.