AUTHOR: Russell TITLE: Everywhere and Nowhere DATE: 11:38 AM ----- BODY:
An impressive piece of detective work by blogger Mike Blumenthal details the existence of something called "mapspam." Mapspam is the practice of businesses misrepresenting their physical locations to artificially improve their search engine results rankings.

At first glance, mapspam looks like just one more example of the "one step forward, one step back" evolution of the web, where every new advance is quickly undone by spammers and those trying to game the system. But hold on a minute. Is this really new? And more importantly, is this really wrong?

The example used in the blog article was of a suburban florist listing itself in such a way that it appeared to be in the center of a large city nearby. The technique, creating a false address, was certainly sleazy, but again, does it matter?

Florists have several elaborate national networks that allow them to accept orders for prompt delivery anywhere in the country. The customer doesn't know who fulfilled the order at the distant end, and the customer doesn't care. What matters is that the specified goods were delivered in the specified timeframe to the specified recipient.

Further, the old-timers among us will recall the acronym "RCF" for Remote Call Forwarding, a well- established and entirely legitimate service long offered by the phone companies to allow companies to give the appearance of having a local presence in distant markets. For decades, this has been viewed as smart business, not deceptive business.

What seems most important is not the actual physical location of the retailer, but whether or not they can deliver on the promises they make to their customers. The florist business can do this. Auto body shops and pizza parlors can't, but there's no advantage to them misrepresenting themselves. A Los Angeles pizza parlor taking orders for delivery in New York City won't last very long.

What is simultaneously intriguing, ironic and problematic is that as increasing resources are being put against identifying, locating and classifying local businesses, growing numbers of these businesses are seeing that they can build national markets, and because of this they start to view their physical locations as more of a hindrance than an advantage. This phenomenon is no less true of larger companies that are rapidly becoming so diffuse that they actively avoid designating any physical location as their headquarters. And many web-based companies want only email or toll-free number contact, allowing them to never disclose even a hint of their physical location, if indeed they have one.

The bottom line issue for data publishers is to recognize that we are largely working with databases and tools based on business practices and norms that are rapidly evolving. There's no easy answer to mapspam or any of the related issues involving physical location. But those who will prosper will be those who reflect how business does business, rather than trying to dictate it.

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----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:Blogger Cathy R DATE:9/9/07 4:48 PM Russell -

With all dues respect, there's a significant difference in the bloom for the buck delivered when ordered direct through a local florist vs going though an 'online only' company reliant on wire service fulfillment. Watch this piece from last Saturday's NBC Today Show http://video.msn.com/v/us/v.htm??g=960c559b-71df-4284-8456-339e1e951a84&f=34&fg=rss& and notice the stark contrast in volume and quality between the two flower test orders placed. Their results are typical.

Another issue is that affiliate marketers don't know the precise inventory or prices of local flower shops. (Each florist wire service member is an independent retailer and sets his/her own prices for flowers and delivery.) So the affiliate marketers show pictures, display prices and then often rely on substitution clauses when what's shown isn't what's delivered.

Most 'online only' companies (including FTD and 1-800-Flowers)also charge service fees (averaging $13-$15) above the cost of the flowers and local delivery.

Lastly, 'online only' florists have little clue if and when the flowers will be delivered. Try calling one of those companies during Valentine's Day or Mother's Day to see where your florist-delivered flowers are. Good luck.

The wire services were created to a helpful tool to send flowers to distant locations, well before the Internet age. (The 'T' in FTD originally stood for telegraph). Now they're a relic - especially when consumers can easily find quality local merchants via the web and speak with or order online directly from them.

That is...unless the local search sites like Yahoo Local get overrun with 'virtual florists' pretending to be places they're not. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:Blogger mblumenthal DATE:9/10/07 11:55 AM While I would agree that there are national businesses with local marketing needs....but it is critical for all industry segments that google & yahoo need to address them in an open and tranasparent way for consumers and owners to be confident of the data set.

Consumers need to know what they are buying and businesses need to know that they don't have to stoop to deception to be able to compete.

I addressed this issue as far as Google goes in this article at Search EngineLand- http://searchengineland.com/070823-072609.php

Without integrity in the data set and customer & business owner confidence, the future potential Local will be wasted long before it is ever achieved.

Mike Blumenthal ----- --------