December 21, 2010 04:16
Last month, Google launched its
social recommendation site Hotpot.
The new site is designed to compete with
Yelp and others for the lucrative location-based recommendation and advertising
platform market. The new service is based on data from Google
Places, and offers a unique user-friendly interface and recommendation engine.
“Every day millions of people search on Google.com to find
local businesses, and we want to make it seamless for standout businesses to
get discovered online” says, Bernardo Hernandez, Google’s Director of Emerging
Marketing.
With the above aim in mind Google this week started market testing Hotpot at Portland,
Oregon. The city of Portland was selected because of its thriving business community, forward
thinking entrepreneurs and a strong “trailblazing” heritage.
As part of the experiment Google providing participants with
special Google Places Business Kits. According
to the company blog
these kits “are a multi-flavored sampler of marketing materials that can help
businesses get even more exposure, get them rated and reviewed online, and get
more customers through their door”. The
kit includes a bright red “Recommended on Google” window sticker (image below),
a sticker which incorporates the latest in Near Field Communications
(NFC) technology, allowing Smartphone users to interact and find more
information about the business by simply touching their phones to the sticker!
The program also
includes special offers and competitions around
Hotpot to encourage Portlanders to start rating the places.
Let’s see if Hotpot
can compete on equal footing with Yelp,
and can fend off Facebook, which is also
developing its
own location-based recommendation feature.
