Point 82: Marketing Tech News Roundup 8/23-8/27

Cross the GOOG, and they’ll drop you like a bad habit. Yelp found this out the hard way, and it made us think the same way John Battelle did, is Google objective?

Not that it matters of course, because as a publicly-held company, they don’t have to answer to the everyday Google user.  However, it’d be nice if they would from time to time. Unfortunately, the everyday Google user is too busy calling their co-workers from Gmail to care. But more on that below.

In our latest marketing technology news roundup, we also go deeper into the Google-Yelp battle, discuss the Philadelphia blog tax and why your ad budget won’t go very far on Conan.

Here are our picks for the week:

Google Maps Updates Review Policy & Drops Yelp Reviews

Feel free to click on the above article for background, but Google released a statement on the issue as to why you won’t see Yelp in Google Places:

Regarding the presentation of Yelp review snippets, neither of us was happy with the data as it appeared, so we reclassified results from Yelp while we reviewed our options.  This means that, for the time being, Yelp pages may not appear as review snippets in Place page results, though relevant results from Yelp will continue appear in the “more about this place” section, which shows  pages about a given location. We are working with Yelp to more intelligently crawl and present results from their site.

Sure you are, Google. Sure you are.

Google calling from Gmail

Just when we thought they couldn’t do anything dumber, Google goes and does something… and totally redeem themselves! Gmail unveiled their call-from-your-inbox feature this week as their assault on telecoms continues. It’s free in the US (for now), so get it in while you can. We hope we’re not the only ones that call our co-workers with this. Hourly.

That proposed Philadelphia blog tax? Not so much.

The gist: If you live in the city proper, and  your blog places ads on your site – and someone actually clicks – you need to pay taxes on the first $100K and obtain a business-privilege license, at a cost of $50 a year or $300 for a lifetime.

Here’s our take: Not in Cleveland: Philadelphia blog tax

Conan is Expensive.

If you thought you could advertise on Conan O’Brien’s new show on TBS, and get a great deal, you are mistaken. Apparently, the cost for a spot on Conan is “in the same ballpark” as on Jay Leno’s late night show. Which is interesting, because we weren’t aware Jay Leno was still on the air.

We’re not Digging new redesign

Digg unveiled their new design this week, and as with any social media site change, everyone hated it. We’re not surprised though, they’ve only been testing this for a year. Oh, and the error messages. We could do without those.

Well, you did it, the finish line is in sight. Join us next week when we attempt to discuss companies not trying to take over the world.