BusinessWeek on Skyhook Partnering with Search Companies

The tale of a car wash underscores the need for location company Skyhook to partner with search engine firms to deliver ads to those within a few blocks of businesses. The owner makes it clear that his customers are within 5 miles of his business and they don’t make reservations. Therefore, he’s looking to tap into hyper-local advertising.

Murphy says he could target more of the impulse purchasers—real estate agents and other “wired” professionals—who may not live in his area but are there for business with time to kill between appointments.

The future?

To bring more of the multibillion-dollar small-business advertising market online, Skyhook is working on relationships with Yahoo and Google, and the improved local search made possible through its technology will start to be available to small business over the next 6 to 12 months, says Ted Morgan, the company’s founder and chief executive.

- BusinessWeek

RFID Comes to Japan’s Ginza

The Ginza is the big shopping district in Tokyo. Beginning in January, RFID chips posted around the area will guide those with prototype readers to train stations and share information about stores and the like. The Tokyo Ubiquitous Network Project is supported by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MILT) and isn’t the only RFID trial in the country. Another trial embeds chips in pavement to be read by the canes of the visually impaired.

- PC Advisor

Next Up for Google: The Enterprise

This isn’t really news, but there’s a nice rundown of which consumer “toys” the company may bring to the enterprise in this interview with Dave Girouard, vice president and general manager of Google’s enterprise division at Internet News. On mapping, it’s a Gartner analyst that speaks:

Gartner analyst Whit Andrews said that Google is putting a lot of emphasis on geospatial services for enterprise. “They see a lot of power being available in that product line,” he told internetnews.com.

Mashups with Google Maps is just one example of how Google consumer applications have the potential to drive significant enterprise dollars. Google has even signed service level agreements for enterprise contracts for Google Maps and Google Earth, he said.