Update (via Bill): Official word from Google Lat/Lon Blog.


From Search Engine Land:

Yesterday Google told us that users will now be able to edit any of the details about a business or location or add new businesses even if they're not the business owner. The capability doesn't appear to be live yet however.

Greg Sterling asked about malicious intent (you have to register, so Google will know if you did something bad, ideally) and changes to search results. He also notes, with no supporting figures: "Google has had enormous success, for example, with its My Maps product on a global basis since it was introduced in April, 2007." I'm curious about that since I've not heard anything from anyone on its usage.

CNN Money reports that both pending acquisitions of Tele Atlas and NAVTEQ have "lost their bearings." NAVTEQ's stock is trading almost $10 below the $78 per share offer from Nokia.

Yesterday was the deadline for TomTom to respond to EU questions about the acquisition. What did the EU ask?

Whether:

(1) TomTom and Tele Atlas would keep sensitive information from rival GPS customers confidential,
(2) Tele Atlas would provide TomTom competitors inferior maps,
(3) the combination created efficiencies otherwise unattainable.

The article goes on to note that what happens with TomTom/TA will likely impact Nokia/NAVTEQ and that the drop in stock prices suggests Wall Street is wary.

LightPole is another company offering a solution to do the work of taking your Web app and making it available with geo-context, on a cell phone. It's akin on first look to uLocate's WHERE platform in my mind, but the Industry Standard says it competes with: "Where, ULocate, Google Maps and Yahoo Local, which is also one of the partners. In the future, services such as Yahoo’s Fire Eagle and Google’s Android phones are to compete in the same space." I don't think Fire Eagle or Android are competitors, as far as I understand them.

How does it work? From the Industry Standard:

The software is a kind of translation service. LightPole’s customers put a Java-based widget on a web site. Users click on the widget, which looks like a mobile phone, so that they can load a mobile version of that site’s services onto a cell phone. Users type in their phone numbers, enter confirmation codes, download the application.

LightPole is announcing a bunch of partners today, including Yelp, Hotspotr, Mappy Hour, Yahoo Local, Zvents, The Bathroom Diaries, Gables and Fables, and Platial Mobile Map.

More good news for LightPole: $1.7 million first round of capital from Alloy Ventures and Stanford University was announced today.

A while back I asked: What's most likely to sway you to push to attend a geo conference? We had 39 respondents. Bottom line: geography matters.

Location close by 34%
Must see program 16%
Reputation of event 13%
Availability of training 11%
Low cost 11%
Rec. of respected 8%
Something else 6%
Location that's exciting 3%

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