14 DAY TRIAL // Google tries to make its search engine more and more powerful because many companies already announced that they are looking to develop new products meant to challenge Google's services. One of the best ideas promoted by the search giant is that its employees can add new features to their services by creating powerful compatibilities between two or even more solutions. This is the main reason for the Gtalk implementation in Gmail, Google Books in Maps and many other examples.
As you probably know, the most important solution designed by the company is represented by the search engine, Google trying to develop new ideas based on this technology. The search giant tried to expand the power of the search engine into the offline area several times, interesting projects like Google Desktop and Picasa resulting from this attempt.
Because the search engine is very important for both users and company, Google implemented a lot of new functions that are meant to allow customers to use all the features provided by its employees directly from the official website. That's why you're now able to search for jobs, blogs, videos and even information posted on Wikipedia.
Today, Ronojoy Chakrabarti, Product Manager at Google, posted a message on the official blog to announce that you can compare local businesses and services directly from Google's result page, the search engine returning you a detailed map with a specific location.
"From now on, you'll see this every time you search for a place, business, or other local information. In addition to providing the basic contact information and map locations for several choices at the top of the page, we also show ratings and provide one-click access to reviews on the search results page so that you can make more informed decisions about where you want to go.
Here are a few specific examples of how you can use Google to search and compare local businesses and services: find the location of and driving directions to the Googleplex (or any specific address); find and compare Mexican restaurants in Pasadena, CA; get directions to and read reviews about a local eatery in Pittsburgh; find movie showtimes for films that are playing in your neighborhood," he said.