Keep the submissions coming!

Whew! It's been a whirlwind of activity here at Bobafind! Google or Yahoo must have done some re-ranking because I am seeing a lot of new traffic today! I am getting a lot of email submissions and am trying to get them all entered in as fast as I can. Please keep sending them in; all I ask is that you check the site first to see if it's already listed. I'm also working up some new features and will have more information very soon. 

Bobafind.com - we're not dead yet!

Approved a HUGE backlog of locations - more coming

Last night I spent about 4 hours approving a huge backlog of new locations. Unfortunately, since the forums were hacked and I have not had time to try and fix them, the submission form that made things so easy for me in the past is gone. Continue using the listings@bobafind.com address for new locations or updates to existing ones. Only drawback is that I have to hand-enter each location... Oh well. 

There were a lot of new zip codes that previously did not have a shop, and even one from Istanbul, Turkey! I may be able to start an international section and start listing some of the locations people are sending me from outside the US. Post a comment if this is something you think would be useful. 

41 locations added, broken zip codes fixed!

As you can see by the last post before this one, I haven't done many updates to the site in QUITE some time. I have made small improvements here and there, but nothing major. Today however, I am proud to announce that all submissions as of this evening have been approved or deleted (if they were duplicates or not valid). I am also very please to announce that formerly "broken" zip codes starting with zero now work correctly! So for all of you in New Jersey (I'm sure there's lots) and elsewhere that uses zip codes starting with zero, you now are included in the fun! My sincere apologies for not being able to fix that sooner. If you have any comments or questions, feel free to send them my way!

Joel

Google enhances Mobile.Google.com with Local search

Google recently enhanced Google Mobile with Local Search, adding similar functionality to local.google.com to their mobile application. What does this mean for vertical search? I can say for a fact (this moment, not the future) that community-based and individual efforts usually outweigh Google's attempts at seeking out local points of interest. The one thing Google has going for it (good or bad) is that it scrapes those community-based or individual sites and includes the information there in it's local results.

When is Google going to give some real love to all the sites that create the content it uses to provide such accurate results? In my case, Bobafind.com consists of hundreds of listings for Bubble Tea cafes, a rather obscure search. My site visitors have submitted many, and any time I come across a new location, I add it to my database. Along comes GoogleBot and BAM! all of my hard won locations are now part of Google Local! Do I get anything in return? Well, sort of. A non-rank-increasing link from Google. I guess it could be worse. Anyone got any ideas to get a few bucks out of this?

Goole pokes fun at Auto-Link with Google Gulp

In their typical style, Google has published yet another April Fool's joke.

Google Gulp claims to be "a line of "smart drinks" designed to maximize your surfing efficiency by making you more intelligent, and less thirsty." You never know. Everyone thought Gmail was a joke, too.

Guns sold to terror suspects, denied to illegal immigrants.

In 2004, dozens of U.S. terror suspects on F.B.I. watch lists were allowed to purchase firearms.

Gmail sending out invites to "interested" people

I received a message from Gmail in my inbox today, thanking me for my interest in Gmail and inviting me to sign up. I've had a Gmail account for over 8 months now, but when Gmail was first opened to beta users, I signed up to be notified if any "openings" were available. Here's the message I received today:

Hi there,

Thanks for signing up to be updated on the latest Gmail happenings. We hope it's been worth the wait, because we're excited to finally offer you an invitation to open a free Gmail account! Just click on this link to create your new account:

LINK REMOVED

Since last April, we've been working hard to create the best email service possible. It already comes with 1,000 megabytes of free storage, powerful Google search technology to find any message you want instantly, and a new way of organizing email that saves you time and helps you make sense of all the information in your inbox.

And here are just some of the things that we've added in the last few months:

- Free POP access: Take your messages with you. Download them, read them offline, access them using Outlook, your Blackberry or any other device that supports POP

- Gmail Notifier: Get new mail notifications and see the messages and their senders without having to open a browser

- Better contacts management: Import your contacts from Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, Outlook, and others to Gmail in just a few clicks. Add phone numbers, notes and more. Even use search to keep better track of it all.

We also wanted to thank you. For showing us your support and for being so patient. And to those who have already signed up for Gmail, thank you for giving it a try and for helping us make it better. Our users are what have made this product great. So whether you're just signing up for your account or you've been with us since the beginning, keep letting us know how we can build you the best email service around.

That's it for now. We hope you like Gmail and will share it with your friends. We've got lots of cool new stuff planned and we can't wait for you to see our work in your Gmail accounts! Stay tuned...

Thanks,
The Gmail Team

I had already forgotten that I had signed up. When I saw "The Gmail Team" in the From: line, I thought it was some new feature. Oh well.

Google Suggest [BETA]

I came upon Google Suggest today. A co-worker showed me the site. I was amazed because I usually keep up on the latest Google developments. It allows you to type in a query and it suggests alternate queries and shows you the number of results for each query IN REAL TIME!