Broland - Profile

Definitely a smart business move on Googles part (not saying I like it), but they are forcing people onto their social network. It makes fake google reviews harder as you now have to have a G+ profile to post a review. It will also make getting customers to post legit reviews much harder as signing up on G+ is more of a hassle. Google is continually going more and more local and social and there will be lots more to come. If you want to have your maps listing on local search results you have to participate in Googles social network, and big businesses with budgets will definitely be doing this. Social activity on accounts will likely become much more of a factor, with +1's on photos, user uploaded photos, photo comments, etc. Pretty soon the google places and G+ business pages will be merged and old places listings will be controlled from G+ - very much like a facebook place page, with the option for more detailed descriptions and more photos.

If you have any specific questions about the changes or local search on Google, fire away or drop me a note.