Google's Favorite Places provides a window of opportunity for local businesses

Google continues to provide increasingly relevant local search information through their new feature Favorite Places.

As part of this new feature over 100,000 local businesses throughout the US will be receiving a sticker they can place in their window that states “We're a Favorite place on Google,” along with a unique bar code that window shoppers can scan with their mobile devices, like the iPhone or Blackberry, which will immediately take them to that business's Places Page, which is part of the Google's Local Business Center.

Window shoppers will be able to read reviews, find information about the business, or simply mark it as a point of interest through their mobile device immediately after scanning the bar code. Businesses can even offer coupons through their Places Page. Favorite Places is likely to increase the amount of information that is shared by consumers about local businesses when they see how their opinion can help others make informed decisions.

Businesses are determined to be a Favorite Place if they receive a high amount of searches through Google maps and Google.com, and have high activity on their places page—through customer comments and reviews. Local business will need to increase their online presence as well of their use of Google's Local Business Center to achieve the prestige of being one of Google's Favorite Places.

With Google's purchase of AdMob and the increasing emphasis of making the Internet more accessible through mobile devices, Google's Favorite Places could be just another step towards the future of the Internet.

Mobile devices will need a camera and an application to read the QR code on the decal. Google suggest searching for “QR reader” in your devices application marketplace.