Google Places and Your Smartphone’s Camera

When you think you've seen it all when it comes to technology,

Google has come out with yet another nifty tool to help consumers find local businesses. A few months back, Google changed their local business searches from Google Local to Google Places. They are making local searches a piece of cake. When searching for a painting contractor, for example, a consumer just types in "Painting San Diego, CA" and Google Places gives a visitor 6-8 possible choices of local painters. Now, Google went the extra mile and made mobile searches faster and easier. All you need is a smartphone or a camera with a "QR" reader built in. Don't ask me what a QR reader is: google it Anyways, one takes their cellphone and takes a picture of the QR code (see Chism Brother's sample above) and the software takes a person to Google Places to research that specific company or write a review of your experience. I tried using it on my iPhone and it works great. I snapped a picture of the bar code looking image and was directed to the Chism Brothers's Google page in seconds.

This can be a very helpful tool if local businesses starting using it. RIght now it is so new that only the real hip companies will display their QR codes. Typically, you'll find them towards the entrance of a local business. So be on the look out for a weird looking code on some's place of business and scan away!