Last week Google introduced a new feature called Google Places. This was intended to better connect Place Pages — the way that businesses are being found today — with the tool that enables business owners to manage their presence on Google.

To help create a further connection, Google has decided to add local businesses to the street view option. In this option, names of local businesses and other “Google Places” will show up overlayed on top of buildings. As you hover over those names, a small pop-up window shows some of the listing details such as business name, phone number, and ratings.

This is the next step that Google has taken to create a more interactive search environment, that will hopefully be intuitive for its users.
I’m curious to see how this will now counter other search applications, most notably yelp.