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"Google VP Marissa Mayer laid out the company's vision and strategy for winning in local and social in a keynote Thursday at the Social-Loco conference in San Francisco.\nGoogle's location strategy is focused on three areas: exploration and discovery, interactivity, and new perspectives.  By making it easier to discover new places, interact with them and glean new information from that interactivity, Mayer says she hopes to take location services to the next level.\nGoogle's location-based services are growing fast too. Google Places now has 5 million user ratings and reviews, and it adds 1 million ratings and reviews each month, Mayer said.\nMobile, and its relationship with location-based services, is becoming a larger part of Google's overall strategy.  Mayer said that Google Maps has been quickly evolving from its desktop roots into a mobile-focused experience.  In fact, during weekends, Google Maps via mobile receives more traffic than the desktop.\nMayer also announced new products that she said exemplify Google's core strategy of bringing interactivity, discovery and new perspective to local: Google Business Photos for Maps and Google Earth for Android tablets.  \nGoogle's Reorganization &amp; Mayer's Role\nDuring a Q&amp;A, Federated Media's John Battelle asked Mayer about Google's recent reorganization.  He asked her what's changed now that Larry Page is CEO and what it's like now that \"there is a new sheriff in town.\"\nNot all that much, she said, especially in terms of building products.  \"I think Larry's very focused on technology and products, and [Page as CEO] brings them to the forefront,\" she said.  \nBattelle also asked about her role after the reorganization \u2014 essentially, was Mayer demoted in favor of Jeff Huber, the new SVP of local and commerce?  Once again she said her role hasn't really changed, though she dodged the question of whether she's been demoted or lost some of her power.\nGoogle Offers \"Does Not Exist\"\nMayer played coy during a discussion of Google Offers.  She said Google's Groupon competitor \"does not exist,\" but elaborated by saying that Google is looking at the offers space, talking with businesses and trying to figure out what approach it should take in the group buying space.  \nBattelle compared the exploratory process to being in pre-production for a film.\nHow Google Will Compete With Facebook\n\"What is Google's social strategy?\" Battelle asked Mayer. It's a question that has plagued the company since Facebook's dramatic rise.  In fact, the answer to that question is so important to Google that bonuses will be determined by social media success.  \n\"Our social strategy is to help users connect with each other,\" Mayer responded, elaborating on how it already connects people through Gmail and Google Profiles but is also testing new social products such as +1."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2011/05/05/marissa-mayer-loco/>