If you become a Google Business Referral Representative you can make up to $10 per verified business referral. Essentially go on vacation, take a trip, or just cruse around your town. The process seems pretty simple: take pictures, write down as much info about the business as you can including contact info, hours of operation, or other essential bits and pieces, talk to a business owner about Google's Adwords and Maps services, and then submit it to Google and hope the business replies to a Google verification request.

According to Google:
"You can earn up to $10 for each approved, verified referral you submit. This includes $2 when a business referral is approved by Google; and $8 when an approved business verifies that the information you submitted is accurate. Referrals are approved by Google based on the completeness and quality of data supplied by representatives. Businesses verify their information either by sending us a response postcard or verifying their information online.

As long as your earnings total at least $25 a month, you'll receive a monthly check."

I imagine that many larger cities will be canvassed pretty thoroughly, quickly, and by multiple contractors. It will be interesting to see how it works out with multiple contractors, who gets paid? Also how will businesses react if they are hit a few times by multiple contractors? I also wonder if there will be any Google Maps stickers that Google will be mailing to participating businesses? If so, it could get annoying ala "Willamette Week Pick" stickers found on just about every eatery in Portland or a great way to generate interest and have companies "Google" a participating businesses. (If you are an SEO or web marketer trying to get business to participate in this Google program, this might also prove a good way to gain leads your business at the same time. After all, who wants to be "Googled" and found in the map section of Google but not in the organic or paid search results as well?)

Google asks that you submit a few pictures, and if there are multiple contractors initally hitting some of the same places this will probably benefit Google. The varying quality, times of day/night, and with and with out innocent bystanders in the background will give Google more options should some one complain about being caught unawares. I imagine that Google could eventually mix the business information and photos in with their local search results in a more obvious way like their movie search. And at the least, it could help to beef up Google's existing local search service for many small towns and cities that probably won't be hit by their Streetview fleet. It will be interesting to see how this pans out, what impact will it have on search results, will they run into some type of map spamming issues, and between this and their Local Business Center program will other engines start up similar programs?

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