Google's 411 and Real Estate in Maps Provides Perils and Opportunity

As Google contemplates participation in the FCC auction for wireless spectrum and I'm enjoying my GrandCentral account, I am reminded that the company can be in pretty much any business it wants to.  For example, my wife is a realtor and I recently noticed Google simply added real estate listings to things you can see at Google Maps in a given area.  The MLS is one of the largest perceived advantages the professional real estate market has, even though I know they have a lot more to offer (how's that, honey?).  Smart realtors will figure out how to be easily noticed by Google's real estate efforts as it looks like they're scraping info from various sites rather than some big database or MLS.  You know they'll only get better at the algorithms for getting home listing info. 

A quick look at Google's Labs page might provide a little insight for where this giant is headed next.  Now you can avoid those pesky 411 charges by calling their new Labs product, Google Voice Local Search.  So I tried it, looking up Joe's Pizza and Pasta down the street from me.  Not only did it return the correct number but also gave me the option to text it to my cell phone I was calling them on.  I suppose that was my natural search result that got me what I was looking for, but one can certainly assume AdWords could weave their way into that service.  A result such as "I can give you the information for Joe's Pizza and Pasta, but wouldn't you rather have a Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza delivered right to your door from Dominos?" isn't too far out of considered possibilities.