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Sep 22, 2010 at 12:10pm ET by Matt McGee
The city of Sunrise, Florida, is back on the map. On Google Maps. It mysteriously vanished more than a month ago, making it impossible to find anything in Sunrise via a Google search. Some local businesses have reported significant declines in online sales. The city’s mayor, after contacting Google and failing to get a call back, sent a letter to CEO Eric Schmidt last week. National and local media picked up the story this week.
And then yesterday, more than a month after the problem was first reported, Sunrise — and all of its businesses, attractions, and places — finally regained its visibility on Google Maps.
Google has apologized to Sunrise Mayor Mike Ryan “for the frustration and difficulty the mistake has caused.” Local business owners are no doubt relieved that the mistake has been fixed, but at least one wonders how long Sunrise would’ve remained gone without the media exposure and pressure from city officials. She’s promising to make sure Google Maps “stays fixed.”
What Happened To Sunrise?
Technically speaking, Sunrise was still “in” Google Maps — it’s just that you couldn’t find it by searching. For all intents and purposes, the city didn’t exist. If you tried any Sunrise-related query, the city and its local businesses were gone: sunrise fl restaurants … florists sunrise florida … or this one, sunrise florida car dealers.
Rather than show search results for Sunrise businesses, in each case Google was showing results in the Sarasota, Florida, area. Sarasota is on the western side of Florida, about 200 miles northwest of Sunrise. And it wasn’t just a business problem; important civic resources were unfindable. Even a search for sunrise florida hospitals pointed users to Sarasota.
Other cities have also vanished from Google Maps. Earlier this year, Google lost La Jolla, California. It’s also lost Rogers, Minnesota, Wickliffe, Ohio, Woodstock, Virginia, and Imperial Beach, California.
This was the third time Sunrise had gone missing; it happened previously in August and October of 2009. But this time, some Sunrise business owners and officials took matters into their own hands.
Sunrise Speaks Up
Sherry Tannozzini, owner of Flowers from the Rainflorist, was the first to speak up. She reported this latest problem to Google on August 17th and was told eight days later by a Google employee that it would take 1-2 months to fix. That prompted Sherry to write a blog post and to tell Sunrise city officials and media outlets what was going on with Google Maps.
The story was picked up this week by the Associated Press (video), the Sun Sentinel newspaper, the local CBS affiliate (with video), and the local NBC station. The story reportedly aired on NPR, and even the BBC was in touch with the Mayor’s office.
The NBC story reported that city officials were considering legal action against Google, but Sunrise Mayor Mike Ryan first sent a letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt demanding a quick fix to his city’s disappearance:
The fact that you have “lost” our City is negatively impacting our businesses. Losing a city such as ours also calls into question the efficacy of your company’s search engine. You need to fix this problem immediately and permanently.
Here’s a PDF of the mayor’s letter to Google.
Impact On Sunrise Businesses
Tannozzini told us earlier this week that her flower shop – which delivers flowers in the Sunrise and Ft. Lauderdale area — was feeling the pain of Sunrise’s disappearance from Google.
Phone sales are down. Web orders are down. General sales from existing customers remain about the same, but new customer sales via phone (who always say, “I’m on your website”) or those that come directly from our website are about 90% down.
Chamber of Commerce officials told local media that they received calls from a couple dozen businesses who were feeling the impact of not being visible on Google.
How Did Sunrise Go Missing?
Google, as you might expect, isn’t sharing specific details about how it lost Sunrise, Florida, or how it lost all those other cities in the past. In a statement to Search Engine Land before the situation was fixed, a Google spokesperson attributed the problem to “inaccuracies” from the various map sources it uses.
Google is committed to providing our users with the richest, most up-to-date maps possible. We’ve built our map from a combination of authoritative sources, ranging from the U.S. Census Bureau to commercial data providers, and have used satellite, aerial and Street View imagery to help complete the map. Overall, this provides a very comprehensive map of the U.S., but we recognize that there may be occasional inaccuracies that could arise from any of those sources. We encourage users to let us know when something is incorrect by using our “Report a Problem” button, found at the bottom right corner of the map.
It was just about a year ago that Google dropped TeleAtlas map data and started using those other sources for Google Maps. And yes, each of the cases of missing cities that are mentioned earlier in this article happened after Google changed its map data source.
Google didn’t specifically answer our requests to learn how a city can disappear from Google Maps and why it takes a month or two to fix. The company did, as mentioned above, apologize already to Sunrise Mayor Mike Ryan for the city’s troubles. Ryan didn’t reply to our e-mails asking for reaction to Sunrise’s reemergence on Google Maps, but we’ll update this article if we hear from him.
Sherry Tannozzini, the Sunrise florist that first reported the problem, told us that she’s “elated” about the problem being fixed, but she’s also frustrated with what she says it took to get Google to take action.
“[It's] shocking that it took less than 12 hours after the AP wire story broke that it was resolved, especially since we have tried to reach someone [at Google] since mid-August who would listen and do something other than the ‘canned’ response. I am going to diligently follow this and see that it stays ‘fixed,’ now that I know how to get the attention of Google.”
A Google spokesperson says there’s no correlation between the media exposure and when the problem was resolved: “I can assure you that our product team was already aware of the technical error and working on a resolution prior to the AP and other media stories.”
(Thanks to Mike Blumenthal for research assistance.)
Flowers From the Rainflorist is located in Sunrise FL and Google maps cannot keep it right.
For the second time, the city of Sunrise has gone missing.
If you were to search for dentists, lawyers or the city manager's office on Google Maps, it would direct you to nearly four hours away, across the state, to Sarasota.
For local businesses that rely on new customers finding them online, this is not good news. Sherry Tannozzini, the owner of Sunrise-based floral shop Flowers from the Rainflorist, said she has taken a hit and is sure other businesses in the area have as well.
"My new customer Web orders is almost at zero," she said. "The revenues are down [because] the people can't find us. They can't find the city mayor, they can't find the police department, they can't find a dentist, a plumber [or] a tire changer."
When Sunrise went missing in October 2009, Tannozzini contacted Google about the problem and blogged about it. It was fixed in three weeks.
This time around, she has contacted them six times in the last month and was told the problem would be fixed in one to two months.
"In two months, I'll be out of business," she said. "It's just beyond my comprehension that the answer to me is, 'We can get it fixed in one to two months.' Not from a company like Google that is so big [and] that basically runs the Internet."
Tannozzini even received a call from a Sarasota florist, who had a customer call asking for roses delivered in Sunrise. When searched under Fort Lauderdale, her store is the sixth one listed and has 38 reviews. But when searching for her store in Sunrise, it doesn't exist.
Other area businesses have been impacted as well. Kitty McGowan, executive director of the Greater Sunrise Chamber of Commerce, said she has personally received up to 20 calls from businesses about the problem.
"And I'm sure that's a small percentage," she said. "I find it to be fairly detrimental to our community."
Mike Blumenthal, a local search consultant, specializes in Google Maps and has worked with the company and Google forums in the past. Tannozzini reached out to him, and he said this is not the first time this has happened.
"Google used to buy the underlying data for their maps," Blumenthal said. "It's a fairly complex thing, developing all the data. They then stopped buying and started assembling it themselves since last year. There have been a number of cases of lost towns."
When Rogers, Minn. went missing, Blumenthal set a clock on his blog, timing Google on how quickly they could bring it back up. Then other cities went missing, including Woodstock, Va., Imperial Beach, Calif. and Wickliffe, Ohio. Unfortunately, there is no live person to take care of the problem, so people calling in get the runaround.
McGowan said that the chamber has reached out to Google numerous times to no avail. The first time staff members noticed it was in early 2009 when they were rebuilding the Chamber's website.
"It's just more frustration. We're building websites, we're doing what we can do, yet [Web traffic is] being driven in the other direction."
Some local businesses that don't have the knowledge or help from an information technology team might not be aware that they are losing business because of the glitch. Tannozzini said that while she is not an expert with computers and the Internet, her business team includes people who understand websites and the gravity of the situation.
"It's a huge impact. Right now Google is the primary way that local buyers are finding local businesses," Blumenthal said. "A lot of businesses have no clue where their clients are coming from, and I would venture to guess that a large percentage of them are coming from Google and they don't know it."
News Media
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Super Bowl Bid Gets Florist in Competition Condition
Wednesday, 06 January 2010
Even though the playoffs have yet to start, Sher Tannozzini already knows which team she’s rooting for in this year’s Super Bowl — and she’s certain they’ve been practicing hard to score and win fans in Miami.
How is this florist so sure? Well, she’s the head coach of the team at Flowers from the Rainflorist, her Ft. Lauderdale shop that’s vying to win business when the big game comes to her home territory Feb. 7. She’s been conditioning her staff for almost a year, as the detailed procurement process started in early 2009. The South Florida Super Bowl Host Committee, which works with the NFL, awarded its first round of contracts in April.
Flowers from the Rainflorist didn’t pull in the first contract it vied for (for floral centerpieces), but is still in the running for a couple of big party gigs and is still picking up publicity, like this story on CNN.com and related business for other vendors and football fans.
Although Tannozzini says her sports mania is limited to her granddaughter’s softball games, she’s pumped about her proximity to the sidelines and sees the hoop jumping of the procurement process completely worth it. (In South Florida, interested firms had to complete a four-page application detailing services offered, insurance policies and bonding situation. Businesses also had to get a certified as a woman-owned or minority company.) The reward: a listing in the NFL’s official Resource Guide of businesses. Flowers from the Rainflorist and Eden Florist & Gift Baskets in Davie, are the only two flower shops listed.
"The NFL opens doors very wide for me, and even if I don't win any contracts, it's worth it," she told CNN. Participating in the bid process has introduced her to businesses in related fields, like limousine rental and party planning firms and to NFL officials, who’ve placed personal orders with the shop. Before the Feb. 7 game, she’ll be doing a wedding for a retired NFL player, who found the shop through its involvement with the Super Bowl, and some corporate work for a national insurance company that saw the shop mentioned in an NFL blog.
The too-many-coaches-in-the-huddle-type of decision-making that comes with working with so many vendors and committees can make a “wedding for 350 feel like a walk in the park,” Tannozzini said. “But I‘ve enjoyed it immensely, learned plenty about the competitive process and made our shop prominent to folks that might not have known who we are.”
Ready to warm up for next season? The North Texas Super Bowl Host Committee has already begun holding small business training workshops for 2011 bids. |
Super Bowl Vendor - Flowers from the Rainflorist
January 5th, 2010
Each host committee has its own twist on the procurement process. In South Florida, interested firms were asked to complete a four-page application detailing what services they offer and delving into gritty details like their insurance and bonding situation. Businesses also had to get a certified as a woman-owned or minority company. The prize for jumping through those hoops is a listing in the South Florida organizing committee's Business Resource Guide, which can translate to big business for a small company. This year, more than 540 companies made it into the guide.
Florist Sher Tannozzini, who runs Fort Lauderdale-based Flowers From The Rainflorist, is among those bidding for a piece of this season's showdown. Two months before the game, a handful of contracts are still being decided. Tannozzini already lost out on one subcontracting project she went after -- providing floral centerpieces -- but remains in the running for two more.
"The NFL opens doors very wide for me, and even if I don't win any contracts, it's worth it," she says. Simply participating in the bid process has introduced her to businesses in related fields, like limousine rental and party planning firms. Those contacts have generated new, non-NFL business for her flower shop.
Tannozzini says she was a bit naïve in "thinking that joining the program suddenly I would have people beating down my door for Super Bowl contracts. That's not the reality -- it's much more competitive than that."
Tisha Ford, the NFL's special events business development manager, says that working with local businesses brings a community vibe to the Super Bowl.
"This is a traveling event, and each region is unique and has its own nuances," she says. "Getting to know a particular local community helps us tap into tremendous resources." |
March 4th 2009
 Flowers From The Rainflorist Announces Promotion of Shannon Renna and Jeff Barrett to Account Managers
PR Web (press release), WA
Founded in 1992, Flowers from The RainFlorist has earned a reputation locally and in the Floral Industry of being a real flower shop with cutting edge designs and unique programs like their Concierge Service, Reuse/Recycle program and their Community...
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 January 15th 2009 (Industry Headlines/Industry Headlines)
Delivery Vans Double as Recyclable Collectors
If people around Ft. Lauderdale see Flowers from the Rainflorist's delivery vans and think "trash," that's fine with owner Sherry Tannozzini. As long as the trash that comes to mind is the kind that can be recycled. Tannozzini is using her three delivery vehicles to pick up old vases and containers, ink cartridges, old cell phones and, in January, Christmas trees.
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If people around Ft. Lauderdale see Flowers from the Rainflorist's delivery vans and think "trash," that's fine with owner Sherry Tannozzini. As long as the trash that comes to mind is the k … |
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January 7, 2009|story
Holiday fun with Alliance for Families with Deaf Children From Society Scene ,A marketing publication of the Sun-Sentinel Company
...silent auction items donated by the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, the Hard Rock Café, baskets by Flowers from the Rainflorist, Premier Beverage Company, Harmony Massage, Susie Scrumptious Cakes, J. Alexander's, Holistic Therapy Solutions and...
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December 30th 2008
Flowers From The RainFlorist, A South Florida Florist, Offers New Concierge Service.
PR: Florist in South Florida is providing one-of-a-kind personalized concierge service to their customers. Requests started out slowly but now it is our most ...
www.prweb.com/releases/Rainflorist/concierge/prweb1796924.htm |
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TOP STORY: September 25, 2008 (Menu) |
...ke On Tough Times "I have worked my pencil down to the nub," Sherilyn Tannozzini of Flowers From The Rainflorist, Sunrise, Fla., said after exhausting her old-school communications tool to w … |
25 September, 2008 |
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