On Rotisserie Chicken and Flavored Search

The New York Times featured America's growing passion for roast chicken: Zankou's garlic-flecked Armenian chicken in Los Angeles; Chicago's famous Brasa Roja's chickens with con más salsa verde, and in Dallas, Cowboy Chicken uses leftovers from its hickory wood-roasted chickens for delicious Tex-Mex enchiladas.

For Google to grok 'Roast Chicken' in all of its delicious fullness, there are few purely online game plans. Instead, Google would need to survey receipt data from restaurants and grocery stores across the country.

Just as "roast chicken" means different things in different places, so too do definitions of luxury. Haute couture - and all that comes with it - means something different on Michigan Avenue in Chicago than in Oklahoma City. Shopping centers, their retailers and associated brands are useful proxies for "thin slicing" what luxury means in various locales. (see the book Blink for more on 'thin slicing')

As Google, MSN and others press forward with their local search plans, such proxies are going to be increasingly useful data sources, helping to ensure search quality.