Mobile/local/social is the web's sweet spot right now. And Google's Marissa Mayer is in the middle of it.
Credit: Asa Mathat
We told you how Mayer engineered the acquisition of Zagat. That could turn out to be a very smart deal if Google gets us searching and sharing and mapping our ways to restaurants even more than we do today.
At the Fortune Most Powerful Women dinner in Silicon Valley last week, Mayer explained her strategy at Google (GOOG), where she heads local efforts including maps. She also told us about three of her favorite mobile apps:
Google Maps 6.0: This app takes Google Maps indoors. In a Best Buy (BBY), for instance, you can make your way from tablets to TVs by viewing the floor plan and following that little blue dot that indicates your location. The app, launched last week for Android phones exclusively, also works in Home Depot (HD), IKEA, select Macy's (M) and Bloomingdale's, and some airports such as O'Hare, Hartsfield, and SFO. Could Disney (DIS) theme parks be next? Mayer wouldn't tell us.
Layar: This browser provides "augmented reality" experiences. Combining a camera and GPS and accelerometer, it will display photographically where you are and also what's down the road. Just as a cursor marks your position on a document, Layar transforms your phone into "a cursor for the world," Mayer says.
LikeALittle: This app aggregates online profiles and maps them to help you find nearby people who have common interests. The LikeALittle states the purpose more specifically: "We like to think of the site as a flirting-facilitator platform (FFP for short), a way for you to anonymously compliment and chat about potential crushes around you." Well, Mayer wouldn't call this a flirtation, but she learned via LikeALittle that LinkedIn (LNKD) cofounder Reid Hoffman, whom she has known for years, majored in symbolic systems at Stanford, as she did. Here's more app talk from Mayer:
Photo Credit: Asa Mathat
Marissa Mayer has been a pioneer in the unofficial "Geek is Chic" movement. Google's (GOOG) first female engineer, who is now the company's VP in charge of all things local, has appeared in Vogue, rocked the cover of Fortune's 40-Under-40 issue, and been nominated for Vanity Fair's 2011 International Best Dressed List. She is an angel investor in female-founded companies like Minted and One King's Lane. MORE
Colleen Leahey, Reporter - Dec 1, 2011 11:59 AM ET
What happens when influential women like Meg Whitman, Ellen Kullman - and a guy: Warren Buffett - get together? They share smart ideas and - forge unexpected new relationships.
FORTUNE -- Big topics -- the global economy, presidential politics, boardroom drama -- got plenty of airtime at Fortune's annual Most Powerful Women Summit in early October. Meg Whitman (No. 9), the new CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), outlined plans for calming the waters at MORE
Patricia Sellers - Oct 25, 2011 5:00 AM ET
Mayer, in red, with Chef Gary Danko (middle), and 100 Mile Month champs Photo by Googler Wesley Chan
Last Monday evening, in the backyard of her Silicon Valley home, Marissa Mayer stood before a crowd of 200 fellow Googlers and their significant others, fed them roast quail and herb-crusted roast bison loin, and feted them for going mobile.
"We walked more than once around the earth at the equator—or MORE
Patricia Sellers - Aug 29, 2011 1:06 PM ET
FORTUNE -- Last week's Fortune Most Powerful Women dinner in Manhattan convened established stars, like Martha Stewart and Barbara Walters, with rising stars, like Chelsea Clinton and Barbara Bush. Two daughters of political dynasties converging in the same orbit.
And then there were 26 rising-star women from across the developing world--each a participant in the Fortune-U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring program. These young women were in the U.S. shadowing MORE
Patricia Sellers - May 31, 2011 12:09 PM ET
By Patricia Sellers
Lots of movement in the Most Powerful Women space. A Friday wrap-up....
Hearst Magazine chairman Cathie Black surprised the world--and people close to her too--by accepting a job as Chancellor of New York City schools. It's not so shocking that Mayor Mike Bloomberg would hire her--they're friends, and she is, like him, a strong manager although one who's inexperienced in education. Joel Klein, Black's predecessor, also was inexperienced in MORE
Patricia Sellers - Nov 12, 2010 1:30 PM ET
By Patricia Sellers
At 35, Marissa Mayer is the youngest person ever to make Fortune's Most Powerful Women list. Clearly, she isn't slowing down.
Last week, over dinner in Silicon Valley, Mayer told me about her new job at Google (GOOG). The company's first female engineer and until recently its VP of Search Products and User Experience, Mayer is now overseeing Google's local and location services--key to its growth strategy. In addition MORE
Patricia Sellers - Oct 27, 2010 10:08 AM ET
by Patricia Sellers
I'm back from Brainstorm Tech in Aspen. Among the CEOs at Fortune's three-day confab: Ursula Burns of Xerox (XRX), Barry Diller of IAC (IACI), Tim Armstrong of AOL (AOL), Bobby Kotick of Activision Blizzard (ATVI), and Susan Lyne of Gilt Group.
I saw plenty that excited me (Flipboard for the iPad is cool, and I downloaded it right away), but I also heard lots that made my head spin. MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jul 26, 2010 3:16 PM ET
What has to happen in Silicon Valley to create more female entrepreneurs?
We began that conversation on Postcards on Monday, after reading "Out of the Loop in Silicon Valley" in Sunday's New York Times. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg chimed in on this site, saying that women tend to be as good at risk-taking as men when doing a deal or building a product. But career-wise, they tend to be more risk-averse, MORE
Patricia Sellers - Apr 22, 2010 3:51 PM ET
After I shared with you yesterday's Postcard, "Silicon Valley: Wasteland for women, really?," I happened to spend time with someone who is a top role model for young women in tech: Marissa Mayer of Google (GOOG).
Mayer had invited me (and my Fortune colleague, Jessica Shambora, too) to sit at her table at the Matrix Awards, an annual lunch honoring women in communications. Mayer was one among a star slate this MORE
Patricia Sellers - Apr 20, 2010 2:16 PM ET
For the latest on the most influential women in business, philanthropy, government, and the arts, like us on Facebook. 
In a funny and candid interview, Google VP Marissa Mayer explains how she got to the top. Watch
Xerox CEO Ursula Burns shares how she once accepted a job with Dell but ended up staying with Xerox. Watch
Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), "MySpace Cowboys," Martha Stewart ("I cannot be destroyed"), Ted Turner ("Gone with the Wind") and Oprah Winfrey ("Oprah Inc."). Since its launch in 1998, Pattie has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women" cover package.
A specialist at dissecting larger-than-life personalities, she has also profiled former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Morgan Stanley chairman John Mack, and countless CEOs.
Pattie co-chairs the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business, philanthropy, government, academia, and the arts. She started at Fortune in 1984, covering the big brand companies.
In Pattie's blog, Postcards, she provides insight into the lives of super-achievers through commentary, career advice, and Guest Posts by CEOs and other leaders.
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Fortune Most Powerful Women
Sheryl Sandberg:
Gina Bianchini
