Here is today’s roundup of news related to local marketing and advertising, local media, technology, local commerce, consumer behavior and more.

2018 Prediction: Google vs. Facebook Local Space Race Continues (February 7, 2018)
LSA Insider: “When businesses are marketing to local, they need to be prepared for the opportunities and take advantage of the features being added to these networks helping them to succeed.”

Study: 2X More Brand Interactions on Mobile Than Anywhere Else (February 7, 2018)
LSA Insider: “In an era of progressive technological advancement, consumers are reaching for their mobile devices more than ever before.”

Google now wants larger images for AMP articles (February 7, 2018)
Search Engine Land: “Google has updated its article schema document for AMP articles to require larger images in your markup.”

The rise of Answer Engine Optimization: Why voice search matters (February 7, 2018)
Search Engine Watch: “AEO is not going to replace SEO, but it is becoming increasingly important for marketers to learn how to optimize for answer engines as well as search engines due the rise of voice search.”

SMB Ecosystems vs Universes: What’s the Difference and What Do They Tell Us? (February 7, 2018)
Street Fight: “Defining the SMB services space, quantifying it, and measuring movement is particularly difficult because so many providers are private and do not make data readily available.”

Does Google Give More Weight to Links That Appear Higher in Content? (February 6, 2018)
Search Engine Journal: “Links should be used in content when they add value to the reader. That means that for some topics and articles, the link might be higher in the content than in others.”