There was an interesting piece of news about Google and Albertsons. Most people took it as news that Google was somehow getting into the grocery industry in some way.

That's not it at all.

Google closed a big sales deal. That's really the entire story. But, yeah, it's about ads too.

What's going on then?

Well, Google has something unique. Most people use Google Maps. And most retailers find it too expensive to answer customer service. And Google wants to continue to find new surfaces to embed its capabilities deeper into the lives of consumers. So that it can sell better ads.

So ultimately, this is about ads. But it doesn't seem that way on the surface. And it was spun as being about grocery, although nothing about this sales deal is unique to grocery.

It just has to do with any firm that has a high number of local / map searches - they are a hot prospect for Google. The more surfaces Google controls down the sales/service funnel, the more data they get their hands on about consumer intent.