As has been reported throughout the internet, Portland has been selected as a test market for Google HotPot.

Side note: just a few months ago, Bing sponsored Free Food Cart Day, giving away free at Portland’s most popular food carts to raise awareness of BingFoodCarts.com (which of course redirects to a built-out Bing map of Portland food carts).

Can these two be related…? Absolutely. Google and Microsoft are again going head to head. We’ve had the chance to preview Google’s HotPot Business Kit (which may be available only to Portland IP addresses at this time).

This box was custom-made for Gracie’s Restaurant, inside Hotel deLuxe:

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So is a box of schwag as cool as Free Food Cart Day? Hardly. But I’m not convinced yet that Google’s presence in local search will go the way of Buzz, Wave, Answers, Catalog…you get the point.