Google is on march to make sure to continue monetizing searches in any way possible. This time, Google has added AdSense to Google Maps, in some cases. This was reported at Search Engine Land, Digital Inspiration and Bloggle first. Let me take you through it.
Doing a search for my corporate address returns a map of my location, with businesses listed on the left hand side. If you click on a business, let's say the first dental one, Google then displays a small single line ad (AdSense like) to the bottom of the map. Here is a picture:
The ad shows a relevant dental ad. But sometimes you do not need a business address, sometimes an ad for office space might come up. It has in my case.
This seems to be a test right now, so we will see how long this lasts.
Google has been testing and posting local ads for a while now. For more on local business ads at Google, see here.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.