Pete Gould · Hermantown, Minnesota
I help local businesses get found.
I'm Pete Gould. For about ten years I've built local business websites from Hermantown, Minnesota. Today I'm building The Local Internet — where every local business gets a free, up-to-date record that shows up across local news, deals, events and state sites, and in the AI tools people now use to find businesses.
Every site I run — the local, state and directory sites — is part of The Local Internet. Start at TheLocalInternet.com.
What I believe
Local businesses should control how they show up.
- 01
Every local business deserves to be found without paying big platforms just to show up.
- 02
The basics should be free — and stay free.
- 03
Local information should be accurate, honest and owned by the people it describes: labelled sponsors, no fake reviews, no fake numbers.
For local business owners
Start with the free record.
The basics are free and live today. Future extras are marked clearly.
Live
A Business Record across the network
One free record for your business information.
Live
Claim and edit it yourself
Take control of your record and keep it up to date.
Live
Listed on local and state sites
Appear on participating local and state destinations.
Coming soon
A free feature article
A story about your business.
Coming soon
A 30-day featured spot
Thirty days of featured placement.
Coming soon
Your first press release
A first press release for your business.
Starting at home
Duluth and Hermantown first.
I'm launching close to home, then expanding to Wisconsin and nationwide.
Launching first
Duluth + Hermantown
Minnesota
Next
Wisconsin
Statewide
Then
Nationwide
Local by local
The architecture in depth
For partners, press and the curious
The sections below explain the system behind the free record: how it is governed, where it appears and how the wider network fits together.
The Components
What I'm Building
The central platform — live
The Local Core
The live platform for Business Records, owner claiming and information governance.
TheLocalCore.comThe consumer front door
The Local Internet
The public starting point for finding local businesses, news, deals, events and information.
TheLocalInternet.comThe network starting point
The Local Start
A universal starting point for exploring The Local Internet Network.
TheLocalStart.comThe network
The Local Grid
The interconnected map of geographic properties, marketplaces, records, surfaces and infrastructure.
TheLocalGrid.comThe architecture
The Local Internet Stack
The underlying record, knowledge, visibility, citation, surface and agent infrastructure.
TheLocalInternetStack.comThe business identity model
One Business Record
One structured business record capable of supporting many discovery experiences.
OneBusinessRecord.comThe experiences
The Local Surfaces
Specialized digital experiences built around different ways people discover and interact with local information.
TheLocalSurfaces.com
Operational Today
From Thesis to Working System
Major pieces of the architecture are no longer just an idea. These are things the current system does.
- A business can exist as one authoritative Business Record.
- That record can hold distinct Listed, Claimed and Verified states.
- An existing business can be claimed through a governed owner workflow.
- Changes can be proposed and reviewed rather than silently overwriting authoritative information.
- A Business Record can be published to multiple Local Internet destinations without creating separate copies of the underlying record.
- Each publication can carry a recorded basis explaining why it exists.
- A visitor can move from discovery to the Business Record and onward into other Local Internet experiences.
- “Where this business appears” is derived from real publication relationships, not a static list.
These describe capabilities the current system demonstrates today. Work that is still in design or prototype is described elsewhere on this site as planned, not operational.
- 01Organization
- 02Business Record
- 03Governed Publication
- 04Surfaces
- 05Local Experiences
One identity can support many experiences without requiring every destination to maintain its own separate copy of the business.
Governance
Distributing information is not the same as governing it.
Identity
Who the business is, as one authoritative record.
Ownership / Claiming
Whether an owner has taken control of that record.
Verification
Whether the information has been checked and confirmed.
Publication
Where the record is permitted to appear, and on what basis.
Promotion
Paid or featured placement within an experience.
These are deliberately separate. A business being published does not make it verified. A verified business is not automatically claimed. Promotion never changes the authority or accuracy of the underlying record.
The Model
One Record. Many Surfaces.
Instead of treating every website as an isolated destination, I'm exploring an architecture where structured business information can support many specialized digital experiences.
One Business Record
- Informed
- Organized
- Browsed
- Storefronts
- Reviewed
- Happenings
- Savings
- Featured
- Promoted
- Advertised
- Flow
Business Record
The authoritative business-information object.
Publication
The governed relationship that allows the record to appear at a destination.
Surface
The consumer-facing experience where that information is presented.
One Business Record.Many Publications.Many Surfaces.Many Experiences.
Surface properties
The Local Internet Network
The project is broader than a collection of websites.
Geographic Network
USA → State → Region → City → Local
Connected Surface Network
Information → Discovery → Storefronts → Reviews → Events → Savings → Media → Promotion
Existing Marketplace Network
100+ independently deployed marketplace and discovery properties
Business Record Infrastructure
Structured identity and information
AI / Search Infrastructure
Machine-readable discovery, APIs, graph and agent-oriented architecture
Geographic Network
National architecture that can become increasingly local.
- 01USA
- 02State
- 03Region / County
- 04City
- 05Community
Origins
From Marketplaces to Infrastructure
The work did not begin with the newest Surface architecture. It evolved from an existing network of more than 100 marketplace and discovery properties.
The marketplace network was deployed independently over many years. Those properties are separate from the newer shared-data Surface architecture, and they do not all operate from the centralized Business Record infrastructure today.
Scale
Current scope
2,900+
Strategic domains
100+
Marketplace nodes
7M+
Existing listings
50-state
Namespace and geographic architecture
Multiple
Deployed Local and USA surfaces
These figures are indicators of the project's scope drawn from internal inventories and operating records. They are not valuation, revenue or market-share claims, and they change as assets and deployments evolve.
The Thesis
Domains Are the Namespace. Infrastructure Makes Them Useful.
A domain by itself is an address. A coordinated namespace combined with shared records, data, software, APIs, knowledge relationships and AI-assisted deployment can become something much larger.
- 01Strategic Namespace
- 02Structured Records
- 03Shared Data
- 04Platform / API / Graph
- 05Digital Surfaces
- 06Search + AI + Human Discovery
Founder Perspective
Why Local?
- Local information is still fragmented across thousands of disconnected systems.
- A single business maintains its identity in dozens of places, and none of them agree.
- Communities generate an enormous amount of genuinely useful information that never gets structured.
- Search is changing, and the results page is no longer the only destination.
- AI agents increasingly need information that is structured, understandable and attributable.
- A digital experience no longer has to be confined to one monolithic website.
The Local Internet is my exploration of what happens when these pieces are designed as a connected system.
The Story So Far
- 01Marketplace Network
- 02Strategic Namespace
- 03Business Records
- 04Shared Infrastructure
- 05Connected Surfaces
- 06The Local Grid
- 07The Local Internet
From individual marketplaces to an interconnected local Internet architecture.
Background
Builder. Technology Leader. Founder.
The architecture comes out of decades of running real infrastructure in environments where accuracy, continuity and accountability were not optional.
Professional background →- 25+ years in public-sector technology
- 13+ years of IT leadership
- Enterprise infrastructure
- Cybersecurity
- Technology strategy
- Project and portfolio management
- Business continuity and disaster recovery
- Enterprise systems
- Public-sector technology environments
- Major capital technology projects
- AI and automation
Press & partners
A local founder building from Hermantown.
Pete Gould is the founder of Northland Advertising LLC and The Local Internet. Based in Hermantown, Minnesota, he has spent about ten years building local business websites. His current work centers on a free Business Record that owners can claim, update and use across local sites and new discovery tools.
The Local Internet (TheLocalInternet.com) is the consumer front door; TheLocalCore.com is the platform that powers every Business Record.
Founder Notes
From Pete's Notebook
All notes →Business Records
A listing can become much more than a listing
Why the Business Record — not the web page — is the right unit of local infrastructure.
7 min read
The Local Internet
AI didn't create the thesis. AI expanded it.
The Local Internet started with marketplaces, geography and domains — years ago.
6 min read
Strategic Domains
Geography is a namespace waiting to be organized
USA → State → County → City → Region → Community.
5 min read
In progress — not yet published
- Why One Business Record Matters
- From Listings to Records
- Why I Built TheLocalStart.com
- One Record, Many Surfaces
- Why the Local Internet Needs a Grid
- From 100 Marketplaces to a Connected Network
- Domains as Digital Namespace
- What Happens to Local Discovery in an AI-First Internet?
- Why Local Information Needs Structure
Want to See What I'm Building?
Don't start with the architecture. Start with the experience.
A starting point for exploring The Local Internet Network.