Google Local Business Center was renamed to Google Places since the company is looking to rebrand the product around the Place Pages that was introduced last fall. Place Pages is for business listings found in Google local searches.
These listings contain relevant information about a business from various places on the web, like, reviews and images, and other information the business decides to put up after claiming their listing.
The company said that Google Places is “just the beginning of what’s to come from our efforts to make Google more local.”