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October 23, 2009

46% of Local Searchers Visit Businesses In-Store

46% of local searchers make in-store visits, according to data released to eMarketer by TMP Directional Marketing and comScore. The number is up 12% over last year.

Meanwhile, for "general searches," 34% visited stores, but this was only up 1% over last year. Internet yellow pages searchers also came in at 34%, up from 29% last year. The overall average of searchers ending up in-store was 37%.

What local searchers are looking for are businesses that provide the products and services they're looking for. After they've found that, they look for address and location information and then a phone number.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 2:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 9, 2009

Patent Issued to Local.com for Enhanced Directory Assistance Services

Local.com has received a new patent for an Enhanced Directory Assistance (EDA) Services method and system. In a statement, Local.com described the patent, number 7,596,218, as:

Issued on September 29, 2009, the patent describes a system and method for maintaining a dynamic index for a telephone directory assistance system. The system enables advertisers to dynamically control whether a listing - and/or one or more of a keyword index, a localization index, and a position control index - associated with the advertiser is included in an EDA request, and in what position the associated listing is returned in response to the request.

Local.com hopes the new patent will provide additional revenue opportunities.

"Local.com has a patent that covers an important monetization opportunity in this burgeoning market, and it is complementary to our existing local search patents. We look forward to expanding our relationships with companies in order to deliver monetization of innovative new products and services to this marketplace," said Heath Clarke, Chairman and CEO, Local.com.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 6:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 24, 2009

Goby.com's Local Search Concept: Good Idea, Not Ready for Primetime

Goby.com launched this week, promising to help people find things to do with their spare time or help them find interesting things to do on vacation. The idea is to type in the type of thing you want to do, where you want to do it and when you want to do it directly on the homepage (which is available on Firefox and IE):

The problem is the results leave a lot to be desired. Simply type in "dog park" and then try a bunch of different cities. The results for Wasington, DC returned listings for dog parks in Washington State and the listing for New York City was for an upstate dog park. There were no results found for a bunch of cities including San Francisco, CA or Chicago, IL.

"Museum" does relatively better, save for Washington, DC whose famous Smithsonian museums are forgotten due to listings, again, for Washington state museums. The rankings for museums in other cities are a bit off. For example, the listings for the American Museum of Natural History and MOMA are too far down on the list of museums for New York City for my taste.

Generally, when you are able to get results, bigger cities fare better than smaller ones. Even still, the results are not as good as you'll get from the top 4 search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask).

Goby boasts being built on search technology developed by MIT. It's a good idea in theory and I hope it gets fleshed out, but the tech needs to be improved for it to be useful for searchers.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

September 18, 2009

Bulk Listing Verification Now Available for Google Maps Local Business Listings

Business owners have been able to bulk upload their local listings to Google Maps but have had to verify them individually. Until now. Google is now providing the opportunity to bulk verify bulk uploads.

Said bulk uploads must meet the following criteria:

Accurate and up-to-date data
Minimum of 10 bulk uploaded listings already in business owners' Local Business Center account
Full compliance with our Local Business Center Quality Guidelines
Submitted by the owner of all businesses listed
All businesses have only been submitted by a single user

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 15, 2009

At TC50: Crowd Sourcing the Neighborhood Watch

I'm at the TechCrunch50 show where Google and Microsoft yesterday announced new visual interfaces for news and image search, respectively. Today, I'm on the hunt for interesting mobile & local companies.

One that just demoed, City Sourced, falls into this bucket, giving users a chance to report local crime and vandalism. The way this works is through an iPhone app that lets users take pictures of things like graffiti or old couches on the street. Using the phone's GPS and compass reading, the app tags that content, wraps it up and sends it to City Hall.

On the other end, the company works with municipalities to enable their back end systems to receive and process all of these acts of citizen reporting. This includes lots of data and mapping mashups that allow city officials to plan law enforcement patrolling and clean-up efforts.

"The goal is for City Hall to be able to notify law enforcement to increase patrols in the area," said CEO Jason Kiesel. "It gives them opportunity to predict and prevent with better law enforcement decisions."

A quick demo showed how incidents of vandalism jumped from May to June in San Jose around many school districts -- presumably having to do with summer break. San Jose is the company's first customer and it is reportedly in discussions with a few of the top 10 populated cities in the U.S..

The app's success will come down to the ability to form these deals but also the ability to market the app to users. The data sets will obviously only be as good as the amount of people that are generating them. But its novelty could cause it to rise above the noise in the mobile app world, and you can picture it being featured on Apple's "there's an app for that" TV ads.

Next up, the company will develop a Palm Pre app, with Android likely to follow. It will also integrate more and more public data sources to make crime records searchable in the ways that Everyblock, TownMe and others have begun to do. Social features could be on the way too, to let users do digg-style "voting up" local issues that deserve the most attention.

Posted by Mike Boland at 3:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

August 7, 2009

CitySquares Incorporates Facebook Connect

Fast-growing local search engine CitySquares has incorporated Facebook Connect. Now, you can use your Facebook account to sign into the site.

When you do, you can invite Facebook friends to CitySquares and control which information from Facebook you want visible on the local site (name, hometown, birthday, etc.)

The CitySquares teams plans further integration of Facebook Connect in the future. It will include enabling users to update their Facebook accounts when they rate a business.

Ben Saren, CitySquares CEO, says it's all part of recognizing the close relationship between social and local.

"The Local Web and the Social Web are related," wrote Saren on the CitySquares blog. "OK they're not sisters, but they're definitely cousins. The now and the future of local will see much more social features and functionalities."

As such, adding Twitter integration is also in the works.

"There's a whole strategy we're going to evolve that into for community and neighborhood pages, to effectively create a waterfall of real-time locally relevant information that both pulls content in, and distributes content out. I know that sounds a little too conceptual, but hang in there - you'll see what we mean very soon," explained Saren.

What do you think of the relationship between local and social? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 4:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 21, 2009

SES San Jose Preview: A Conversation With Metric Voodoo

Readers of this blog are aware that we're less than a month away from SES San Jose (Aug 10-14). In anticipation of some of the mobile local content that will be featured at the show, I was able to catch up with Michelle Moore, director of search engine strategies at Metric Voodoo. We'll be sitting on a panel on Day 1 of the show, entitled Keeping it Local: The Convergence of Phones & Local Search. Here's what she had to say:

MB: What are the biggest market factors that you see driving mobile search adoption on the part of both users and content owners or advertisers? (i.e. smart phone penetration? Better device standards? Etc.)

MM: Technology adoption with regard to smart phones is outstripping most previous major technology adoption rates, including touch tone phones, cassette tapes, hi-def TV and DVD video players. There's an entire generation in high school right now who's never known a time without cell phones. This ubiquitous adoption is already causing a measurable trend where smart phones are replacing computers, especially with regard to localized searches. People's habits are changing - when that happens, it forces market adjustments all the way around, not only with how advertisers will get their messages in front of consumers, but also what sorts of targeting these users are willing to accept. Phone searchers love being "helped" but they hate being "tracked."

MB: What are some of the fundamental differences of mobile marketing and SEO, compared to online marketing and SEO?

MM: I think the main difference now (which I'm single-handedly trying to rectify, heh) is that mobile marketing is a better proving ground for what I call "pervasive SEO." You're already dealing with limited screen space. How much more impactful do you think it is to be mentioned on the first 15 search results on several other sites when someone searches your chosen keywords, than to just be number three and show up once for your own domain name. Even if you're number one, if you're only there once someone else placing pervasively on ten or twelve OTHER sites will look more appealing, or more like an expert, or more prevalent. Internet users aren't naïve anymore. They know that what's on your web site was put there by you. If a dozen other sites are also saying good things about you, that's much more effective in terms of earning consumer trust.

MB: What are some of the most common mistakes or misconceptions of companies entering the mobile space (media companies, app developers, web publishers, advertisers, etc.)? What about misconceptions preventing companies from playing in the mobile sandbox?

MM: I think there's still a disconnect between the left and right brain that prevents advertisers from recognizing opportunities in the mobile space, especially for small to medium-sized business. For example, local search - which is one of my main prongs of attack with any business that has a physical location... it takes me about a dozen repetitions and even demonstrations over several weeks of the immense practicality of local business search on a phone before the little light bulb starts to glow. Ultimately, I have to sit back and wait for my clients to actually use their phone in this manner to make a decision or a purchase or answer a question, and then point out to them afterward why they ended up using the vendor they selected. "Do you remember why you ended up calling CVS Pharmacy?" "Yeah, the first phone number I found for Foster's Pharmacy wasn't in service anymore." "OK, so what happens when you change your business phone number and no one bothers to update all your local business listings that are floating all over the internet?" It's as if small business owners think that because they have a web site with their name and address and phone number, that's all they need. They don't think far enough down the smart phone path to realize that their site might be all in Flash, or that the average local business search through a smart phone portal may put results from CitySearch or Superpages above your business' own domain name... and oddly, SMBs are who absolutely need to succeed in this arena or get overrun by the big chains.

MB: Is the state of the economy currently having an effect on this adoption, any more so than other media? In other words is mobile's "experimental" nature preventing companies from utilizing it as a content and/or ad delivery platform in uncertain economic times?

MM: I think this depends on who you're asking. I don't know a single consumer who's given up their mobile phone. But I read all the time about companies abandoning or "back-burnering" their mobile marketing initiatives. It makes me want to ask marketers, "why are you doing this when that market is one of the only markets not shrinking?" Fewer and fewer people read printed newspaper, but more and more people use cell phones.

MB: Conversely, is mobile's targeting capabilities, greater ad performance (CTRs etc.), and measurability making it resonate to a greater degree during these times when advertisers are demanding more concrete ROI?

MM: You'd think, wouldn't you? I'm not sure about national numbers, but in the South where most of my work is done, it seems that there's a different barrier to entry. Much like with social media, there's a general lack of awareness (and therefore, confidence) in mobile marketing. I'm constantly preaching a reduction in faith-based advertising models like television, radio and newspaper, and a shift to trackable advertising, whether it's plain old PPC or mobile advertising. But there seem to be a lot of marketing execs who lack experience with the medium, making it harder to convince the rest of the C-suite to support mobile marketing initiatives. It's like the fact that you can measure ROI at all doesn't matter - they're not willing to dabble in mobile unless you can prove ROI to start with. It makes no sense to me.

MB: It's my contention that mobile and local are so closely related. Online, searches with explicit local intent are about 10% of overall searches. On mobile, it is currently about 2x-3x more than that, and growing. Do you agree?

MM: Yes, I do agree. Every statistical report I've seen in the last 8 months indicates that at least 25% of all searches on phones are local business searches. This is why I start my discussions by showing folks the Sprint commercial that was released in May - "Right now, 6000 people are researching restaurants in the back of a cab." How many "right nows" are there in a typical day... times 6000.

MB: What are the capabilities of the mobile device that will force advertisers to think differently when it comes to marketing or content delivery? Too many advertisers are porting over existing strategies (i.e. display ads) to a smaller screen. Will this change and "grow into" the capabilities of the mobile device including portability, location awareness, etc..?

MM: I think what consumers react most strongly to in the mobile arena is the gradual return of instant gratification. That's why local business search volume is soaring. What businesses are slow to realize is that searches on phones are not in any way, shape or form about your web site. They're about your physical location. This is why porting existing ad campaigns from the web will not be sufficient. I'm waiting for someone to fully develop an app that lets you not only research the restaurant, but see a layout, pick your table, and make your reservation without making a traditional phone call or sitting on hold or even talking to another person... then tie into Match.com and hook you up with a dinner date too.

MB: What kind of search models and ad formats will we see as a result? More location targeting? More cost per action? Actionable ways to drive local conversions, such as coupons? MM:Oh I guess I got ahead there... I've always wanted to ask - how do you use a coupon on a cell phone? Do you just flash it like an FBI badge? I'd love to be able to walk through my kitchen with a phone [example] and flash it at stuff I'm low on and see which store has the best current price on that exact item or something - not traditional ads at all, but access to the most up to date info that allows me to make the best decision.

The item in the video [example above] is a wearable cross between a smart phone, a web cam, a projector, and a massive instantly accessible "google" to let you immediately interact with everything. I think the roadblock along the path to better technology is that people won't let go of the outmoded ideas that are associated with traditional advertising. In the example in that video, the gentleman is accessing environmental data on the fly with regard to a toilet paper purchase in the grocery store. There's no traditional advertising message opportunity here - but there's tons of opportunity for companies who tap into what consumers are really interested in - and the newsflash is the consumer isn't interested in hearing corporate schpiel. They want honest information so that they can come to conclusions. It's great to know that the consumer is in the store on the toilet paper aisle, but I doubt that flashing a Charmin ad will have any effect. I think product marketing will become more about product awareness and corporate reputation as inventions like these progress.

MB: Who is doing it right? Any mobile sites or apps that you admire for delivering content in a way that is fitting to the mobile device and the way people are using it?

MM: The most awesome new phone app I've seen was on a Nationwide Insurance commercial. You have a wreck? You click an app that's connected to everything you need - it calls emergency services for you, it gives you a checklist for your information exchange, locates the nearest agent or office for you, takes pics of the damage for you, starts your claim process for you, and even includes a flashlight function! This is an example of the total 180 that major companies are going to have to learn to do. This app is all about the consumer. Of course, it doesn't do you a lot of good unless you are a Nationwide customer but this app is all about helping the consumer handle a difficult situation. Companies have got to figure out that they will get a lot farther when their advertising models are more focused on the consumer, not all about the company. On another note, I've seen the television commercial announcing this iPhone app ONCE - it made that much of an impact that I defied all "repeat seven times" advertising advice and remembered it after one viewing... I cannot begin to count how many Allstate, Geico, Liberty Mutual and Progressive commercials I've seen. I have no idea of the estimated cost of all those commercials compared to the one airing of the Nationwide commercial that I saw, but I can guarantee you that when my insurance renewal rolls around, I'll be getting a quote from Nationwide for good measure. The return on the investment in more efficiently serving the customer will most definitely pay off with a higher ROI than those 6 million untrackable television commercials for the other major carriers.

MB: Some of the money spent at the local level (online and off) is national advertisers targeting locally. About a $17 billion chunk is the SMB segment. Very fragmented and hard to wrap your arms around. How will mobile advertising be bought and sold to this SMB segment? Self serve a la AdWords? Local sales channels like newspapers, and yellow pages?

MM: I think a handful of the major online advertising sources will be the obvious choice. SMB doesn't have the resources for a lot of research and due diligence so they're more likely to allow their traditional marketers or PPC management firms to take on the task of local business advertising. I think that will translate to more ad business for Google. SEO really has never lent itself well to local business presence, despite a decade of SEO "experts" telling us it works. I don't see traditional printed ads gaining share.

MB: Any other advice for companies entering the mobile space or online publishers trying to seek out opportunities in mobile?

MM: Be proactive. Buck the old traditions and hire some new blood (says the 40-some-odd year old). Take steps to build an online reputation before you are forced to take steps to correct it. Be an expert in your area and make sure to let people know about it. Put yourself everywhere you can afford in order to have the best chance of being found - be that online yellow pages, paid ads in a search engine, paid sponsorship of a mobile portal, name on a bus stop bench, name on the back of a little league jersey, where ever you can get publicity without offending people's sensibilities. If you can associate that with a topic consumers are passionate about, so much the better.

Posted by Mike Boland at 2:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

June 18, 2009

AT&T Plans a Mashup of Yellow Pages and Social Networking for the Under-30 Set

Yellow Pages are a great source of income for AT&T - $1.3 billion in the first quarter of the year, to be exact. But according to Forbes, AT&T is planning a new kind of Yellow Pages designed specifically for a younger demographic.

It's no surprise really. The under-30 set probably didn't grow up using Yellow Pages. They're more familiar with "looking it up on the internet." They're also very familiar with social networking sites like Facebook.

As a result, social networking is going to be a component of the new Yellow Pages. They will be developed for web and mobile - including apps for Google Android devices (despite the fact that AT&T currently has no device with Android) and iPhone - arguably one of AT&T's best sellers.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 10, 2009

CitySquares Offers All Businesses Couponing Opportunity

Local search site CitySquares is now offering all businesses the opportunity to extend coupons to their customers. To take advantage of the opportunity:

Go to CitySquares.com
Find your business listing
Look for the Edit Listing option in a blue box on the right. (If you're new, you'll need to register)
Edit your business information to offer a coupon.

CitySquares recommends asking customers to bring coupons with them so you're able to track who is visiting your business via their local search.

Last year, online couponing skyrocketed when the economy took a nosedive. This is a free and easy way to reach out to new customers, especially since CitySquares is one of the fastest growing search sites on the web.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 4, 2009

Q&A with Miriam Warren, Director of Marketing at Yelp

Miriam Warren of Yelp is speaking at SES Toronto on June 9, on the panel "Follow the Carrot: Cool Mobile Apps" in the Geek Track. Miriam is director of marketing for Yelp, and is based in New York. She was gracious enough to respond to my detailed questions.

I have to admit, along with dishing the dirt about the ins and outs of building the Yelp user community, Miriam is possessed of an uncanny instinct for all things Toronto! The pub recommendation of the Village Idiot is inventive and quirky, and the other hotspot recommendations are right on.

Plus, her knowledge of my neighborhood, and the roving reviewer Andre D., is downright spooky! I have the feeling they'll be sitting across from me next time I venture up to the Queen's Pasta Cafe... or helping me try on shoes at the New Balance Store.

Andrew Goodman: Hi Miriam, and a warm welcome to SES Toronto. There is so much to talk about with the explosion of user-generated content, and useful mobile apps that knit together information in a way that directly helps users with the next thing they're about to do: where to begin? Why don't I start with sort of a Canadian question.

Yelp expanded in Canada slowly at first, and has now picked up the pace. Was the growth of Canadian reviews harder to kickstart without local community managers on the ground? When were they added? How important will those be in growing membership and traffic in the future? What are some of the things community managers do?

Miriam Warren: Good questions, and let me take a moment to first explain Yelp's methodology. It's our mission to be an important and useful local resource. We don't expect the awareness of Yelp in San Francisco, for example, to happen overnight in a new city like Toronto.

Our approach is to roll out city by city, instead of a "big bang" launch. That allows us to focus our efforts in our most active cities – a mile deep and an inch wide, if you will – to make Yelp a truly valuable resource to those communities.

This time last year, we launched Yelp Canada. In that time we've definitely seen it embraced by locals, but you're right, having a Community Manager (CM) is an integral part of creating further awareness and in fact, offline events are also a big part of what we do at Yelp. We recently hired two CMs in Canada: one in Vancouver and one right here in Toronto.

When we have that local person on the ground, we have absolutely seen that translate into more engagement on the community side. In fact, I actually used to be the Washington, D.C. community manager, so I can speak very closely to that role! Suffice it to say, these folks wear many hats, whether it's engaging the community both online and off, educating business owners, throwing events, writing the Weekly Yelp and much, much more.

Saying that, we understand that local communities take time to root and grow, and we believe with this approach we allow – if not foster – that.

AG: What kind of growth in metrics (app downloads, memberships, traffic) is Yelp currently experiencing? In Canada, specifically?

MW: We actually don't break metrics out by city or market but I can tell you that in the past 30 days Yelp had over 21 million users to the site worldwide. In terms of the iPhone, we launched our Yelp for iPhone app less than a year ago, and that application alone already accounts for 5 percent of our overall site traffic.

As I mentioned before, Canada is performing exactly as we'd hope. And again, we're seeing engagement from the locals here on a number of levels.

AG: I've just used your app on an iPhone, and the proximity aspect is so vital to the day-to-day experience looking for a restaurant or other local hotspot. So Urban Spoon et al. have some competition to contend with in you guys!

Can you speak to the notion of rank order of results? I know that power users may select different criteria to sort businesses, but especially on a mobile app, most will want a "lazy person's helping hand" with a "smart" relevancy app that can somehow weigh the importance of review quantity, quality, and other factors, without the user having to do anything. Is it harder than it looks to build these sorting algos?

MW: Rank is a great question, and let me clarify that it does differ on a search you might be doing on the site, as opposed to on the iPhone. The main reason behind this is because our iPhone application takes advantage of the device's GPS capabilities to allow us to pull in nearby businesses.

For example, I'm not from Toronto (I live in New York), so if I'm looking for a bar to grab a glass of wine to unwind after this panel, I could whip out my iPhone, hit "nearby," and that search will pull in every business within a 4-block radius. From there, I can further narrow my search by hitting "Bars" and then read reviews, check the ratings and even map directions or call the business.

For the lazy – or perhaps a better way to phrase, the more adventurous person – we also have "Hot on Yelp," which are our community's most bookmarked businesses in the past month, which will also be reflected in the "Nearby" search. It's a great way to try out a buzzed-about local business, whether just-opened or just-discovered.

In terms of building, it was definitely an investment from our end. Our engineers actually had to learn how to code an iPhone app. It has very much been an ongoing effort – especially as more features roll out on the iPhone – but one we think has been worth it! And judging by the popularity, our users think so, too.

AG: How important is critical mass of content to the usefulness of a review site, and why do you think Yelp has been so successful in getting to this point?

MW: As I spoke to a bit earlier, it's very important. A local guide can't be truly useful if there isn't content. If you went to Yelp – or any user-generated reviews site – and there wasn't any information, would you go back? Not likely. Again, that's why we take our time growing each city individually.

Additionally, the content also has to be TRUSTED.

We're very lucky that we have an incredibly vibrant and engaged community – one that definitely transcends geography. We saw a lot of cross-traffic between the Bay Area and Los Angeles, for example, and then later between San Francisco and New York, which has helped foster awareness about the site on a national scale.

We also encourage all contributors to use a real photo and name, and provide facts about themselves on their Yelp page. That way you, the consumer of that content, can tell a lot about who the reviewer is just by reading their reviews, and choose for yourself whether Joe B. in LA might be as picky about getting his haircut as you, or how many other readers found that review useful by votes at the bottom of the review.

We also have a number of other site features that help protect from "spammy" reviews, to ensure the content really is contributed by "real people with real experiences."

AG: Recently, Yelp added functionality for business owners to respond to reviews. In terms of negative reviews, in your personal view is it more powerful for the business owner to respond, or for other happy customers to chime in? Is it both? Does it depend?

MW: Actually, business owners have been able to respond to reviewers via Private Messaging since April of last year, when we first introduced Yelp for Business Owners. That's a free suite of tools that allows businesses to have more of a voice and personality on the site.

Given the positive response, we continued to roll out additional features including a separate page for "About this Business", which allows businesses to provide insight on the owners and specialties, and recommend other businesses. It also gives them the ability to offer announcements, sales and specials.

Over the past year, we noticed that savvy business owners have used the Private Messaging feature effectively, and in many cases were able to open a dialog with their customers that otherwise might not have happened. Of equal importance, they didn't abuse the feature.

We've long considered adding Public Comments, which I believe you were referring to earlier, to the site, but wanted to do it in a thoughtful manner so as not to upset the balance within the Yelp community.

We've been very pleased with the roll out of this feature and have found that business owners have been happy to clarify or correct wrong information that may be posted in a review (menu items, hours of operation, etc.). We see this as a benefit both for consumers reading those reviews as well as the business.

My personal view is that it is CRITICAL for business owners to be a part of the discussion that customers are having about their business. I recommend taking the time to educate yourself on the FAQs, leveraging Yelp for Business Owners, and remembering that the interactions you're having online are just as important – if not more so – than the ones you're having in-person.

AG: So using the Yelp mobile app from my home, I noticed that this guy Andre D. has been all up and down Bloor Street West, reviewing everything in minute detail right down to how other restaurant patrons were dressed, and that the guacamole, salsa, and sour cream were placed on "one side only" of the nacho plate. What is the deal with this guy? Is he for real? A professional comic? You don't have to answer.

MW: Andre D. is one of our newest Elite yelpers, and he's a proud Westender through and through, just like our Toronto community manager, Kat F. Andre lives just west of Bloor West Village, which as you know is a vibrant Ukrainian & Polish community and strip of businesses that includes everything from bakeries and pubs to burger joints and Italian patio cafes.

We love reading Andre's take on the best of the West, as he's loyal to the neighborhood and provides great perspective to the rest of Toronto Yelpers, who may never have ventured out into the area before!

AG: Will you use Yelp to find yourself some local hotspots while you're here? Could you guys pull up some suggested bars and restaurants near the Sheraton Centre at Queen and University, to give our attendees an idea of some places that have positive reviews?

MW: I use Yelp to find local hotspots in every place I travel to, so absolutely I'll use it whilst in Toronto! I've been to Toronto many times since my first visit in 1998 and am quite fond of the city and its people (and am a big fan of both the butter chicken roti at Gandhi and The Drake Hotel.)

Restaurants:

Nota Bene

Great, new-ish romantic restaurant with excellent selection, service and prime location right at the corner of Queen/University. Often suggested for birthday dinners or first dates.

Beer Bistro

Restaurant/bar that's very, very popular among the city's beer aficionados, thanks to its unbelievable beer selection and incorporation of exotic beers into its dishes (chili, ribs, steak, breading/batter, etc.).

Queen Mother Cafe

Thai fusion restaurant that's reputed to have the city's best pad thai. Lots of options for vegetarians and meat eaters alike -- try to order from the list of daily specials if you can. To-die-for cake selection and a really cute secret/secluded patio in the backyard. If you're looking for nightlife, the owner also owns the Rivoli down the street, which serves food but is more of a singer/songwriter jazz club venue.

Bars:

The neighborhood that the Sheraton is in isn't really well known for its local bars -- most of the 'entertainment district' is pricey and not intended for locals. In fact, most people visit from out of town or the suburbs, so your best bet is to hit one of these:

Village Idiot Pub & Grill

Right across from AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario), the Village Idiot's been around for eons and attracts lots of different clientele, including students and locals who drool over their "Idiot Fries." They're thick-cut potatoes smothered in a secret sauce that tastes barbequey and zesty at the same time. Friendly and personable service.

Barchef

One of the city's only "cocktail bars." We haven't been here yet, but are looking forward to trying it out thanks to the power of Yelp!

AG: How much does a company like yours rely on a search engine like Google or Yahoo? For organic traffic? Do you use paid search? Is rich data integration (Yahoo SearchMonkey, Google Rich Snippets) an opportunity? Do you see the competition with search engines, who seek to dominate local listings, as posing any threats to companies like Yelp?

MW: Yelp has a very high SEO rating with search engines, including Google and Yahoo. Oftentimes, a business' Yelp listing will show up above a their own website. Saying that, that's really only valuable if you know the EXACT name of that business you're looking for. Yelp is much more of a "discovery" destination for information about your neighborhood or city that you're visiting.

We actually like to think of it as a "problem solver." For example, a consumer needs to find a business that fits her needs, whether it's a mechanic, hairdresser or just a stiff drink. A business owner needs to drive traffic through his door. Yelp serves as the connector for both the consumer and the business owner.

Posted by Andrew Goodman at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

March 9, 2009

CitySquares Tweaks Their Search (and Rocks Online Reputation Management in the Process!)

Last week CitySquares announced the expansion of their local search to all 50 states. In my coverage of the announcement, I noticed that typing in my hometown of Raleigh brought up no results.

CitySquares Lead Developer Michael LeBarron noticed the post and commented on the blog that indeed Raleigh was included in the expansion.

I emailed him privately to tell him how I was conducting the search. It turns out that CitySquares recognized "Raleigh, NC," but I was typing in just "Raleigh." For whatever reason, the search didn't recognize the city without the state.

Michael went to work on it, and by Friday I had an email in my inbox saying the fix was complete. I tried it out this morning and wow - what a fix!

Now, when I search for Raleigh, CitySquares smartly asks me which Raleigh I, in fact, am searching for:

Incidentally, this is a fantastic example of a brand listening to the conversation about them online. Not only did CitySquares engage in the conversation, they made a change to their product that benefits everyone.

If you want to know how to be as good as CitySquares at online reputation management, check out these posts:

How to Bury Negative Online Mentions of You - Intermediate Level Tactics Pssst. People are Talking... About Your Business! SEO for Brand Reputation Management Big Brands Wage Reputation Battles on Many Fronts 61% of Reluctant Consumers Can Be Positively Swayed Online Online Reviews Second Only to Word of Mouth in Purchase Decisions Google's Mobile Ratings Increase Need for Online Reputation Management Need To Track Your Brand Online? Try Search Monitor

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

March 3, 2009

MapQuest Launches On-Map Search Tool: Find Coffee On Your Route

MapQuest has enhanced its Business Locator with an On-Map Search Tool. The tool helps users find businesses along routes they plan with MapQuest. This will help the coffee-obsessed such as myself find coffee stops along their travel routes.

Below is a screenshot of a route from Raleigh, NC to Durham, NC. Notice the icon toolbar on the top right side. You can scroll for different search categories such as groceries and accommodations.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 2:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 16, 2009

HelloMetro Hiring Journalists to Cover Local News for Their Online Sites

HelloMetro is hiring former print journalists to cover the news for 10 of their local sites. They hope this will bring better local coverage as opposed to local sites they say just resort to blogs.

“We have avoided leaving our local stories to bloggers,” CEO Clark Scott said. “Other websites lean heavily on blogging because the content is free. While blogging is useful, we insist on the traditional standards of reliability and accountability that we could only get with our own staff of professional writers.”

Hey Clark. I'm a blogger. I cover the news. I'm not free. (Oh yeah, and print journalism doesn't always = reliable and accountable.)

I digress.

There's a bunch of journalists out there needing jobs, so hopefully the ones who end up at HelloMetro are able to build a nice career and add value to the communities they write about.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 18, 2008

Coupons.com Launches Facebook App; Local.com Partners With Valpak for Coupons

Online coupons are hot, and they've become even hotter in a tight economy. It's no surprise to see two announcements today regarding the expansion of online coupons. Even more, these expansions are focused on social media and local search, which are also trends in the online marketing space.

First up, Coupons.com has launched a Facebook application. Once installed, users can print coupons directly from their Facebook page and also share coupons with friends.

Second, Local.com has partnered with Valpak, a coupon provider. Valpak coupons will appear in search results and profile pages.

What do you think about these announcements? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

December 4, 2008

CitySquares.com to Begin National Expansion

CitySquares.com began as an online neighborhood community site for 7 neighborhoods in Boston. Over the summer, they expanded to include New England and recently added 1.7 million businesses to their New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania communities. They are one of the fastest growing local search sites on the web.

Now, CitySquares has their sights set on a national expansion, but they are proceeding with caution. They stress that they don't want to be just another directory, but to truly offer online communities for local cities and neighborhoods across the United States.

Writing on the CitySquares blog, co-founders Bob Leland and Ben Saren said,

Whether a county in Montana, a borough in NY, a village in Vermont, or a neighborhood in Seattle, we want to get all the information about that community, that locale, online. Get the geopolitical information online, municipal information, local government, post office, libraries, public schools, trash and recycling collection schedules, historical facts, playgrounds, parking lots, public transportation, local school lunch menus, athletic program information, July 4th fireworks locations, and so much more. CitySquares' vision is, and has always been, to be “Your Neighborhood, Online.” Not easy, but necessary. And it will happen.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 20, 2008

Local Video Ads Come to Local.com

Local search site Local.com has integrated local video ads throughout its site. Initially the ads will come from Jivox, an online local video advertising provider. Eventually, the video ads will expand to include more providers.

“We believe that video advertising provides consumers with relevant, timely information about local businesses, products and services. It's natural for video to be integrated into our local search ecosystem over time,” said Kim LaFleur, Local.com vice president, product management. “Local video bridges the product gap that exists between businesses that advertise in print, but perhaps don't have the budget to move to television advertising yet, and unlike TV advertising, ROI is fully trackable. We plan to incorporate additional video capabilities and syndication to our network next year.”

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 19, 2008

Citysearch Rebuilds Site with a More Social, Local and Mobile

Citysearch appears to be going for the jugular with its newly rebuilt site. While many sites add a little social here and a little mobile there, Citysearch is going for the three hottest trends all at once: Social, Local, Mobile.

"We rebuilt the Citysearch platform to give our users what they asked for -- a new site that drills down to the hyper-local level with content for specific neighborhoods," said Jay Herratti, CEO of Citysearch. "We also expanded our social and community tools by integrating Facebook Connect deeply into our site experience. Now users will be able to see their Facebook friends on Citysearch and share reviews and recommendations."

This is a completely smart strategy as the economy gets tighter. Expect to see these trends grow even hotter despite the Wall Street-Capitol Hill drama.

I can see all sorts of possibilities. People are relocating or working in a different part of town. The ability to check out new local restaurants, entertainment venues, etc via their mobile and connect with people socially will be powerful.

Here's what Citysearch is saying the new experience will be like:

-- More local -- Citysearch is expanding its local coverage from 140 local city guides to over 75,000 cities and neighborhoods nationwide. New geo- targeted search technology provides a truly local experience to users, allowing them to target businesses according to zip code. Citysearch also restores balance to local business coverage by providing content from three distinct voices: users, editors and merchants.

-- More social -- With Facebook Connect, users can log into Citysearch using their Facebook account, allowing them to discover new local businesses and share reviews with their friends online and providing a personal view of their neighborhood and favorite local spots. New social features also enable users to create profiles, more easily review businesses and infuse their opinions and unique local content into their social graph. Connectivity to more major social networks will follow in the coming months.

-- More mobile -- Mobile by Citysearch puts reviewing into the palm of the consumer's hand. Key features include an interface tailored to each individual mobile device -- optimizing content layout and keystrokes required to surface search results -- on-the-go reviews, and mobile menus.

-- More intuitive -- The new interface offers a streamlined registration process, easy review writing interface, new search refinement and navigation tools. Other new features include a follow-along map with integrated content that moves as the user scrolls down the page, making it easier for users to see everything they need in one place.

What do you think of the update? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 9, 2008

Search Engines Top Source for Local Search

When it comes to conducting a local search, where do people begin their searches? This is the topic of a recent survey conducted by TMP Directional Marketing. They found that search engines top the list of sources used first in local search. Here's the breakdown:

Search Engines (31%)
Print Yellow Pages or White Pages (30%)
Internet Yellow Pages Sites (19%)
Local Search Sites (11%)

People searching for local businesses online has increased from 26% in 2007 to 30% in 2008.

90 percent of those surveyed find Yellow Pages directories a valuable source for business information, however, Yellow Pages usage experienced a 3 percent decline from 2007 to 2008.

20% of shoppers with standard cell phones have conduct a local search on their mobile device, while 60% of shoppers with Wi-Fi enabled phones have conducted local mobile searches. What do you think of this data? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

September 26, 2008

SEW Experts: When will ROBO's Time Come?

"Research online, buy offline," (ROBO) is the concept that a growing volume of product research is happening online while the majority of buying remains offline in physical stores. A growing number of local search engines are basing their business model on the concept. In today's vertical search column, "When will ROBO's Time Come?," local search expert Michael Boland explores some of the reasons why ROBO features haven't picked up on a mass market level.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 1, 2008

SEW Experts: Has Mobile Local Search Finally Arrived?

Can the iPhone and Google's Android fix the limitations that have plagued mobile advertising and mobile search? In today's vertical search column, "Has Mobile Local Search Finally Arrived?," local search expert Michael Boland notes that it could take a couple years to really get moving, but after a long period of being rusted shut, it appears that the wheels are finally starting to creak forward on local mobile search.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEW Experts: Universal Thoughts on Local Search

Local search is showing up in your Web browser, at your desk, on your phone, and on your GPS devices -- and these are just the easy examples. In today's SEM agency issues column, "Universal Thoughts on Local Search," William Flaiz explains that the number of devices and locations for local search will continue to grow as more things become connected to the Internet.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 30, 2008

Yellow Pages Beat Other Local Media in Online Sales in 2007

Local directories made 9% of their gross revenues online in 2007, while other local media such as newspapers and TV only made 5% online. Douglas Quenqua, over at ClickZ, has the full write up from the data released by Borrell Associates.

While search has threatened the industry, selling ads on the cheap has kept yellow pages companies competitive. And they aren't resisting the digital change.

Gordon Borrell, CEO of Borrell Associates, said, "We don't think yellow pages will disappear," said Borrell. "Eighty to 85 percent of people still use them at least once a year. They're eroding, but they won't completely collapse. They will just transform."

What do you think about the future of local directories? Read Quenqua's full article over at ClickZ and then come on back and leave a comment.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 18, 2008

Local.com Launches Ratings and Reviews Engine

Local search engine Local.com has announced the addition of ratings and reviews to their offering. Users can create a free account and give their opinion on businesses listed on the site. Ratings will use a 5 star system and users will be allowed to make comments to accompany their ratings.

“According to Jupiter Research, 77 percent of online shoppers use ratings and reviews when making a purchase,” said Kim LaFleur, Local.com vice president, product management. “We are pleased to launch our own ratings and reviews engine to allow consumers visiting Local.com to both add and access important information on local businesses throughout the U.S., enabling them to make more informed purchasing decisions. In addition, this allows our business customers to more proactively manage their own reputations and understand their customers' opinions (both good and bad) of their own products and services.”

The news comes at a time when data is showing that searchers are looking for answers. Additionally, search engines are beginning to move toward more comprehensive search results.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 8:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 30, 2008

SEW Experts: Winning the Local Search Battle

Consumers are shifting from "what to buy" category searches to "where to buy" phrases. With that specificity comes a higher propensity to purchase. In today's Vertical Search column, "Winning the Local Search Battle," local search expert Gregg Stewart looks at some of the publishers who are winning the local search charge.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 21, 2008

SEW Experts: Yellow Pages and Search

Yellow pages directories and search engines are hopelessly intertwined as directories feed search queries and search queries feed directories. In today's Searching for Meaning column, "Yellow Pages and Search," Kevin Ryan proposes a new spin on the old book that might just connect the dots.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 13, 2008

Superpages.com Launches Desktop Widget

Superpages.com has launched a Yahoo! Widget to provide easy local searching. The results come up right in the widget and once a business is clicked on, users will see reviews, maps and a business profile.

This is the latest effort by Superpages.com to adapt to an ever-changing marketplace. Previously, the company has developed Superpages.com applications for mobile phones, including Blackberry. Superpages also has a Google Gadget and a Browser Toolbar.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 15, 2008

Zvents blends local search with current events

One of the companies exhibiting at Ad:Tech San Francisco this week is Zvents, a local search engine company that specializes in things to do in big cities big and small towns. According to Paul O'Brien, VP of Marketing for Zvents, his local search engine is helping businesses draw foot traffic to their stores, restaurants and events all across the county.

That's a bold claim -- so I asked to see a demo for Boston events. My bad. It turns out Boston.com is one of the publisher partners for Zvents, along with the San Jose Mercury News, LA.com, and the Detroit News, to name a few.

So, then I asked to see upcoming events for Nevada City, CA. Umm. My bad again. It turns out that The English Beat is playing Saturday, April 19, at Miners Foundry.

Paul told me that Zvents is built on the premise that the Internet is rich in searchable experiences — until you want to find out what's happening where you live. Then it often falls flat.

Let's face it, Yellowpages.com provides listings, but it doesn't provide “news” about those businesses. Meanwhile, TV and newspaper ads contain information about upcoming sales, product deliveries, lectures and in-store events, etc., but this useful information is generally not searchable on the Internet.

Zvents has jumped into this gap to solve this problem.

How? Zvents has scooped up hundreds of media partners such as ones mentioned above along with more than 250 other media channels to create the Zvents Media Network. In a two-way exchange of information, Zvents' collects partner content, and at the same time uploads its own listings on partner sites. It also collects event and business information from the open web, and the user-generated content to create one of the most comprehensive localized search indexes on the Internet. Zvents built its platform using their own technology (Gordon Rios, the CTO, worked at Inktomi). And the company recently launched "Federated Local Search," making Zvents the first to provide a localized version of Google's Universal Search. Federated (or blended) search presents results that include images, text, local reviews, events, news, and business listings for a comprehensive search experience.

Large companies like REI benefit. Just Google REI Saratoga and you'll find the first search results page is littered with Zvents and its partners' listings.

And small companies benefit, too. Patric Douglas, the owner of Sharkdiver, is sold on Zvents. For his adventure shark tours, he doesn't need to spend a dollar on advertising, because he's an Internet-savvy marketer. One of the key resources he uses is Zvents. “When I post my excursions on Zvents, Sharkdiver jumps to the top of the Google search page. It's like being the only swimmer wearing a pink swimsuit in a pool full of blue bathing suits.”

At Ad:Tech, Zvents is unveiling its paid advertising platform. Businesses can now run display ads and enhanced listings, and Zvents' partners will share in the advertising revenues. Check 'em out. Their booth is # 5684.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 8:46 PM | Permalink

April 11, 2008

As Wifi expands, local and mobile search continue to emerge

Lately, there have been a swarm of announcements regarding Wifi coming to some previously unconnected spots. Jet Blue is testing limited wifi on one of its planes. California has installed Wifi in several of its state parks. And major metropolitan areas are adding Wifi to their transit systems. So what does this mean for Search Engine Marketers? A focus on local and mobile search.

Imagine this. A family has gone camping at a California State Park, but they didn't pack enough food or they need additional supplies. Will your business come up in the search results? Recently, Google released information that the average search query had increased from three to four words. It's quite possible that the fourth word turns a general search into a local one by adding a city, state or other location.

With so much attention given to universal search, personalization and social media these days, it might be easy to overlook local and mobile. But the expansion of Wifi is just further proof that SEO and paid search campaigns need the care of a constant gardener.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:51 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Think Universal, Act Local

Much of the discussion around Universal search, or blended search, focuses on video and images. In today's Vertical Search column, "Think Universal, Act Local," local search expert Michael Boland explains why local search may be a more important factor; one that has the greatest impact in blended search results.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 2:00 AM | Permalink

March 18, 2008

Marchex Shows How to Cash In on Local Search

So far, in the poker game that is doing business on the internet, four cards have been dealt: Communications, Search, Commerce and Social Networking. But the fifth card is sliding out of the dealer's hand and Marchex bets it's going to be local search.

In a new study, "2008 Perspectives on Local Online Advertising and Content," Marchex predicts local search will be the next big thing, and has identified five trends that are driving its growth:

The accelerating adoption of online advertising by small businesses
National advertisers expanding their presence in local markets online
Delivering phone calls to businesses across online and offline media
More effectively connecting consumers with local businesses
Greater efficiencies due to consolidation and innovation

What should you do to play your cards right in the local market? Marchex recommends:

Speak the local language
Understand the impact of online advertising on offline transactions
Recognize that most commercial searches have local intent
Set different goals and expectations for local campaigns
Understand your local strategy

One of the most significant concepts is the ability to provide answers on a local level. The report says:

Local content will provide answers to community related questions: "What's the status of construction down the street, and how will it impact my commute?" or "Where's the best place to park when I go to the away soccer game this Saturday?"

And the marriage of mobile with local search will be, unlike a quickie union at a Vegas wedding chapel, a solid one:

Mobile will extend the applicability of content originally developed "by locals for locals" to travelers who seek an insider's edge on how to get the most enjoyment out of their visit to a given neighborhood.

Facilitating all of this will be local conversations, useful to permanent residents and visitors alike. Enter social media.

Ultimately, five of a kind is the best hand you can get. That's why diversification and integration across all internet channels remains your best bet.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:58 PM | Permalink

March 14, 2008

SEW Experts: Universal Pictures Part II: Sizing up the Local Video Market

Last month, we looked at the opportunity for SMBs to use universal search to their advantage by producing and distributing online video. But what is the size of this local video market? In today's Vertical Search column, "Universal Pictures Part II: Sizing up the Local Video Market," local search expert Michael Boland crunches the numbers to define how much of the overall video ad market is also local.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

February 15, 2008

SEW Experts: Universal Pictures: Optimizing Video for Search

We hear a lot about universal search and how it will keep SEO professionals on their toes with constantly evolving ranking algorithms. So how can local online advertisers take advantage of universal search? In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Universal Pictures: Optimizing Video for Search," local search expert Michael Boland explains that creating optimized online video is a great opportunity for local marketers that are on top of their SEO game.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

January 11, 2008

SEW Experts: Local Search Lives or Dies by User Reviews

In the old days, consumer opinions regarding personal experiences with businesses were passed around in a practice known as "Word of Mouth" marketing. In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Local Search Lives or Dies by User Reviews," local search expert Gregg Stewart explains that the Internet has transformed word of mouth referrals into user reviews and ratings.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 14, 2007

SEW Experts: Online Video Finds Local Search

How should local business and national advertisers selling locally think about incorporating video and video search into their ad arsenals? In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Online Video Finds Local Search," local search expert Gregg Stewart points out that now is the perfect time to test the effectiveness of online video in your local search marketing-driven ad campaigns. Costs are still relatively low and online searchers are seeking this ad enhancement out when making local purchase decisions.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Local Search Lead Gen: Yellowpages.com Ingenio-us Strategy

Late last month, AT&T purchased pay-per-call search platform and advertising network Ingenio. In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Local Search Lead Gen: Yellowpages.com Ingenio-us Strategy," local search expert Michael Boland discusses what this means for AT&T Yellow Pages and, more importantly, Yellowpages.com, its Internet yellow pages (IYP) counterpart.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

November 30, 2007

SEW Experts: Local Search: Competing All Over the Map - Part 2

While Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft battle for online mapping domination, another competitor is fortifying its position quietly off to the side. In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Local Search: Competing All Over the Map - Part 2," local search expert Michael Boland looks at EveryScape, a new 3-D mapping beta site from MapQuest that could change everything you thought you knew about map-based advertising and local search.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

November 29, 2007

YellowPages.com Explains Ingenio Acquisition

Yellowpage.com CEO Charles Stubbs made a surprise appearance at ILM:07/ SES Local today to talk about AT&T's acquisition of call tracking provider Ingenio.

The acquisition didn't get the mainstream spotlight for the most part; admittedly, it's not the sexiest announcement out there. But it is big, and has gotten a nod in certain local search circles (Kelsey Group post here; and of Frank Watson posted about the deal here on SEW).

This comes down to a unifying call tracking platform to integrate with AT&T disparate media channels including Yellowpages.com, AT&T print directories and directional advertising that will emerge in new places such as IPTV.

"With all of the assets of AT&T, we needed a cross platform ad tool," said Stubbs. "This will be a common business platform to communicate to small business when our local sales reps sit down with them."

Stubbs admitted that selling clicks has been a great business for local (TMP Directional Media CEO Stuart McKelvey later presented data showing that more than 80 percent of local online advertising is resold by yellow pages sales channels). But a call is closer to most small businesses (and to the cash register) than a click is. This is especially true for certain categories such as trade services -- a huge local category.

Ingenio effectively brings this call tracking capability across AT&T media assets:"And Ingenio is more than call tracking," said Stubbs. "It gives us a platform for fraud protection, a self serve ad store and dynamic procurement across assets."

More importantly, it allows AT&T to execute better ad bundling to small businesses including clicks and calls across different forms of media including those mentioned above.

"There is a lot of fragmentation in the way consumers take in content. If we build 20 brands we'll split our audience," says Stubbs. "This is an attempt to unify our brands. It will be all about execution which won't be easy. But we'll continue to put smart people on it and get it done."

Posted by Mike Boland at 6:22 PM | Permalink

Citysearch Partners with MerchantCircle

Citysearch expanded its reach to small business advertisers and added small business content to its local guides through a deal with MerchantCircle, a social media network for local businesses. Combining Citysearch's high-touch, urban-reaching network with MerchantCircle's low-touch, mostly suburban base, makes for a complementary partnership, according to Citysearch President Jay Herratti.

In today's SearchDay, "Citysearch Looks to MerchantCircle to Complete Picture," Herratti and MerchantCircle chairman Ben Smith share their thoughts on local business search.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 6:18 PM | Permalink

November 28, 2007

YPA Adds Mobile to Local Search Guide

At The Kelsey Group's Interactive Local Media 2007/Search Engine Strategies Local show today in Los Angeles, the Yellow Pages Association launched a mobile section to its Local Search Guide. The Local Search Guide provides information on Internet Yellow Pages, search engines, search tools, vertical directories, and now profiles local mobile tools including voice-based search and free directory assistance providers.

According to a Local Search Guide home page poll, 66 percent of visitors are using mobile phones to search for local information. Of these voters, 37 percent say they use free directory assistance, 17 percent most often use SMS/text messaging and 12 percent say they use downloadable mobile search applications to find local information. An additional 34 percent report not using mobile search because the experience is frustrating.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:04 AM | Permalink

November 19, 2007

Poynt Gives New Local Search Option for Windows Live Messenger Users

Windows Live Messenger users have a new option for local search in the U.S.: Poynt. Multiplied Media has teamed with Idearc to deliver Superpages.com's full directory of local U.S. business listings over instant messaging platforms.

To use the service, consumers add the Poynt "buddy" to their contact list in Windows Live Messenger and interact with it like they would their other IM contacts. Once consumers have specified their search location, they enter keywords for the businesses and services they need and results are returned, with those closest to their specified search location listed first.

Poynt has been live in Canada with Yellowpages.ca data. Multiplied Media is currently developing an AOL IM version of Poynt as well.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:32 AM | Permalink

November 14, 2007

What Can Local Learn from Universal Search?

It remains to be seen how big of a role local search results will play in the blended search results that the major engines have all moved toward. But in the meantime, local content providers can learn a bit about self-promotion by following the search engines' lead.

In today's SearchDay, "What Local Can Learn from Universal Search," The Kelsey Group's Mike Boland looks at the long overdue opportunity to apply the principles of blended search to local search, with LiveDeal as an example of blended local search results.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:35 PM | Permalink

November 8, 2007

Here Come the Social Network Ads, Part II: The Local Angle

To follow up on Kevin Newcomb's post earlier this week, there are some interesting local search and small business advertising implications to Facebook's and MySpace's new ad platforms.

First to reiterate, both platforms will seek to utilize users' level of engagement, combined with the amount of information they make known about themselves through their profiles, interaction with friends and behavior.

But a key part of both ad platforms will also allow advertisers to target users by location. This will mostly be utilized by national advertisers that want to target users in certain geographies, but it could also have implications for small-business advertisers.

Some of these local advertising possibilities for Facebook have already been developed around classifieds, while MySpace has seen some activity around SMBs creating profiles to gain exposure through viral marketing. The new ad platform could create a channel for these businesses to more meaningfully market themselves on MySpace, similar to the way artists and bands have historically done.

One of Facebook's new ad products, Facebook Pages will similarly let small businesses build a profile -- just like an individual would -- which can develop a network of "fans" that connect to the business. Connecting to a business, writing on its "wall" and other activities will be very much the same as individual user profiles. The only difference is that the business has the option to promote that page within the Facebook network by buying demographic, geographic and keyword based targeting.

A newly opened tavern in San Francisco, for example, could target Facebook users between the ages of 25 and 40 that live in the city and have shown through their profile content, a behavioral affinity towards night life, microbrews and "gastropub" fare.

As part of its announcement, MySpace underscored that only 1 million of the 23 million SMBs in the U.S. advertise online, and most of that is search based advertising. Meanwhile MySpace has about 10 million companies of all sizes that have developed profiles on the network. The company is hoping the location-based targeting and other viral marketing capabilities baked into its platform will close the gap on the untapped SMB segment.

For both social networks, this however meets the traditional challenge (explored in an SEW expert column last month) of relying on small businesses to sign up on their own.

It's yet to be seen if this self provisioning challenge — made apparent through SEM — applies to social networking. There is a good chance it will, although it does have the baked in advantage of spreading itself virally as different small businesses get social and connect to one another. At least for MySpace, it won't just be "a place for friends" anymore.

Posted by Mike Boland at 7:01 PM | Permalink

October 25, 2007

Judy's Book to be Sold or Shuttered

Local search pioneer Judy's Book is folding to investor pressure and closing its doors, according to CEO Andy Sack: After 3+ years, our management team and board of directors has decided to scale back our operations at Judy's Book and seek a strategic acquiror. As a CEO, I know this is the right thing to do for our investors. But as an entrepreneur it's disappointing to stop chasing an idea just when it's beginning to take root in the popular consciousness.

Judy's Book launched in 2005 as a local reviews site, and transitioned in the summer of 2006 to a hub for local shopping deals and coupons.

Although full-time employees will be let go, Sack told ClickZ News that he has gotten at least six inquiries from potential buyers, so the site may not be quite dead yet. It won't be easy for the acquirer, he adds. "There's no question that doing something local on the Internet is really friggin hard," he said.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:11 AM | Permalink

October 19, 2007

SEW Experts: Searching for a Better Local Ad Model

The epic battle fought by "online pure-plays" and "brick and mortar" companies moves to a new frontier: local search. Local search products from online pure-plays eventually hit a wall: their ad models rely on self-service. In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Searching for a Better Local Ad Model," local search expert Michael Boland looks at some alternative ad models better suited to the local search market, like combining a comprehensive bundle of ad products with the right high-touch sales force.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

October 12, 2007

Google Earth Moves Out of the Silent Era

YouTube videos continue to get more and more portable as Google integrates them into other search products, and approaches a semblance of return on the $1.65 billion it paid for the video site.

The latest is today's announcement that Google will imbed YouTube videos throughout Google Earth, where geographically relevant. This comes days after the announcement that it will scale YouTube's universe of addressable inventory across the AdSense network. Together, these give YouTube content more places to live, and and more places to be monetized (more directly with the latter).

Today's announcement basically means that any video uploaded to YouTube that is geotagged will automatically show up on that location in Google Earth. Though this will attract an early adopter-sized following, it could eventually open up lots of possibilities for travel videos and also small business video advertising which is gaining steam all over the place.

For any small business or individual that does get on board, there would seem to be an opportunity to upload existing video creative to YouTube, geocode it with the precise location of the business and have it be among the first score this map real estate.

The real opportunity in a local search sense, however, is if this is brought to Google Earth's online cousin, Google Maps. Similar functionality already exists there through the MyMaps personalization feature, but it requires users to upload videos to personalized maps.

The Google Earth/YouTube integration, by comparison, has a lower barrier to build overall video content by having YouTube uploads to be geotagged for everyone to see. Although again, there won't be people lining up to do this initially.

This is also analogous to functionality in Flickr that lets photos be geotagged and show up in Yahoo! Maps. And of course there are scores of map mashups for more static media to be represented on a map in a thematic way (the Google Maps Mania blog does a good job chronicling these). Greater video integration just takes this to the next step.

With the growing popularity and portability of online video, it could begin to tie closer together with local search. Involving YouTube, a household name, in the process could lower the barrier for businesses (and anyone else) to get themselves and their videos "on the map" in a more meaningful way.

Posted by Mike Boland at 2:52 PM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Voice Search: Mobile Tactic Here. Now. 2DAY.

Mobile has long been called marketers' next emerging opportunity. So, from a local search standpoint, how do you prepare for the opportunity? In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Voice Search: Mobile Tactic Here. Now. 2DAY.," local search expert Gregg Stewart explains that a very old offering is hot once again: directory assistance (DA), and its new subcategory of voice search.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

October 10, 2007

LiveDeal, the Latest to Blend Local Search and Video

Local search and classifieds site LiveDeal announced today that it will integrate video content in its listings. This will allow individual sellers and businesses to upload videos to enhance their classifieds or directory listings.

This follows closely behind many local search and internet yellow pages sites that have blended local search and video over the past year, such as Yellowpages.com, Superpages, and Citysearch. Every major U.S. IYP in fact now has video capability in some form, as there is a clear trend towards video integration in local search.

Google's video addition to AdSense earlier this week meanwhile expand its own video efforts by scaling the distribution of YouTube videos beyond YouTube alone, to the expansive AdSense publisher network. This has local implications as well, with the speculation that Google could integrate video to AdWords by letting users and businesses upload video that is then placed with contextual and geographic targeting throughout AdSense and local search results (i.e. Google Maps).

LiveDeal is a decidedly smaller local search play, but nonetheless joins this video trend in local search. For LiveDeal, video likewise joins a set of content formats it has brought into the fold in the past six months to improve its site experience and expand its monetization opportunities.

This includes most recently, the launch of social features such as community discussion boards around classifieds and topics of local interest. This came weeks after the acquisition by YP.com which brought the site a unique combination of classifieds and directory content; complementary buckets of content that can be blended in certain kinds of searches (i.e. used cars + local dealerships).

Now adding video to the mix makes the site more compelling for users and advertisers. Various combinations of these elements -- social, video, business listings, etc. -- are differentiation strategies we're beginning to see more of in the crowded local search space. The expanded corpus of content these features bring also has SEO benefits.

But LiveDeal, unlike many other local search sites, has an edge in classifieds, one element of local search that has yet to see its potential integrations with video content and directory listings. We've seen classifieds blend with social media (i.e Craigslist), but video could be another element to expand the appeal of both.

This has also been seen to a limited degree lately in Buy.com's recently launched Facebook application for video classifieds. But look for various types of content to converge in more meaningful ways in the local search space -- a microcosm of the larger search world where parallel trends are happening, such as universal search.

Posted by Mike Boland at 4:12 PM | Permalink

October 5, 2007

SEW Experts: Is Optimization Key to Local Video Ads?

Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) providers have the customers and sales infrastructure to succeed at selling local video ads. But so far, they're overlooking the search optimization component. In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Is Optimization Key to Local Video Ads?," video search expert Grant Crowell explains why a video search optimization program could be just what IYPs need.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

September 27, 2007

Marchex Connects Its Local-Vertical Network

When Marchex added its OpenList technology to its 100,000 local and vertical sites in June, it marked the beginning of a process to turn a localized domain portfolio into a network of local sites. Today, it launched the hub of that network at OpenList.com, and expanded the network to 150,000 sites.

The OpenList network is made up of sites that are both local and vertical, such as NewYorkDoctors.com, TopekaDining.com, or IndianapolisAutoRepair.com. The sites are filled with local business information from Localeze, as well as reviews and other data crawled by OpenList, as well as content from partners, including the newly added OpenTable, Contractors.com, HealthGrades, and Judy's Book. Much of the content currently centers around restaurants and hotels, which were the first niches OpenList focused on when it started four years ago.

The OpenList technology allows users to search the site, or browse by categories. They can then drill down to filter results by several other factors, such as business type, cuisine of a restaurant, price level, rating level, or other features. Results are displayed on a Yahoo-powered map

Users can search from OpenList.com, or from one of the many local domains, which are powered by OpenList. Marchex displays contextual text ads it sells itself, backfilled by ads from Yahoo. Much of the traffic is currently driven by direct navigation to the local sites, but an increasing amount comes from search engines that index those pages. This is expected to increase as the sites are filled with more local content.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 5:10 PM | Permalink

September 21, 2007

SEW Experts: Think Local, Act Social

In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Think Local, Act Social," local search expert Michael Boland asks what bars, lawyers, restaurants and dog washers have in common? Answer: They all meet at the intersection of local and social search.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:29 AM | Permalink

September 17, 2007

Idearc Buys Switchboard, Other Assets from InfoSpace

Local search and directory publisher Idearc has acquired Switchboard.com and other directory assets from InfoSpace for $2 million in cash. Switchboard.com was acquired by InfoSpace in 2004 for $103 million. The directory products will be folded into Idearc's Superpages.com, and monetized through its existing ad products, giving advertisers access to more inventory and a new audience, according to a statement.

"With the addition of Switchboard.com and its associated networks, we are increasing the scale of our fast-growing local search platform, enabling our advertisers' content to reach even more consumers and boosting our high-quality organic Internet traffic base," said Kathy Harless, Idearc's president and CEO.

InfoSpace's online directory business offers directory services through InfoSpace's branded Web sites, such as Switchboard.com and InfoSpace.com, and through private-label distribution partners. The vast majority of the revenue is generated from Switchboard.com. For the first half of 2007, the business had revenues of $17.2 million, and employs approximately 50 people.

That would leave InfoSpace with a mobile business and a few metasearch engines like Dogpile and corresponding toolbars. But, as Andy Beal points out: "The Triangle Business Journal–yes we do have a tech industry in North Carolina folks–suggests that InfoSpace is also set to sell its entire mobile division to Durham-based Motricity."

Superpages.com's network had 21.3 million unique visitors in August 2007 and InfoSpace Directories and Resources had 7.7 million unique visitors in the same time period, according to comScore's Media Matrix for August 2007.

The latest in a string of product launches and investments by Idearc in local search.

UPDATE: According to Kate Kaye at ClickZ News, Idearc is touting the buy as a way to get more organic Web traffic, thereby limiting the need to rely on traffic from search engines. "We want to be able to control our own destiny," said Idearc President, Internet Eric Chandler, during a press conference call this morning. The acquisition, which will include InfoSpace's mobile application Find It, will provide Idearc with "more high quality organic traffic," he added. Existing agreements Switchboard has in place with search partners have caps on the amount of traffic that can be driven to its directories. "Once we own the traffic there are no caps for us," said Chandler.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:32 PM | Permalink

September 12, 2007

AmericanTowns Gets Idearc Backing, Sells LocalSearch.com

IYP publisher Idearc has invested in AmericanTowns, a collection of local city guides that aggregates content from various sources about local businesses, events, news and other resources. Idearc has also purchased the LocalSearch.com domain from AmericanTowns. Combined, the deal is worth $3.3 million.

Idearc will work with AmericanTowns to develop hyper-local content for its own local search offerings, and will take an equity interest and board seat at the start-up.

AmericanTowns.com will use proceeds from this transaction to continue growing its database, to develop new tools for community groups, and to add more user-generated content tools for its local sites.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:22 AM | Permalink

A Look at the Local Search Landscape

Are you confused by the myriad local search options popping up every other day? Wondering what you need to worry about, and what to tell your clients about local search? Marchex has attempted to simplify that for you with a new primer on the local search space, outlining the landscape of ad providers and publishers.

We break down the report in today's SearchDay, "The Local Search Landscape."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:23 AM | Permalink

September 6, 2007

ShopLocal Adds a Personal Touch

Local product search site ShopLocal announced today that it will integrate a set of social tools that will allow its users to form an identity on the site, and share commentary on products.

These tools specifically will let users create a profile, view product reviews, and join discussion forums on local products and promotions. Part of this will include personalizing an account where users can save and share deals they've found, track prices on certain products, and set up email alerts.

This is an interesting move for ShopLocal, which has already been known for some clever marketing tactics, particularly with viral video. It could be a valuable addition or user retention tool for its product, which is one of the handful of increasingly important sites that focus on driving offline conversions with online search.

Essentially this makes the site part CNET, part Yelp, and part Craigslist, (among other things). And as the value of social media outlets are tied to the principles of the network effect, the success of this integration will hinge upon how well this resonates with its current user base or how well it can attract new, possibly younger, users.

Social media is in fact becoming a competitive necessity in local search, and these features could create stickiness and keep users coming back to see what deals have fallen into their price alerts, or what others are saying about local deals. It must be recognized however that getting users to participate in social media is no easy feat -- as echoed in an interesting session on ratings and reviews at SES San Jose.

One of the keys is to know your audience and offer it the right tools and features. The poster child for this strategy so far has, no doubt, been Yelp in playing off the egos of twenty or thirty-something urban foodies, their desire to be social, speak out, and their general and proclivities for a social networking format.

This of course is easier said than done, and is easier to do in the restaurant vertical than others (who out there is clamoring to write a review about their plumber?). But Yelp's strategy still beat the heck out of giving away Starbucks cards which is what some local social search sites did to try to get users to participate.

Know your audience and what they like. We'll see if ShopLocal can execute on this formula.

Posted by Mike Boland at 11:05 PM | Permalink

September 5, 2007

Yellow Pages Provider Testing Voice-Enabled Local Search

Print and online Yellow Pages provider R.H. Donnelley is testing a new voice-enabled local search solution, dubbed "1-800-CallDex." The service, currently available in the Denver, Phoenix, Spokane and Tucson markets, provides free directory assistance (free DA) and local category search for consumers seeking businesses. The service provides addresses, phone numbers, business descriptions, hours of operation, payment methods and other information.

Free DA is a growing area, with limited consumer adoption and even more limited advertiser pick-up. The field is wide open to grab market share, with Jingle's 800-free411, AT&T's 1-800-yellowpages and Goog411 among the competitors.

R.H. Donnelley teamed up with Toronto-based Call Genie to power the service with its Enhanced Voice Directory (EVD) product. The latest release of the product allows consumers in 1-800-CallDex markets to refine their searches by referencing landmarks, neighborhoods and intersections. The system continuously updates itself to reflect how local residents refer to specific landmarks or locations.

R.H. Donnelley has made several moves to bring its offline dominance online. In July, the company announced its intent to acquire Business.com. This follows its 2005 acquisition of Dex Media, and the September 2006 acquisition of SEO/SEM firm LocalLaunch.

Just last week, the company announced an expanded relationship with Yahoo Local, distributing its online yellow pages data on Yahoo's network and streamlining the Yahoo Local ad-buying process for its print yellow pages advertisers.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:59 AM | Permalink

August 28, 2007

Yahoo!, Now with More Local Listings

Directory Publisher R.H. Donnelley announced today that it will partner with Yahoo! to give its advertisers more substantial presence on Yahoo! Local. This is part of its "triple play" effort to gain local listings distribution in print (Dex Directories), IYP (DexKnows) and through online partners.

Analagous to the long term triple play efforts of cable providers and telecos (bundling voice, data, and video products), this works towards gaining better distribution of existing content. In this case, the content is the listings that RHD's sales force brings in through traditional yellow pages ad sales.

According to the press release, this will come in three flavors:

Featured Listings — Sponsored listings with guaranteed placement on the first or second search results pages for broader exposure in a specific geography or category

Enhanced Listings — Sponsored listings that offer the ability to add a detailed business description, photos, tagline and coupons to create greater online visibility for businesses and enhance their appearance within organic results

Yahoo! Maps Business Listings — Sponsored listings within the context of a map-based view

The new addition gives the sales channel another tool in its toolbelt -- one that advertisers are increasingly asking for -- for a better cross-platform product. Direct distribution on Yahoo! Local also augments the general effort at RHD towards better online distribution, similarly accelerated a year ago when it acquired LocalLaunch.

This also joins other similar deals that have been formed in the past such as that between Superpages and Google; and you can expect directories/IYPs to increasingly develop online distribution and better ad bundling efforts.

As examined in the Kelsey Group's Local Search and IYP forecast released in March, IYPs will see a greater CAGR than the aggregate local search market, because of their physical sales channel, and the ability to execute more effectively on cross platform sales strategies.

For RHD, This deal applies to the 14 state region (Western and Midwestern states), where it distributes print directories, and where its sales force roams.

Posted by Mike Boland at 7:10 PM | Permalink

August 17, 2007

SEW Experts: This Just In, Google Recruits Local Sales Force

In today's Vertical Challenge column, "This Just In, Google Recruits Local Sales Force," Gregg Stewart gives you a heads up on Google Local Business Referrals and continues his review of local search strategies by covering underutilized local media sources.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

August 15, 2007

Yahoo! Local Gets a Facelift

Yahoo! Local today announced a redesign and series of upgrades to its site. Many of these changes represent a new effort to bring out user generated content, and to motivate users to participate in user reviews, according to Brian Gil, lead project manager of Yahoo! Local.

To augment this effort, the company has also modified its relevance engine. It will include the (hopefully) growing corpus of reviews content in its index with the intention of serving better local search results.

"We've always considered ourselves to be a social utility with a core focus on relevance and accuracy and depth of content," says Gil. "We're shifting the site design to spur more active engagement from the community, and we also modified our relevance engine to bring the best and closest results to users' [queries].

New features in particular will allow users greater access to existing reviews, such as commenting whether or not they were useful, and also put in their own two cents. This higher degree of interaction is hoped to grow the reviews content, in line with the aforementioned goal; and also expand the feedback loop and level of interaction among users.

The new site will also include a city guide tab which will represent the new face of Yahoo! Local and a new new jumping off point to local search. This will feature and delineate a few content verticals, which it would like to accentuate for both local searches and also, as mentioned above, ratings and reviews generation. These include special sections for Restaurants, Health & Beauty, and Home & Garden.

“This reflects that we are not just a dining guide or just focused specifically on arts an entertainment,” says Gil. “Of course it's a popular category and we strive to have the best content. But the types of demographics that we cater to and the types of experiences we're trying to provide go far beyond that. The focus will shift more towards homeowner demographics with a variety of different local purchasing needs.”

The redesign will also include a new "weekender" page which lists movies, events and activities that users can use to find stuff do do over the weekend, or whenever they can fit recreation into their lives. Initially this this will be geo-targeted only, but could develop according to Gil, to be personalized and behaviorally targeted to registered users.

There is also a buzz cloud, which joins many of the other new features in giving the site more web 2.0 appeal. This is likewise geo-targeted to show the most popular searches in a given community. Avatars and pictures are also included with user reviews and "MyLocal" personal profiles, similar to what Yelp has done with its successful reviews engine.

Overall there is nothing revolutionary about these enhancement, but they do represent a good evolutionary step for Yahoo! Local, which has a leading position in the local search world to protect, according to comScore data, and a legacy as one of the first online local search players.

More analysis of the social dimensions of the new Yahoo! Local to come in next week's vertical search expert column.

Posted by Mike Boland at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 8, 2007

SEW Experts: Yellow Pages and Search

In today's Searching for Meaning column, "Yellow Pages and Search," Kevin Ryan explains that yellow pages directories and search engines are hopelessly intertwined as directories feed search queries and search queries feed directories. A new spin on the old book might just connect the dots.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

August 2, 2007

The Gphone and Mobile Local Search

The Wall Street Journal reports today that we could be getting closer to the realization of the long-rumored Google phone. This could happen in one (or both) of two ways for Google: partner or build.

Partnering has been Google's angle into mobile search and services thus far, but it has only allowed it to push through watered down versions of its products such as Gmail for mobile and Maps for mobile. Having its own device would allow it to position itself more predominantly on the home screen, and build applications that are more compelling than carriers have been willing or able to do themselves.

Even if it has its own device however, partnering would require the perennial challenge of working with carriers who are famously unwilling to cede control over every facet of their network and every device that runs on it. Talks so far have only resulted in Verizon scoffing at the search revenue share that Google is asking for in prospective mobile search advertising. Gphone and iPhone: Catalysts for Change?

This defeatist position on the part of U.S. carriers has been the number one detriment to mobile local search innovation and application development. But the web browsing capabilities of the iPhone could finally be the avenue by which search application developers can sidestep the carrier control over the home screens of devices that run on their networks.

A phone from Google could do the same, if the company pushes its weight around enough, to appeal to carriers with an enticement of brand appeal and revenue boosting possibilities for data consumption, amidst hyper competition and falling revenues in the mobile voice arena. This is similar to how Apple got in bed with AT&T.

The iPhone will soon become compelling enough that other carriers will have to adopt (post-AT&T 2 year contract), despite worries over enabling a device that has wi-fi capability, an elegant browsing experience and other things that could allow consumers to sidestep consumption of carrier voice packets (wi-fi enabled VoIP is one concern here).

The same thing will happen with a prospective Google phone; carriers will come around out of necessity to compete. Give it time.

Go it Alone?

Google's other possible direction is to go out and buy it's own wireless spectrum - something it has indicated it would like to do at an upcoming government auction for a swath of open spectrum. This would take years to build and cost billions (I heard Google has some money though); and could land Google in a position, like the carriers, where it is forced to protect a massive investment.

On the bright side, this would essentially make Google its own carrier, with a direct channel to offer consumers all of the things that it has wanted to for years. In the meantime, partnering with carriers is still possible. Carriers will try, unsuccessfully, to block Google's overall forays into the mobile environment, but it will eventually enable it by partnering with the company out of short term competitive necessity.

Either way, we can finally expect to see meaningful innovation in the mobile local search arena. The Gphone itself is rumored to be free to consumers and completely ad supported, which could invoke a welcome sea change in the mobile telecom world.

Combine this with the iPhone's effect on stimulating mobile local search innovation and application development; and pervasive mobile local search and location based services could be here before we know it.

Posted by Mike Boland at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 27, 2007

SEW Experts: Pimp My Vertical Search

In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Pimp My Vertical Search," Michael Boland tells you about the future of local search in a verticalized world. See how Vehix uses the strength of video advertising and online search to give consumers local search on steroids and advertisers better direct response.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:01 AM | Permalink

July 25, 2007

SEW Experts: Turning Local Inside Out

In today's Searching for Meaning column, "Turning Local Inside Out," Kevin Ryan takes a look at what local search looks like today, and why one-stop technology and search providers have an advantage over the big sales forces and more heavily regulated telephone directory advertising..

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

July 24, 2007

SEW Experts: Don't be a Local-Yokel — Enhance Your Local Business Listings

In today's Little Biz column, "Don't be a Local-Yokel — Enhance Your Local Business Listings," Carrie Hill shows you how to enhance your local listings in Google Maps and Yahoo Local to bring more traffic to your site.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

July 20, 2007

SEW Experts: Getting Started in Local Search

In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Getting Started in Local Search," Gregg Stewart introduces a new column, Local Search, with information on how to get started in finding cost-effective leads and developing a media plan.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:01 AM | Permalink

July 19, 2007

Local.com Acquires PremierGuide

Local.com has picked up B2B local directory provider PremierGuide for a about $2 million. PremierGuide offers white-label business directories to local publishers, such as newspapers, radio and TV stations, and regional sites. Its network reportedly includes more than 350 regional media sites, including Community Newspaper Holdings, GateHouse Media, and Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive.

The business listings are designed to drive search traffic to the publisher sites, when the listings are indexed by search engines. The search traffic is monetized by ads displayed alongside the business listings, with ad revenues shared by PremierGuide and the publisher.

PremierGuide will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Local.com, and its founder and CEO, Malcolm Lewis, will become Local.com's VP, private label. Local.com plans to integrate PremierGuide's technology and product with the company's LocalConnect platform to provide an additional turn-key private-label solution to regional media.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:28 PM | Permalink

July 18, 2007

Hyper-Local Gets a Vote of Confidence

Dallas based Hyper local news and events site Pegasus News has announced it will be acquired by Fisher Communications. The deal will bring Pegasus' online local and hyper-local content capabilities to Fisher's existing properties, including 19 television and radio stations throughout the Pacific Northwest.

This comes days after Backfence, one of the original "hyper-local" online destinations announced it will close its doors (see co-founder Mark Potts' blog post earlier this week and SEW past coverage of Backfence's woes here and here). This has caused general awareness and speculation of online hyper-local destinations which are growing in number including Outside.in, SmallTown, CitySquares, and FatDoor.

Pegasus News founder Mike Orren has his own view on what hyper-local should be, which builds upon the generally accepted definition that, itself, is somewhat amorphous (see past SEW expert column on hyperlocal). Specifically, he believes hyper-local content (i.e. the high school box score, the mother's group meeting schedule) is important, but not enough to exist alone as a core feature to any local search site. You have to be holistic to the entire metro, he contends.

"Even with hyper-local, you have to cover the entire metro for it to work," he told me. "People aren't just identified with their community: You're a little bit your neighborhood, a little bit the food you eat, the music you listen to and the city you work in. Neighborhood content is important, but you have to put that in front of the basketball score someone will look for and where they are going to eat tonight – which may not be in their neighborhood."

Breathing New Life into Hyper-Local

This mindset works particularly well with the assets that it's new parent brings to the table. Specifically, the cities throughout the Pacific Northwest where Fisher hangs it's hat (i.e. Portland, Seattle, Tacoma, etc.) are conducive to Pegasus' particular brand of content aggregation and local flavor that has proven successful on its home turf of Dallas Tx.

"We work best in larger metros with lots of suburban sprawl," says Orren. "Yeah it could probably work well in New York City, but we're much more interested in places that have not a lot of media coverage and a lot of people that engage in entertainment in the city, but also want to come home and go to their kid's soccer game."

The Fisher ownership will also give it more resources to bring in user generated content and community participation, which have proven difficult to incentivize for Backfence and others. This could happen through the cross-promotional efforts of the new parent's radio and television media, and the overall resources they could bring to Pegasus.

"User generated content doesn't just find you," says Orren. "A fair amount of seeding and harvesting is required. With more resources, we can spend more time with high schools and community groups to engage them to contribute to the site and supplement what we're doing."

Next up for Pegasus is to develop monetization strategies around locally relevant behavioral advertising. Orren would also like to deepen content in niche areas such as theater, music and events, which will have SEO benefits and also serve to improve the customization and personalization tools that have characterized its user appeal.

"Customization gets better with a bigger body of content," says Orren, explaining that, here again, the resources that Fisher brings to the table and the boost in exposure will help Pegasus get there.

"It will hopefully turn everything up a little and help us go from being an intriguing startup to the next stage of legitimacy," he says.

Posted by Mike Boland at 1:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 2, 2007

Even More Local Search Patents

When we wrote last week about Local.com's new local search patent, we pointed out that there were far too many patents being issued in that space. That's only gotten worse this week, with another local search patent awarded to Local.com, this time for ad-supported 411 calls.

Once again, this patent seems to be in direct conflict with an existing patent, one from Jingle Networks.

There's either going to have to be some litigation, or consolidation of businesses or patents between the various players. In the meantime, it's the users and advertisers who will suffer, since the confusion in the marketplace and looming lawsuits will only serve to scare off advertisers and slow the growth of local search.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:15 PM | Permalink

June 27, 2007

Marchex Launches Content-Rich Direct-Navigation Strategy

Marchex today launched 100,000 local and vertical Web sites, all with unique content. The sites include yellow pages listings, user-generated and expert ratings and reviews, and of course plenty of ads. The content is generated by Marchex using technology it acquired from Open List last May.

The portfolio contains sites like videocameras.com, chicagodoctors.com, newyorkdining.com, and hundreds of zip code sites, such as 90210.com. Traffic comes from users who type the URL directly into their browser, or from search engines that index these sites.

Marchex expects to expand the Open List content to more of its 200,000 direct navigation sites in coming months. It will also link all of these sites back to OpenList.com in the fall, creating a huge local search engine and ad network.

"Our portfolio of sites up until very recently was, in essence, all ads," Matthew Berk, lead search architect at Marchex and a founder of Open List, told ClickZ. With the new changes, he said, "It's walking someone through the decision process, so you can help them ask the questions they didn't necessarily know to ask up front. The Open List experience has always been about refinement."

Open List started as a travel-centric network of sites, with listings for hotels, restaurants, and attractions. Marchex has expanded the categories over the last year to include more business listings in dozens of categories. Last month, Marchex partnered with Fox to develop a set of Spanish-language Web sites owned by Marchex.

Ads are served by Marchex's own Marchex Network ads, supplemented by Yahoo ads.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:30 AM | Permalink

June 26, 2007

Ingenio Data Attempts to Crack the Code on Mobile Usage

Pay-per-call provider Ingenio and market research firm Harris Interactive released results of a survey today that shows interesting data around consumer preferences for mobile devices and advertising.

Like any up and coming area, knowledge or consumer preferences is important to lead product development; and nowhere is this more relevant than in mobile search, where there is a great deal of experimentation and speculation and no clear cut models for content or ad delivery.

Though mobile search and advertising are different than the PC environment, Ingenio chief marketing officer Marc Barach contends that there are similar opportunities to build ad models, although there is also a need to adapt content delivery methods and ad formats to the specific needs of mobile users.

A few data points from the survey are:

-- 63 percent of respondents claim their cell phone is very personal to them while 49 percent indicate that they use their phones for more than just calls including sending and receiving text messages (36 percent), and taking, sending and receiving photos (24 percent).

-- 74 percent of those 18-34 meanwhile use their cell phones for more than just making phone calls. This is compared with 20 percent of those ages 55 and up.

-- Over the next three years 57 percent of respondents anticipate using their phones for more than just making and receiving phone calls. Among those 18-34 the numbers are greater (75 percent) compared with ages 55 and up (33 percent).

-- 85 percent of adults own a mobile phone compared to 71 percent who have a land line. Among those aged 18-34, 89 percent own a mobile phone, while only 57 percent have a land line.

-- Among mobile ad formats, 26 percent of respondents favored sponsored text links that appear as a result of searches (ads relevant to a search query). 21 percent favor audio ads that play instead of ringing while waiting for a call to answer, followed by 20 percent that find text message ads acceptable.

-- In each category, younger generations found ads more acceptable than their older counterparts (i.e. 28 percent of mobile phone users ages 18-34 find text messages from companies to be at least somewhat acceptable, compared to only 14 percent of those ages 45 and up).

-- Among those who have ever called 411 from their mobile phones, commercial (74 percent) and restaurant (72 percent) phone and address listings are the most frequently sought after types of information.

So what does all of this mean?

A sizable opportunity exists with mobile advertising in standard and universal formats such as voice and SMS (more robust search on smartphones and WAP browsers meanwhile have lower -adoption, although this could be accelerated by some mobile usage trends and the market penetration of the iPhone).

Users' need to find local information and act on it is presumed to be greater with the mobile use case, than with online search, given mobility and in some cases immediacy. This also lets advertisers reach users at vital decision points when intent to buy is at more desirable levels.

Targeting advertising effectively, in a way that satisfies user preferences shown in this and in other studies, is where the strategy will lie on a tactical level. There are lots of implications in the demographic segmentation of these findings, and the stated threshold for enduring different formats of mobile advertising. Multi-modal search and ad serving technologies being developed by Tellme and others show a great deal of promise in having the user-centric qualities that these data highlight.

Push-to-talk functionality further this utility; and the pay per call ad models that can sit behind this functionality could have a great deal of appeal to advertisers that wish to get in front of mobile users at the right times. This is even more so than online pay-per-click models where, by comparison, there is physical (and, arguably mental) disconnect between the PC and phone. But when you're dealing with mobile technologies, "It is, after all, a phone," says Barach.

High Consideration Mobile Search

It's also interesting to note that these findings are in line with previous Ingenio data that show impulse local searches (i.e. restaurants, entertainment, hotels, etc.) represent two-thirds of mobile pay-per-call volume. The remaining amount is comprised of more considered purchase categories such as real estate and debt management.

So what this these new data tell us, according to Barach, is that combined with the steady growth in financial and real estate categories that he is seeing, mobile users' intent to use their phones for more than just calls will equate to an increasing portion of searches in these more considered purchase categories.

Lastly, In addition to the ad serving strategies that these data can help model, they have also been valuable, according to Barach, to step back and see the overall opportunity that exists, due simply to the lack of a clear and prevailing ad model in the local environment.

"What we didn't realize was how open the model is from a monetization perspective," he says. "What hit us on the side of the head here was that only 30 percent of users could recall seeing an ad on their phone. People view their cell phones as a communication device that strengthens their personal relationships that they use all the time, yet the ad model has yet to find itself in this environment if so few people can ever recall seeing an ad."

Posted by Mike Boland at 5:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Skrenta Steps Down at Topix

Rich Skrenta, CEO of news aggregator and local search site Topix since its launch five years ago, is stepping down from his position, but retain a seat on Topix's board. He'll be succeeded by Chris Tolles, who has been VP of marketing at Topix since 2004, and who worked with Skrenta to build the Open Directory Project before selling it to Netscape in 1998.

Earlier this year, Topix revised its news aggregation model to become more of a citizen journalism site.

You can read more about Skrenta's decision on his blog.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:27 PM | Permalink

June 25, 2007

Local.com Gets Location-based Search Patent

The local search space is becoming a patent battleground. in the third local search patent to surface in the last month, Local.com today announced that it's been awarded a patent for "indexing and retrieving web-related information by geographical location."

Last month, Jingle Networks won a patent for elements of its 1-800-FREE-411 service, which serves targeted voice ads from related businesses and competitors when a user looks up a local business on its service.

Earlier this month, London-based Geomas sued Verizon and its Idearc spin-off, claiming that Idearc's Superpages.com infringes on a patent it owns for location-based search.

It's not likely that all of these seemingly overlapping patents, and other emerging patents, can all be enforced. The local search space is certainly overcrowded with start-ups, so a little bit of patent-enforcement might help with consolidation in the market. On the other hand, it can also stifle the growth of the industry, if the major players get involved in an all-out patent war. It would be best for the industry if these issues could get sorted out swiftly and decisively, but that's rarely the case in situations like these.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:52 AM | Permalink

June 20, 2007

Google Maps Integrates User Reviews (Finally)

Google yesterday announced on the Lat Long Blog that it will begin to offer the opportunity to read and write user generated reviews of businesses that show up in local listings in Google Maps.

Reviews in Google Maps can now be found in a small link that accompanies most business listings. These will join the aggregated professional reviews that Google has traditionally pulled from various sources.

The AJAX functionality of the new reviews feature causes a small window to open in which users can easily write a review and designate a rating from one to five stars. Though Google is showing up late to the user reviews party (Yahoo! has had this for almost two years), this feature is decidedly simpler and more intuitive than writing reviews in Yelp, Yahoo! and others.

This is important in an area where incentivizing participation and lowering barriers to adoption can be a key differentiator. One of the key challenges, in fact, of building social search and reviews-driven local search destinations is motivating the critical mass of reviews content and user participation to make the offering worthwhile.

This is much more of a challenge for new online destinations that try to differentiate themselves with reviews features as their main selling point, than it is to add such a feature to an existing well traveled search destination. On the other hand, it will have less relevance in many cases within Google Maps, than on sites that have branded themselves as strong local search destinations for certain demographics, or within certain verticals, such as Yelp and Citysearch (see previous post on the verticalization of local search).

Regardless, user ratings and reviews are becoming a standard in local search, and are on the product road maps of nearly every new local search startup that I talk to. They are also being aggressively developed by online yellow pages stalwarts such as Yellowpages.com and Superpages.com. Data from The Kelsey Group's most recent User View survey also show the growing importance of user reviews to online users.

Google has meanwhile shown a clear interest in beefing up the content that is available to users in Google Local and Google Maps. Back in March, it announced new features to its Local Business Center to allow businesses to add or edit information about themselves. This is very much in line with good (and basic) SEO in making these listings more content-rich and also more user-centric.

User reviews are a step in the same direction and further the social media qualities of Google Maps, also seen in the recently launched MyMaps personalized map feature.

Posted by Mike Boland at 3:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 13, 2007

Cable TV and Local Search

As Cable television providers test the waters of on-demand programming in the early days of the medium, some have begun to test user preferences in local markets for viewing hyper-local content in an on-demand fashion. Comcast in particular has begun to serve coverage of local events on its on-demand programming menu. This includes things such as high school sports, local parades, and local interest news stories.

This is an interesting move for Comcast, in that it brings local video content into more of pull based delivery mechanism, akin to the development that video is seeing online. The next step could be to integrate small business video advertising to on-demand menus, which would make them more directional and pull based than they have traditionally been in local cable advertising. Comcast already done this to a certain extent with its Spotlight classifieds ads.

Local cable has traditionally been the medium through which small businesses can advertise with video. Comcast and others even have sales channels already in place for this. But the growing adoption and exposure of local video advertising thanks to, TurnHere, Spot Runner and others, should increase demand among small business advertisers for video.

At the same time, it could be the right time for the fusion of local directional advertising and on demand cable, given the popularity that the latter has shown for cable programming. 54 percent of digital subscribers watched an on-demand program, up from 35 percent in 2004, according to the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing. Jupiter research also reports that about 35 million U.S. households subscribe to digital cable. For local on demand content specifically, Comcast reports 2 million views for the first quarter, compared to 3.7 million views for all of 2006, according to the Associated Press.

The integration of small business video ads with on-demand programming could involve the capability to view inventory, after seeing, say, an auto dealer ad. It might also be beneficial to tie these together with national brand advertising, especially in the case of autos. When I spoke with Vehix.com CEO Derek Mattson in March, he expressed a strong belief that this is where things are headed.

This will bring video content closer to the benefits of search in its ability to target advertising. And as pointed out in The Kelsey Group's most recent User View study (wave IV), online pull based video advertising showed a strong response rate; and reaching consumers in this manner increases the likelihood of reaching attractive and buying empowered users. These demographic factors holds true for broadband users and digital cable subscribers alike.

There is a lot of opportunity here, but questions remain, such as users' desire to pull in local video ads in this venue. Perhaps integrating directory listings could tie video content to the use case of people looking for things locally. Online yellow pages such as Yellowpages.com have begun to talk about this integration.

For this to work, cable providers also have to work on improving the capabilities and search interfaces of their on-demand menus. The looming challenge posed by telco-delivered IPTV offerings, could light a fire under them to start doing this.

Posted by Mike Boland at 7:21 PM | Permalink

June 6, 2007

Avvo: Web 2.0 For Legal Search

New legal search destination Avvo launched yesterday. Like other legal search destinations in this space such as FindLaw and LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell, it offers users search tools to find lawyers in different categories and in different locales.

Avvo CEO (and former attorney at Preston, Gates, & Ellis) Mark Britton claims there hasn't yet been an online brand galvanized in the eyes of consumers to find a lawyer, because of a lack of sufficient ratings, reviews, search tools and processes to "hold consumers' hands" through the process of researching and choosing the right lawyer.

With this assertion, the company has developed a 3 step process to guide users through this process. The biggest value-add here could be Avvo's proprietary ranking system for individual lawyers (although LexisNexis also has a rating system). To formulate this 1-10 ranking it has created an equation that brings in ratings from users, other lawyers and publicly available databases such as state bar associations.

"This is a free tool that assess any lawyers ability to handle your case," he says. "We've gone out and collected this data [from] public records, court room records and bar association records to take the legwork out of it for the consumer."

The system ranks thousands of lawyers in 10 states currently, and in about 110 practice areas based on experience, education, or any slaps on the wrist they may have received while practicing.

"This includes the disciplinary history for every lawyer for ever state we cover and eventually for every lawyer in the country," he says. This has however raised some eyebrows and speculation from lawyers who feel there isn't enough public data available to get an accurate snapshot of a lawyer's credibility and quality.

The Zillow-ing of Legal Search

The aggregation of all this data to form a valuation, gives Avvo some some similarities to the publicly derived automatic value estimates pulled together by real estate search company Zillow. Zillow Chief Executive Rich Barton in fact sits on Avvo's board and the two companies share sources of funding from Benchmark Capital and Ignition Partners which together invested $10 million in Avvo in April.

The company also allows lawyers to go in and add information about themselves to bolster their listing and also feed into the rating they get. Again, this is similar to Zillow's offering to homeowners to provide information that assists in home valuations (zestimates) such as recent renovations or value enhancements that might not be reflected in public records.

This user generated content will also boost the SEO value of these individual lawyer profiles by deepening the content. Done on a large scale, this can have traffic generating abilities and natural marketing benefits for Avvo. This is similar to the strategy recently set in motion by Google in its Local Business Center to enhance its local search results by allowing businesses to populate and update the profiles for their own Google Local listings.

Lawyers will be able to do this on Avvo by registering with a credit card, vouching for their own identity (as is done with homeowners on Zillow) and then populating their profiles with anything they think will lend credence, trustworthiness, or marketing benefit to their profiles. The level of competition and margins in the legal profession could increase the chances of this participation and content generation, Britton hopes.

"With lawyers, you have a highly competitive marketplace," he says, "There are 827,000 private practices with half of them being solo practitioners that are just trying to keep the doors open and get clients in the door."

Posted by Mike Boland at 5:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

June 1, 2007

SEW Experts: The Local Video Revolution

In today's Vertical Challenge column, The Local Video Revolution, Michael Boland addresses the latest trends in local online video. He points out that video is a perfect venue for small businesses to advertise and for local search destinations like Citysearch, Superpages.com and YellowPages.com to integrate video with existing forms of local search advertising.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 5:51 AM | Permalink

May 31, 2007

SpotRunner Dives Deeper into Local

Yesterday, local video ad and distribution provider Spot Runner announced a deal with Lexis Nexus Martindale Hubbel. This gives the company closer access to local advertisers in the legal vertical by opening up a single point of entry to a broad base of private attorneys.

The deal will make Spot Runner's ad creation engine and cable spot buying dashboard available to Lexis Nexus affiliated law firms. This is very similar to Spot Runner's deal with Coldwell Banker in the real estate vertical that gives the firm's far flung agents immediate access to customize 30 second ads and choose where they want them distributed.

This involves voice overs and text that are overlayed on stock video footage (available for many different advertising categories). The cable spot buying dashboard then lets advertisers choose geographic and demographic targeting for where the ads will run. The price for ad creation is $500, while ad placements can be as low as $12 (surprisingly) for 30 second spots on comedy central and CNN in some markets.

These deals for spot runner are the best way for the business to scale. Otherwise it is addressing a very wide and fragmented segment of small businesses. This becomes even harder if you look at the fact that it employs a self service model without a sales force. One single deal with a large business with many decentralized constituents effectively gives it a single point of entry to many local businesses.

But the significance this announcement is that it's Spot Runner's first move into the legal vertical. Real estate and autos have already caught on quickly with video advertising and represent the biggest advertiser groups for Spot Runner. This is because of the high consideration items, pressure for leads, and high margins that have made early adoption a necessity, and advertising spends somewhat inelastic. These factors are also very much present in many professional services areas including lawyers.

Spot Runner's move into the legal vertical is also significant because it is an area traditionally "owned" by yellow pages publishers. In fact, this should be a call to action for yellow pages publishers to begin to offer video advertising to local professional services advertisers.

This could be a complimentary addition to the advertising bundle they currently offer including print and online (internet yellow pages) placements. Spot Runner could be a nice creative partner in rolling this out, but it currently offers only cable distribution. Other video producers such as TurnHere and Spotzer offer online video distribution, and Spot Runner will likely follow suit soon.

The model for IYPs and local search destinations could be a video window that is embedded in individual business listings that is sold as an additional ad unit or upsell. Many IYPs that spoke at The Kelsey Group's Drilling Down on Local conference -- including Yellowpages.com and YellowBook.com -- expressed a pressing interest to do this. But they better do it quick, or someone else will. Oops, Citysearch already has.

More on the subject of local video advertising in an upcoming SEW experts column.

Posted by Mike Boland at 5:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 25, 2007

SEW Experts: Getting Hyper-Active in Local Search

In today's Vertical Challenge column, Getting Hyper-Active in Local Search, Michael Boland dives into the world of hyper-local, where newspapers and online startups use local online communities to get an edge on news aggregators like Google and Yahoo.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:43 AM | Permalink

May 23, 2007

Local.com on a Roll II

Following its string of recent announcements (previous posts on Local.com here and here), Local.com today unveiled a new mobile search product.

Known as Local Mobile, the ad supported mobile site lets users search by entering keywords and locations using mobile device keypads. This includes access to Local.com's business profile pages, mapping, driving directions, click to call, and the ability to send listings to other mobile users (using SMS).

Mobile distribution of listings will be built into the company's ad offerings to local businesses, which currently include online featured listings and landing page development.

This falls in line with Local.com's slow reinvention of itself that should help it to gain more users and advertisers in the highly competitive and quickly developing local search space. Some of the company's recent developments have involved site enhancements and redesigns while most are new ad products.

Today's press release can be found here

Posted by Mike Boland at 5:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 17, 2007

New Local Search Site: LocalGuides

Denver-based Local Matters has launched a new local search site, LocalGuides.com. The site lets users create lists of favorite local businesses, based on destinations, like "jazz clubs," or on a task, like "kitchen remodel." The site also incorporates social media elements by letting users share those guides with friends, or with all other users.

"Consumers want more involvement with local information. While some progress has been made in a few entertainment categories, the search industry has failed to give consumers useful tools for personalized local information and opinions," Perry Evans, Local Matters CEO, said in a statement. "LocalGuides.com fills this void by creating a relevant and engaging shared-consumer experience, while also helping local merchants find new ways to connect with their local audience. This is a big part of what has been missing in Local Search."

Writing on his blog, Evans describes LocalGuides as a mix of local, social and vertical search.

"We think we have made it engaging to turn your list into a richly annotated guide that you'll be excited to share. A very web 2.0 style mash-up tool sits at the center, supported by lots of local content aggregation with simple tools for finding, copying and sharing guides," he writes.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:18 PM | Permalink

May 11, 2007

From Online Research to Offline Shopping

A new report from Accenture reveals that the majority of product research happens online, while the majority of purchases resulting from that research happen offline in local physical store locations.

Specifically, the report notes that 67 percent of survey respondents prefer to make purchases in physical stores while 69 percent research product features online and 68 percent compare prices online. Combining these variables, 58 percent said they locate items online before going to a store to purchase, while only 13 percent said the Internet plays no part in their offline shopping.

The Kelsey Group research indicates that with purchases over $500, where the Internet is the starting point, over 90 percent of the transactions finish offline. comScore meanwhile reported last year that 63 percent of search related purchases happen offline; and The U.S. Census Bureau reports that e-commerce represents only 2.5 percent of U.S. retail spending.

Many business models have developed with these findings in mind including NearbyNow, Yokel, ShopLocal, and StepUp Commerce. Each puts varying levels of product and inventory information online in a searchable fashion, for offline local shopping. ShopLocal deals with big box retailers; NearbyNow with shopping center retailers; and StepUp with small businesses. Collectively, all three mostly cover the gamut of retail segments.

StepUp is probably the furthest ahead of the game in terms of providing real time inventory feeds that it gets from small businesses. StepUp's ability to reach a large and fragmented base of small businesses was a driving factor in Intuit's acquisition of the company, Google's partnership with the company; and the melding of all three, in the Google AdWords integration into QuickBooks.

We're getting closer and closer to more reliable data served in easier to use formats by these and other companies that may eliminate the need for the store phone call - a commonly used method, even to double check information gained online. But even a call to the store is an imperfect art, given often-times busy store clerks; or the latency and general human error factor in communicating how much a specific item costs, or how many are on the shelf.

The key to solving this problem could be tighter integration of online experiences with in-store inventory management and point of sale software systems, in order to offer true online real time inventory data. Optimizing the data for searchability will also represent an important challenge; and new local product search site Krillion deserves a nod for the SEO efforts it is applying to literally millions of individual product listing pages.

Intuit's stake in the point of sale software market positions StepUp to integrate reliable data with its online product and inventory search product, which could push forward the ties between online research and offline shopping. The tracking benefits inherent in a tighter feedback loop between the two will also enable more affective ROI assessment for online advertisers, which has traditionally been a fallback of the online-offline purchase funnel.

A tighter integration could also, importantly, improve the user experience and effectively drive adoption of local online product research and in store buying beyond the levels portrayed by Accenture and others.

For local advertisers - especially in high consideration product categories such as major appliances and high-end consumer electronics - this means there is an opportunity to increase store foot traffic through more effective and data-rich online advertising.

Posted by Mike Boland at 2:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 4, 2007

Local.com on a Roll

No, that's not a menu item at Venture Frogs restaurant (the San Francisco bubble-era eatery that featured dishes named after tech companies).

Local.com has announced new enhancements to its SERPs including:

· Sort search results by rating, distance, business name and category · View search results within a defined radius · Filter results by related categories and nearby cities · Sort by star ratings and read user reviews · Access recent searches, which are now automatically saved for easy reference

This comes days after launching its Local Verified annual fee-based paid placement product, and weeks after launching the LocalPromote landing page product.

The SERP improvements should help the company continue to gain traction among users, as the site experience has improved a great deal. Although many of these features bring the site on par with the top local search destinations, rather than above or beyond, as pointed out by Greg Sterling. This has also included a move away from banner ads, to a more text ad oriented SERP.

On the advertiser end, LocalPromote will bring more small businesses online, in line with the webification trend that is driving a lot of product development in the local search space. It's an attractive landing page tool that takes a lot of the guesswork out of establishing an online presence for the majority of small businesses that aren't inclined to go out and build (or commission) a website.

This should help Local.com expand its addressable market, and the pool to which it can upsell a growing stable of ad products and formats.

Posted by Mike Boland at 3:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 2, 2007

Citysearch Updates Site, Adds Video

IAC-owned local search site Citysearch has redesigned its site, and has added new features like improved recommendations and video.

Video on Citysearch, powered by TurnHere's network of more than 2,000 professional filmmakers, is intended to tell authentic stories about local businesses and their owners, and give users a chance to experience the ambiance and meet the owners of businesses before visiting.

Besides the video features, Citysearch has added:

Enhanced search and browse capabilities: Search results for specific businesses by name and across categories, or browse local information in more than 500 categories.
Personalized suggestions: My Citysearch offers recommendations based on a user's recent search activity and popularity of similar locations.

"Citysearch's enhancements answer consumer demand for a better local experience," Matt Booth, senior VP at The Kelsey Group, said in a statement.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:03 AM | Permalink

April 30, 2007

Ebay: Now Portable

TechCrunch reports on eBay's new widgets that let any seller take their listing "to go" and plant it on a blog or website.

The widgets are mostly flash based and have animation that you can't find on eBay's own network. This could represent an effort to test new flash based functionality before the company integrates it throughout its own network. This seems unlikely however, given the very conservative interface evolution path eBay has taken over the past nearly 15 years.

This is also uncharacteristic move of eBay in that it's a usually a closed system that is relatively averse to distribution through new channels and formats. But this seems like a good move which will could push out eBay listings and give them more exposure than they would only on eBay proper.

It's also very similar to the line of widgets recently launched by vFlyer. And like those, eBay could gain significant traction within its very strong autos vertical, where many dealers will likely jump on the opportunity to plant their eBay listings on their own sites in a new and interesting way.

Autos and real estate are verticals generally quick to adopt new technologies because of the margins involved and the traditional pressure to get leads. Leads in fact are highly inelastic in these industries which is why they hold the best upsell opportunities for paid classifieds tools.

This is why vFlyer focuses on these verticals, and eBay can likewise drive business to its own site by further putting itself and its listings "out there" in the marketplace with these free tools that will serve as tentacles into the blogosphere.

Screenshots of the new widgets are at TechCrunch.

Posted by Mike Boland at 8:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 26, 2007

The Simpsons on Search

A quirky item for your Thursday afternoon: This YouTube clip (hurry before it's gone) shows Marge Simpson in a variety of search related activities. It pokes fun at everything from online shopping, to Googling oneself, to banner ads, to Google Earth.

Now if Google Maps can only find Springfield and settle the longstanding debate over what state it's in (rumored to be settled in the upcoming Simpsons movie). My money is on Oregon, near Matt Groening's hometown of Portland.

Posted by Mike Boland at 6:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 25, 2007

NearbyNow in 100 Cities by the Holidays

Local search company NearbyNow has built a unique model that helps shopping mall retailers bring in foot traffic by putting their product info and inventory online. A longer description of the company's model is in a previous post on The Kelsey Group blog.

Building off of this, the company has developed a mobile (SMS based) tool that lets mall shoppers search for deals while they are in the mall. This not only has the benefits of proximity and captive audience, but it utilizes a mobile medium that is well suited towards the very demographic it is targeting - the mall rat demographic (for lack of a better term).

Surprisingly, this has also proven to catch on among another large demographic of mall shoppers, according to CEO Scott Dunlap: the soccer mom.

"Moms are learning how to text message," he said. "Either American Idol has taught them, or in some cases, It's the only way their kids will talk to them over cell phones, so they've learned how to do it out of necessity."

The company's main offering is a private label local shopping research and inventory search engine that powers mall partners' websites. The gating factor to its expansion has thus partly been the malls that it signs on as partners. It has been able to do this at a steady clip over the past six months with a handful of major shopping center corporations such as Westfield. It is currently present in 20 U.S. cities and it plans to be in 103 cities by November.

It also places kiosks within these malls that let shoppers look up deals or print out coupons. There are also display ads on these terminals for actual products or stores that can be steps away. This proximity factor leads to unusually high CPM rates according to Dunlap

"With a banner ad for a pair of jeans that is 100 yards from the store, I've seen CPMs north of $125," he said. "People understand the value of proximity."

The next steps for the company include building in social and personalization features to its online and mobile products that let users search for and save items they want, and also share them with friends.

"Someone can form a back to school list and send to their parents," said Dunlap. "This summer we'll be experimenting with that."

This could also involve alerts, where a shoppers are notified via text when an item becomes available or a sale happens with a particular item or store. With this type of alert, users explicitly state what they want and implicitly state that they are ready to "pull the trigger" if the item is available. This implies a very strong and clear intent to buy which, combined with the proximity factor, helps Dunlap continue to prove the company's value proposition to mall retailers.

The company is moving in some interesting directions and also raised $5 million earlier this week. It should be able to hit its goal of 100+ cities by the '07 holiday season.

Posted by Mike Boland at 6:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 24, 2007

Local.com Joins the Webification Trend

Today, online local search destination Local.com launched a free version of its Local Promote. The full version is $39.95, which lets businesses create a landing page and choose between various distribution, pay-per-click and featured placement options. The new free version will have the basic functionality of posting and updating business name, description and contact info in a basic listing. The key here is that this is a move to make it easier for more small businesses to get online with a simple landing page. Then the upselling can begin.

This is very much in line with a growing trend in the local search marketplace which we've explored in a past SearchDay article, known as the webification of SMBs. This is based on the premise that a majority small businesses don't currently have a web presence. A growing number of those are coming around, but for the many borderline cases, a free offering can sway them to start a basic landing page or micro site.

Once they're on board, they are hoped to evolve into paid marketers. That could involve subscription services like Local Promote, featured placement, or paid search (in the case of Google's and Yahoo!'s free landing page services among others).

I was able to sit down with Local.com VP of Marketing Jennifer Black and COO Bruce Crair during SES New York, who both endorsed this strategy as central to Local Promote and relevant to Local.com's general direction. Local.com is, in fact, going in many interesting directions coming off of its $8 million investment from Hearst.

This will include development on a number of Web 2.0 fronts including (undisclosed) mobile integration, as well as social media.

“We're excited about the opportunities with ratings and reviews,” says Crair. “We will start to partner to bring in content from sites such as Judy's Book and Insider Pages, and will eventually generate our own content.”

We'll keep an eye on all of these developments.

Posted by Mike Boland at 7:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 20, 2007

Google's Long March Towards Taking Over the Advertising Universe

Kevin Newcomb reported earlier on Google's earnings announcement, adding to the never ending string of news from the Googleverse - most recently including the massive DoubleClick acquisition, and the Clear Channel radio ad distribution deal.

It's interesting to note how Google continues to invest in extending its advertising reach to include more formats and mediums. It clearly wants to become a one stop shop for advertisers of all sizes and in all mediums.

The vast majority of its revenues still come from search and the company has received some scrutiny for its forays into these other media, as Kevin Newcomb pointed out (not to mention the antitrust scrutiny it is starting to face for its level of control in the advertising world).

Another way to look at this is a diversification move. Google's bread and butter paid search market is maturing. And like any maturing industry where overall revenue growth begins to slow, it increasingly becomes a zero sum game where growth must come from shifting market share amongst competitors. This effect is compounded in the SEM world by competition from the newly launched and quickly developing Microsoft AdCenter and Yahoo! Panama.

Add to this, rising SEM prices across the industry that will arguably drive many advertisers away from PPC, and towards investment SEO and organic traffic generation. Citysearch's acquisition of InsiderPages is an example of this trend, and data from The Kelsey Group's annual forecast further support it.

So diversification is arguably necessary for Google to appeal to new segments of advertisers and maintain double-digit revenue growth to, in turn, maintain and justify its stratospheric valuation. The display ad capability brought by DoubleClick will allow it to reach this end and, interestingly, enter Yahoo!'s territory (a possible countershot for Panama entering the SEM arena). Beyond diversification, capability across all ad formats and mediums will create synergies, cross selling opportunities and economies of scale.

There is currently no end in sight for Google's continued moves into various ad formats, across various media. CEO (and now chairman) Eric Schmidt confirmed this in the earnings announcement reported by ClickZ's Kate Kaye today;

"Our core business is driving our success," said Schmidt. The prowess of its search ad business, he added, "continues to let us take calculated risks in new markets...and extend our business to new platforms and formats."

A deeper look at these moves is in the works for a possible SearchDay article next week. Stay tuned.

Posted by Mike Boland at 1:52 PM | Permalink

April 13, 2007

Ruminations at the Close of SES

A Successful SES New York has come to a close. After catching our breath, there will be lots to write about from the array of meetings and sessions that kept us all busy over the past few days. For those that weren't there, this will hopefully provide a glimpse.

For many, this was a significant event, because it was the last SES show that Danny Sullivan will run. Last night, Danny hosted his evening seminar, a bittersweet event that was essentially his swan song for SES. It ended in a loud applause for a smiling Sullivan, prompted by a "thank you" from audience member and SEW blogger Greg Jarboe.

True to his personality, Danny brought friends from the audience into the discussion, playfully "talking trash", and moving throughout the audience while passing the mic around.

The discussion was driven by audience questions, and hit on many important areas including Google's personalized search, a variety of SEO related topics, and local. One audience member asked "who will win local?" to which Sullivan quickly responded with a smirk "no one". More of the local discussion is at the Kelsey Group Blog.

There was also a nice walk down memory lane, prompted by an audience question about the most embarrassing moments from past SES shows. Danny reminisced on the first few shows nearly ten years ago in which he and only a few others filled the single stage, while crickets filled the audience (compared to today's attendance). Google wasn't invited back the second year because it wasn't "relevant enough", and Yahoo! PR wouldn't give Sullivan the time of day.

This has all changed considerably which is interesting to see, and makes you wonder - extrapolating forward - what degree of innovation and market shifting is in store for us over the next 10 years. Before letting my mind wander too far, it was off to the bar.

Overall it was a great show and there are many more to come for SES. Congrats to Danny on a great run.

Posted by Mike Boland at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 11, 2007

Miva Usurps Google in the Publishing Industry

Here at SES New York, I had the chance to sit down with Alex Vlasto, head of global communications for Miva. The company recently won a contextual ad deal (against Google) with Conde Nast. It is now positioned to be the exclusive contextual ad provider across the publisher's network of magazine websites.

Miva's focus on certain verticals and web publishers allows it to make better contextual matches, which was a big selling point for Conde Nast. This is compared to more broadly applied publisher networks. Specifically its contextual placement works well with dynamic content, such as magazines, because it has rules and filters in place that are integrated with rotating content.

“There is contextual advertising and there is content advertising,” clarified Vlasto, characterizing the latter as the more considered ad placement around magazine and newspaper content.

So what did Miva do to win Conde Nast? It took screenshots of the AdSense placements across the publisher's websites over the course of a few weeks in order to demonstrate where contextual placements weren't as contextual as it might hope. The Vanity Fair website, for example, had contextual ads for brands that were of a “lower class” than those the magazine wished to associate with. This comes down to a difference in a contextual match and a cultural match. Contextual advertising can accommodate the latter to the degree that rules and filters are applied.

On the advertiser side, Miva's Precision Network will reflect this approach by being more attuned to certain verticals that advertisers can buy into. This brings more relevant traffic to vertical websites, according to Vlasto – a concept given more weigh in the online advertising space lately, as echoed in yesterday's social networking session. In Miva's case, this is also an attempt to provide a different price point that's a higher margin, lower volume spend than more widely distributed contextual ad networks, which it also provides.

This strategy isn't anything new though. Marchex has been working this angle for some time and has brought in a who's who list of publisher partners including Business Week, USA Today and Forbes. Marchex's Mark Peterson points out that this is in fact a strategy that was born at Industry Brains, a contextual ad outfit the company acquired in 2005.

Miva's Precision network, taking this strategy to heart, will continue to take a vertical approach to winning publisher partners, while pursuing in parallel its sweet spot of dynamic content. More appropriate than magazines, in this sense, are newspapers. Though newspapers are traditionally slow to develop online models (and form partnerships in order to do so), their dynamic content make them appropriate subjects for more considered contextual ad placement.

“If there is a newspaper story about a train crash, you don't want to have contextual ads for train tickets,” said Vlasto, "And this type of thing happens more than most publishers realize."

Posted by Mike Boland at 4:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 10, 2007

SES Coverage: Blending Advertising and Social Networking

SES New York has kicked off with lots of interesting sessions, most notably in the conference's new ClickZ track led by Rebecca Lieb. Within this track there was an interesting session this morning on social networks and advertising, which Debborah Richman and I are tag teaming on. This follows nicely behind the Jupiter report on the viability of social media as an ad medium, reported earlier by Kevin Newcomb (and in today's SearchDay article).

One of the perennial challenges of tying together marketing and social networking is the lack of control involved in viral distribution and the realization that marketers need to “go in with”. Debborah will dig deeper into this aspect.

This challenge relates to local advertising as there can be ways to combine the viral aspects of social media and local. This has been shown through small businesses that have built MySpace profiles, among other developing venues.

Chad Stoller, Executive Director of Emerging Platforms at digital marketing agency Organic sat on the panel and had some interesting thoughts on local. Verticalization is an important strategy, he asserted, to reach qualified audiences. Reaching specific verticals in a social networking context can allow marketers to create a richer message that is better received than in the general MySpace environment. In this way "local" itself can be looked at as its own vertical.

"MySpace has proved to be great for launching movies. But an engaged consumer can be reached in a vertical network that meets a specific interest," said Stoller. MeetUp was cited as example of an online community that can reach a qualified audience – in this case, small businesses whose presence in the network has self selected their needs to engage in B2B commerce on a local level.

"I know I can get 60,000 small businesses that need new services. They will be more likely to want new banking services or be looking for vendors," said Stoller. "It's the ability to create a richer message, richer engagement in a smaller community, they're pre-qualified. You always want a pre-qualified audience."

Another important question raised was, How do you decide which social networks are the best places for you to advertise? Timing emerged as the key factor in answering this question. Marc Schiller, CEO of interactive ad firm ElectricArtists cited an example of his client Aloft (division of W Hotels), which was among the first brands to launch an interactive campaign on Second Life. He submitted that the company will get more value out of its decision to position itself in the game than the many companies that could participate in the Second Life land grab that many are projecting.

These companies could get what I like to call the Second Life sloppy seconds. A great deal is still uncertain about Second Life, given negative press and reports about how overblown its value and experience have become. But on the other hand, there could still be potential for valuable national branding and local marketing as the experience evolves.

"Monetization is very early in Second Life," said Schiller. "Can they make users go into a virtual hotel to make a reservation at a real one? It's too early to tell, but now it's about strategically looking at what can be done and what kinds of experiences are possible."

The key in beating the trends and planting a stake in the next hot social networking environment is – easier said than done – to spot trends before they happen. Schiller asserts that this is best done by looking at your own company, your own message, and the social networks that you “like” for their conduciveness to your product culture

"Everyone is talking about Twitter," said Schiller as an example. "There will be a brand that gets great attention by figuring out how to do something cool with Twitter that fits who they are. When, How, and Who will that be is the question."

Posted by Mike Boland at 5:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

April 9, 2007

Idearc to Add-on SEM Services

Idearc Media, parent of Superpages.com, will begin offering search marketing services to its Internet Yellow Pages advertising customers. Services include pay-per-click campaign design and management, search engine optimization reviews and recommendations, search engine paid inclusion, price comparison and shopping engine feed optimization and management, as well as multi-dimensional pay-per-click analytics and reporting.

Idearc, formerly a division of Verizon, acquired SEM firm Inceptor last year, and Inceptor's team is now the basis of Idearc's SEM consultancy.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:54 PM | Permalink

April 3, 2007

Mobile, Video Star at Kelsey's Local Search Show

At The Kelsey Group's recent Drilling Down on Local conference, the local search buzz was all about video and mobile. SEW blogger and Kelsey Group analyst Michael Boland breaks down some of the highlights from the recent conference in today's SearchDay, "Video and Mobile Search Take Center Stage," including voice-enabled search from Tellme, mobile mapping from Nokia, and local video ad plans from several companies.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 6:05 PM | Permalink

April 2, 2007

Topix Relaunches as Citizen Journalism Site

Topix is repositioning and relaunching its local news aggregation site as a citizen journalism network. It's also dropped the ".net" and will begin branding itself using the newly acquired ".com" version of its name, Topix CEO Rich Skrenta announced on the Topix blog, and further opined about on his Skrentablog in a post tellingly titled, "What do you do when your success ... sucks?"

"We took a hard look at ourselves at Topix last year. We had built up a strong local audience on the site, but a lot of it was SEO, and while users were clearly getting some value out of our product, we hadn't made something that people really cared about. As cool a technical trick as our aggregated geolocalized news pages were, they actually pretty much sucked.

Thus began a six-month self-examination of why, exactly, our product sucked, and what we could do to un-suckify it."

Skrenta and Topix rejected the idea of reinventing the site as a MySpace or Digg clone, and decided the best way to take advantage of the existing strengths of Topix's hyper-local network with aggregation and AI technology was to build something more like community-edited blogs.

The new Topix will be a human-edited system, which accepts submissions from all users. A "roboblogger" will post news in areas that do not have human editors, which is basically the software the runs the previous version of Topix. More than 100 journalists from Gannett, Tribune and McClatchy (which all partner with Topix for news distribution) will also act as editors for their local cities.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:15 AM | Permalink

March 30, 2007

Yellowpages.com Launches Text-based Mobile Local Search

Similar to the Starbuck's SMS search tool that we wrote about a few weeks ago, Yellowpages.com today announced text-based local search tool for mobile devices. Any cell phone user can now send a business name or category in a text message to YP411 (97411) to receive the three top listings for that term.

Brands that have tried to launch SMS search tools have received limited traction because of the relatively low adoption of mobile search so far. Starbucks might be able to get away with it because of the power of it's brand (and the addictiveness of its product).

Instead, success with SMS search products will only come from trusted brands that aggregate local search results. Current offerings in this space include GoogleSMS, Yahoo! Local, Superpages On the Go, and now Yellowpages.com (among a few others).

Though this supply outweighs current demand, this is a smart move for Yellowpages.com to get its feet wet with mobile search using by its most user friendly and prevalent form (SMS). This will also tie together nicely with other mobile services Yellowpages.com has rolled out recently, including a send-to-mobile feature that lets business listings be texted to any cellphone number a user specifies. The company also recently developed a version of its Web site that is optimized for mobile screens and WAP browsers.

It also has an enhanced DA product in certain markets, 1-800-YellowPages, which could be the foundation for a wireless voice search product. Together with the SMS product, this could come together as a nice multi-modal mobile search product. By casting all of these lines, AT&T is getting users accustomed to various forms of mobile search while meanwhile buying itself an education in the mobile marketplace.

It is also a nice point of differentiation as an IYP looking to get into the mobile space. All of the aforementioned products represent ways AT&T is trying to find its way around in mobile search by coming at it from many angles. A singular (as opposed to Cingular) product could emerge eventually that is planted on the home screen of AT&T wireless devices. This could be brought to you by Yellowpages.com or perhaps by Yahoo! which has online content partnerships with AT&T.

The development and strategy behind this could be one reason why AT&T wireless (formerly Cingular) like other wireless carriers, has been such a hard nut to crack in terms of allowing innovative third party mobile local search applications onto their devices and networks (this is the one place where they have non- net nutrality).

Still, it's important at this stage to have a SMS based mobile local search product for for non AT&T wireless users (anyone with a text enabled phone). We'll see how it does, and what AT&T really has up it's giant sleeves for mobile search.

Posted by Mike Boland at 6:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 29, 2007

ZipLocal Brings Local Search 2.0 to Canada

Today I had the chance to talk to Elaine Kunda, CEO of Toronto based local search site ZipLocal, which launched earlier this week in beta form. The site has grown out of a couple (now-defunct) local search sites including Zip411.net and redToronto.com.

The site is a combination of Citysearch and Yellow Pages, with a lot of neat functionality, and a product road map that could make it much more. There is a healthy dose of AJAX functionality throughout the search and mapping modules, which make for a good user experience.

For example, when typing a term into either of its two search boxes ("what" and "where"), a javascript window appears that offers similar search terms and categories. This is an example of a technology integration that creates an entirely new use case - in this instance, one that combines search and browse.

From the mapping interface, there are lots of other neat AJAX based tools that allow you to do things like get directions and send business information to a cell phone, without leaving the map.

More important than what the site is now, is what it could become. Kunda is very bullish on video integration, user generated content and merchant generated content (akin to the new features in Google's Local Business Center). Ratings and reviews from users will also be integrated, and Kunda has a very clever plan (which I can't talk about yet), for how this content will be structured to aid in searchability and maximum utility for users.

The advertising model combines Google AdWords and premium listings, although it will slowly shift towards exclusivity for the latter. Taking a user-centric approach, Kunda is interested in pulling in as much information as possible from businesses, and she hasn't decided where the "line in the sand" will be between features and placement options for paid vs. unpaid listings.

The revenue model will likely involve featured placements (similar to Citysearch), multimedia upsells, and also some pay-per-click or pay-per-call. And the "line" between paid and unpaid features will be determined as the site gets closer to launching out of beta at an undisclosed point in the future.

For now Kunda is focused on the product road map and trying to generate content, and expand the site's geographic coverage throughout Candada.

“We have a database of 1.3 million business listings. In order for them to be found, they have to have keyword association," says Kunda. "We have this enhanced data for Toronto and Montreal and [unstructured] data for 45 additional cities. We will be expanding and narrowing in on content in each of the cities in the next year.”

Posted by Mike Boland at 7:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 28, 2007

Local Video Advertising on the Move

After catching my breath after The Kelsey Group's Drilling Down on Local '07 conference (and catching up with other things), it's (finally) time to recap the biggest theme I took away from the show; local video advertising.

Video took center stage, with a palpable difference from past shows in the amount of chatter on and off the stage about local video advertising. Thankfully, a lot of examples of video ads were shown, which was a telling indication that local video ads are actually being created. It's still an early adopter ad medium, but it's happening.

A second example came during a panel of real-life small businesses (a small but telling sample), which all admitted to local video ads currently in production. A bay area roof rack shop owner disclosed that he is working with TurnHere (see examples here) to create a video ad, while a cosmetic dentistry practice in San Jose is working with a smaller video production house to make a short video ad.

TurnHere SVP of Business Development John McWeeny sat on a video panel that I moderated and asserted that the interest in video among the small business segment is growing from his point of view. Selling video ads can also be easier than selling some forms of online performance based advertising to small businesses, making it a nice add on to product bundling by yellow pages sales channels. Yellowpages.com VP of marketing Matt Crowley and Yellow Book CMO Gordon Henry made this claim in separate panel discussions.

"Sales reps get it and advertisers get it. It's something that everyone can relate to," said Henry. This comes down to the belief that video is something that a lot of small businesses "get" compared to online performance-based marketing such as pay-per-click that may be less attractive and more abstract to some small businesses.

The key here though, is that accessibility to online video production and distribution is falling within the grasp of small businesses thanks to companies like TurnHere and Spot Runner, which also had a big presence at the show. Spot Runner CEO Nick Grouf demonstrated during a keynote address how the company can drastically undercut ad agencies with new forms of creative and an automated process of customized production and cable buying.

From a user perspective, online video is hot and there is clearly a growing affinity towards it, thanks in part to the popularity of YouTube. Rising broadband adoption, high speed fiber network deployments, and interconnected devices within the home (see Apple TV), will only increase this. Advertiser adoption in creating online video ads or viral video promotion (see example from ShopLocal), is conversely in early adoption, but happening slowly. Business models based on video creation and distribution are meanwhile few in number.

So where does this leave us? All of these factors (user demand, advertisers & distribution models) affect each other's growth and exist in a sort of 3 way chicken and egg scenario. Question marks still surround where and how local videos ads should be distributed and what are users preferences are for watching them (should they show up alongside related online yellow pages listing? exist in their own searchable library of directional local video ads?, etc.).

The bottom line is that a great deal of adoption and development need to happen before video reaches any semblance of mainstream adoption in the local advertising space. But the wheels are in motion.

We'll outline some of the other takeaways from the show in a SearchDay article next week.

Posted by Mike Boland at 11:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 20, 2007

Innovectra Launches LeadStream

Local search consultancy Innovectra is launching a local search product today at the Kelsey Group's "Drilling Down on Local" event. The new LeadStream business unit combines the personal touch of a telesales force with the automation and tracking synonymous with search advertising. Kate Kaye has the details in her ClickZ News story.

Innovectra's offerings are intended to provide low-risk, measurable entryways to search advertising for small businesses. They include sponsored link campaign management, one-page Web sites, unique phone numbers that can be tracked by advertisers, and future products like Web coupons and call answering services.

The company manages up to three unique sponsored link ads each on Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.com for customers, including both PPC and pay-per-call ads.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:48 AM | Permalink

March 16, 2007

Skype Lanches v. 3.1, with Local Search Features

Skype officially launched version 3.1 earlier this week. As we wrote about in the post Skype's One-Two Punch a few weeks ago, this will have a local search feature that lets users search (and call) local businesses.

This has a clear tie-in to its core VoIP product and creates a nice formula on which to develop a pay-per-call model. And what local search product launch would be complete these days without the social media components ( to rate, review and share info on local businesses)? Like the business search function, this will tie together nicely with Skype's already existing social qualities.

There is also more to the new version, which CNET News explores. One new feature called Skype Prime will build upon the product's social networking qualities to facilitate interaction between buyers and sellers around knowledge of products and services. This will create a marketplace for knowledge to be transferred over VoIP. Rates will be established by knowledge "providers" of which Skype will take a 30 percent cut.

After essentially being tested in this venue, something similar could be used as a free (value add to the core product) or fee-based feature within eBay's massive network. Here there are many buyers and sellers and a clear opportunity to facilitate conversions around the products being auctioned.

There is a great deal that Skype can do to add value to eBay while continuing to develop its own independent value proposition. The former still has many question marks, but the latter is starting to be seen. These are the right moves so far for Skype to take advantage of growth in local search (Kelsey Group Projections here), social networking, the product's core offering, and its large (and loyal) global installed base.

Posted by Mike Boland at 2:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 13, 2007

Google and Microsoft Rumors: Implications for Mobile Local Search

Rumors continue to swirl this week about a potential Microsoft acquisition of Tellme. This was first reported by TechCrunch back in February. Now the Wall Street Journal (sub req) is reporting the companies are in talks and the sale price could be in the $800 million range. CNET has a similar story (if you don't have a WSJ sub).

Tellme is a strong (and profitable) company in the rapidly growing wireless voice search area, which could provide a great deal of value for Microsoft (past SEW writing on Tellme is here). Tellme would bring the ability to integrate voice search into the Windows Mobile software platform, giving MSFT an edge in Mobile Local Search over its search and portal competitors.

This direction was implied in a WSJ quote from Steve Ballmer a few months ago, which Om Malik unearthed yesterday:

"The leading edge battleground between us and Google in local search really will come on the phone," Ballmer said. Voice search has a great deal of potential as examined in The Kelsey Group report Wireless Voice Search: The Multi-Modal Revolution. It is a relatively user friendly form of mobile local search that could push overall adoption forward, given Windows Mobile's installed base

Elsewhere in the rumor mill, The San Jose Mercury News has more speculation on a possible Google phone. Just as Microsoft would gain ground in mobile local search with a Tellme acquisition, a Google phone could similarly plant Google search capability directly onto the phone. A lot is still unclear about what this device could be, but The Merc suggests a possible blackberry-like device that has VoIP capability which can be used when in WiFi range.

As pointed out in a previous post on new product announcements at 3GSM, VoIP enabled phones can lessen the dependence on wireless carriers. This can sidestep the carrier control that has proved to be a significant barrier in pushing mobile local search applications out. Getting planted directly "on the carrier deck" is the challenge because it requires a relationship to be formed with a carriers, which is hard to do and often involves signing over one's soul.

Google, with a prospective phone of its own, could essentially sidestep this challenge. Of course the phone could be something completely different, or perhaps not a phone at all but a software platform for mobile devices, akin to Windows Mobile or Palm OS.

Rumors like should be taken with a grain of salt and a certain amount of discretion, but they can also be valuable as a mental exercise to speculate possibilities in embryonic areas such as mobile local search.

Posted by Mike Boland at 5:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 9, 2007

More on Google's Local Business Center: Solving the "Last Block Problem"

After thinking more about the enhancements to Google's Local Business Center, I realized a benefit that was overlooked in one of the less glamorous feature developments amongst the set.

As reported in a post earlier this week, one of the developments to Local Business Center is the ability for businesses to change or edit their location on a Google map if it is incorrect or outdated.

At first I thought this will find a marginal amount of utility for businesses and Google alike. Then I remembered something about local online mapping; the last block problem. This occurs when a mapping engine places a business or residence on a map based on its address; but the best it can do with that address is extrapolate its position within a given block.

For example, if your address is 1550 Lombard Street in San Francisco, an online map will put you right in the middle of the 1500 block, on the north side of the street. This is probably where you live, but in some cases this can be off the mark, and can have varying degrees of error depending on the length or density of your block (think rural areas). So this new feature for the first time lets businesses literally move their address marker to the right spot.

This falls in line with one of the reasons for the rest of the enhancements to Local Business Center; to improve the quality of Google's data. Google currently gets its data from a number of sources including commercial database vendors. The additional info from businesses themselves is hoped to sharpen this data with defined categories, custom attributes, etc.

The location feature in particular, interestingly works on a problem that has gotten very little attention. It's not a huge problem and this isn't a groundbreaking solution, but it's a step in the right direction to improve data quality. It's also in line with many of the user generated content initiatives (business generated content in this case) that are springing up all over the local search space in order to deepen content and improve SEO.

We'll have more analysis of Google's Local Business Center and the strategies behind it in a SearchDay article next week.

Posted by Mike Boland at 6:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 8, 2007

Google Enhances its Local Business Center

Google announced today that it has added a few new features to its Local Business Center, the place where businesses can enter their information in order to show up on Google Maps.

New features include the ability to upload or edit photos that accompany business listings. Businesses can also now select what category they fall in to (restaurant, hotel, plumber, etc.) and list “custom attributes” specific to their category such as "service area" or "check out time". Businesses can also change or correct their location if they move. Interestingly, the new features include analytics that allow businesses to get a free look at the clicks they have generated on Google Maps.

That last feature is likely meant to be a teaser for the broader analytics offered in AdWords, which is precisely the point. Like many of the free website hosting products from Google and Yahoo!, and microsite offerings from vFlyer and and Smalltown, this could hook in more small businesses by giving them a free and easy way to create a web presence. From there they are hoped to evolve into online advertisers (whether it be search, display or upsells to premium ad features). And for businesses that already have a website, there are clear SEO benefits to providing more detailed business information.

Given the sheer size of the small business segment (25 million SMBs according to the Small Business Administration), expanding the addressable market of search marketers by bringing more businesses online will be a big opportunity.

Posted by Mike Boland at 4:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 7, 2007

Local Search, IYP Set to Grow

A new report from the Kelsey Group forecasts print yellow pages, IYP and local search growth over the next five years, showing IYP sites as forceful contenders in the directories game, in part because of their increasing search mettle.

Although local search is poised to reach $2.6 billion in U.S. revenues, up from $922 million in '06, IYP will grow at a faster clip in that time. The "Global Print Yellow Pages, Internet Yellow Pages and Local Search Forecast 2006-2011" report from The Kelsey Group predicts IYP revenues will rise at a nearly 30 percent annual growth rate, from $624 million to $2.3 billion in 2011, compared with about 23 percent growth for local search through 2011. Print in that time will remain relatively stagnant, moving from about $14.4 billion to $14.9 billion.

Kate Kaye has the details at ClickZ News.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:44 AM | Permalink

March 2, 2007

Using MoLo to find a Mocha

Starbucks is often the first example used when someone tries to explain the benefits (or detriments, depending on your outlook) of location based services. "You'll be walking by a Starbucks, and get hit with a promotion for coffee on your mobile device," the story often goes.

There has been widespread agreement that this scenario will never happen and that location based services will only work with an opt in model, hence the increased discussion over Mobile Local Search (MoLo). SMS (texting) is currently the most widespread form of MoLo, however many more are in experimentation phases and are patiently waiting for greater mobile search and smart phone adoption.

Well it seems that Starbucks - never having cooled off from the excitement over the possibility of push based mobile advertising - has gotten tired of waiting and has launched its own SMS based mobile search product. Like Google SMS and Yahoo! Mobile, any text enabled mobile device (basically every phone on the market) can send a search query to a five digit number that returns locations of nearby results.

In Starbucks' case this means sending your zip code to "MYSBUX" (a curious combination of letters if you glance over it quickly) to receive a text message back that has the locations of the nearest 3 Starbucks. CNET blogger Caroline McCarthy points out that this is only good if you know what zip code you're in, which isn't usually the case for travelers. Those that can find out their zip code will likely have GPS, and would thus have a more robust platform on which to find Starbucks.

Similarly, if you know what zip code you're in, you might already know where the closest Starbucks is. In any case, this might be unnecessary in some urban areas where you can almost turn around and see three Starbucks from any given spot.

But it could actually catch on well in other areas among the legions of Starbucks faithfuls, given the sheer size of this population and the fact that we're talking about an addictive substance. If it does, it could also work towards the general awareness and greater adoption of SMS search and MoLo in general. We'll see.

Posted by Mike Boland at 6:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 1, 2007

Citysearch to Acquire Insider Pages

IAC/InterActiveCorp, parent to Ask.com and Citysearch, announced plans to acquire reviews-based local search provider Insider Pages. IAC is not sharing the details, but TechCrunch puts the purchase price at $13 million, which should cover the $10 million VCs have invested in the company.

Insider Pages has been struggling to compete in the competitive local search space, and a sale had been rumored for some time, amidst layoffs and dwindling traffic.

Insider Pages has about 600,000 user reviews, which will be integrated into the Citysearch's offering, as well as 2.5 million monthly unique readers, based on Comscore and internal tracking numbers, according to VentureBeat.

IAC will retain the Insider Pages brand identity and positioning, using its reviews to strengthen and complement Citysearch. Insider Pages will move its current operations and team to Citysearch's San Francisco office.

More details in this ClickZ News story.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:17 AM | Permalink

The Long Tail of Local Search

In his ClickZ column today, Brian Wool takes a look at how Long Tail economics are affecting local search:

"Without any real inventory costs, Internet businesses can use deeper catalogs to beat their brick-and-mortar counterparts on market share. On the Web, unlimited inventory allows obscure or less-popular online products to outshine hits in total sales volume," he writes.

Wool advises local businesses to take advantage of basics, like the free or low-cost services the search engines offer to post and update listings. He also suggests looking beyond the major search engines and IYPs to find niche local search sites like Kudzu, MojoPages.com, and Yellow Page City.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 6:14 AM | Permalink

February 27, 2007

vFlyer and "The Year of the Widget"

Online classifieds content and distribution platform vFlyer announced a new product line that could represent a shifting direction for the company. It has come out with a line of widgets that it will offer to companies and individuals to display products or inventory on their websites or blogs.

Previously, vFlyer's main product was a "virtual flyer" that let anyone create a multimedia-rich and professional looking classified listing. Rather than being a classifieds destination, It distributed these flyers out to existing classifieds marketplaces and aggregators. Up to ten flyers are free while higher price points, including a subscription, are available for larger volume sellers such as car dealerships or real estate professionals.

This was and still is an attractive seller-centric tool in a marketplace where such a thing is lacking. But the penetration possibilities are only so great according to Oliver Muoto, vice president of business development for vFlyer. Though it's a nice tool for any business or individual to establish a relatively easy and inexpensive web presence - a microsite of sorts - it doesn't address the other portion of the marketplace that is already online.

The new widgets have this segment in mind. Anyone with a website or blog can plant these widgets on their site to display products or inventory in new ways. The widgets will likely grow in number but for now mostly include photo slide shows. Monetization of the widgets will be similar to the virtual flyers according to Muoto, in that they will be free for a certain amount of products and contain various price points for upsells to new features and higher volumes.

This should gain the most traction in the real estate and autos verticals. Here, multimedia is important due to the margins and valuable leads that have forced sellers to be more progressive with online marketing (for the most part). The need to get that coveted lead in these verticals has also made promotional tools like this more price inelastic.

Muoto believes the demand in the marketplace for new functionality that is easy and cheap to integrate to any website will make this "the year of the widget". He also hopes the buyer-centric nature of these widgets will cause them to market themselves in a viral way, as each one displays the vFlyer logo and a link to go to the site and create your own.

The widgets involve simple HTML code and come with directions on how to set them up, but this extra step to actively plant a new piece of programming on your blog or website could be an adoption barrier. If the attractiveness and need for such a tool in the auto and real estate verticals is strong enough as mentioned above, it should outweigh this adoption barrier though. Much of the product's success will hinge on this.

More details can be found in the press release.

Posted by Mike Boland at 10:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 23, 2007

Skype's One-Two Punch

Skype is on a roll this week.

First its Joost online video site signed a deal with Viacom to fill the massive void left when the media giant pulled over 100,000 clips (Daily Show, Colbert Report, MTV) from YouTube. The unsatisfied demand for this content now places Joost in a nice spot.

Yesterday Skype rolled out Skype 3.1 Beta for Windows which allows users to search for local businesses and call them.

Why is this important? This is the first step in a product evolution that could take Skype beyond just being a VoIP calling platform. In other words, it's the first sign of local search that could lead to a more diversified lineup and possible ad models around pay-per-call. The new version also has a module for reading and contributing user reviews, a concept that continues to get a great deal of attention for it's value generating potential.

From a pure product standpoint, the local search capability is a nice add-on to Skype's core offering.The extra step required to go out and buy a headset or computer mic is one of the things that has kept Skype languishing somewhere between early adoption and mainstream. Aside from companies like Vonage that let you use your existing phone, this has been a challenge with VoIP adoption for a some time.

That should change however if Skype keeps doing what its doing. Given its installed base and product rollouts, it's be a company to watch. More on the new version at Sebastien Provencher's Praized Blog or directly on the Skype Blog.

Posted by Mike Boland at 5:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 22, 2007

Local Search Partnerships of the Day

Today saw a few notable partnership announcements in the local search space. More specifically in local online classifieds and in mobile local search.

-- First, Tellme announced this morning that it will expand its mobile voice platform to allow mobile search application developers to build products that integrate voice and visual search. Voice recognition technology developers TuVox and Viecore were also named as partners that will work on such applications.

This has the potential to bring together the ease of speaking, and of seeing results on a screen. One of the challenges in mobile search is designing compelling products, given hardware restrictions such as small keypads. So the ability to speak search queries or business lookups can be a way to sidestep this challenge and raise adoption levels.

Conversely, when results are returned, sometimes its easier to see them on a mobile screen than it is to hear them - particularly if the information can be saved on the device (rather than written down) and in turn used to dial a business or interact in other interesting ways such as getting directions or coupons.

40 million people use Tellme every month, including its voice portal and free (downloadable) beta product Tellme by Mobile. These are based on the VoiceXML 2.0 protocol that makes internet data available on mobile devices via voice applications. New "multimodal" capabilities should expand the company's overall user base, by opening the door for new partnerships to be formed and functionality to be built.

This should be a step towards bringing the company's voice search capabilities together with other mobile applications, as the enigmatic mobile local search area continues to see experimentation with new and interesting ways to appeal to consumers and build ad models.

-- Second, fresh off its partnership with Nokia last week, AdStar has partnered with classifieds aggregator Edgeio.

Edgieo will use AdStar's software to offer print advertising upsells (on behalf of newspapers) to its new classifieds listings boards marketplace, a free listings source. Basically, this becomes a channel for for newspapers to upsell print ads to anyone going to Edgio to post free listings.

As many newspaper continue to look for ways to monetize online classifieds, creating free classifieds destinations with print upsell possibilities is one way to go about it. AdStar has created another creative way that positions itself as a value-added channel for its newspaper clients to reach a larger audience of classifieds sellers. This strengthens AdStar's value proposition and its profile as a distribution source for print, online and (as of last week) mobile ads.

For Edgeio, this is an added service it can use to attract additional traffic and listings, as content aggregation is a cornerstone of its business. It gets its content from a combination of listings that people publish directly to its site; and aggregated listings scraped (by permission) from bloggers, individuals and website developers that have listings on their own sites. It currently has about 100 million listings from 162 countries.

Financial terms weren't disclosed but the AdStar integration is scheduled to be completed in the second quarter. More from the press release.

Posted by Mike Boland at 6:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 21, 2007

Local Search Gets its Mojo Working

Lately, there has been a clear trend towards more ratings and reviews in online Yellow Pages. Though letting users write reviews can sometimes be at odds with retaining paying advertisers (more on this concept at The Kelsey Group Blog), they can help online Yellow Pages build deeper content and stay competitive with search giants that continue to build out comprehensive local offerings. The benefits can also include viral marketing and stickiness that come with the creation of community and trust in peer generated content.

So in the past month alone we've seen reviews launched by Yellowpages.com and a new reviews spotlight program added to Superpages' existing reviews program.

Then today, MojoPages launched. The site combines traditional online yellow pages listing with social media features such as discussion forums and ability view and post pictures and video of local businesses.

The nature of online Yellow Pages listings make them naturally conducive to these forms of media, but the challenge MojoPages will face will be to motivate the critical mass of user participation to make this work. This has been proven challenging for local search destinations built on user generated content such as Yelp, InsiderPages and Judy's Book.

The company claims to have a "strong following of early adopters" already in place, but it will have to prove this outside of the context of a press release. The additional challenge it will face is to not only motivate reviews and recommendations like the aforementioned sites, but to rely on internet yellow pages users' yet-to-be-proven proclivities for posting - or even watching - video and pictures of businesses.

But MojoPages seems to be the first to bring together all of these elements in one place within the IYP space, so it will be interesting to see how it does. The space certainly needs experimentation and new models like this to be pushed out in order to raise adoption and awareness of the possibilities for multimedia-rich local search applications.

More can be found in the press release, Search Engine Land; and more on video and online directories from Michael Taylor at The Kelsey Group.

Posted by Mike Boland at 7:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 16, 2007

A Step Forward For Mobile Local Search

One thing that has stood in the way of mobile local search adoption is the lack of a clear and compelling value proposition. This is partly a result of hardware restrictions; there are small screens and keypads on most cell phones and smart phones haven't reached mainstream penetration (although prices are coming down which should bode well for mobile local search).

But another major factor has been that the control exerted by carriers in the U.S. and their ability to decide what devices and platforms work on their networks (this is not the case in Europe). This has effectively stifled a lot of innovation at the application level, as explored in the recent Kelsey Group report Targeting Users: Application Level Innovation in Mobile Local Search).

Even though applications can be developed that require users to navigate to a site on the mobile web using a WAP based phone, and other more robust programs can be downloaded, both of these options require an additional step. This represents a sizable adoption barrier in an already early-adopter medium.

Therefore the few search applications that get the endorsement of carriers and are correspondingly planted "on the carrier deck" are the only ones that currently have a shot at worthwhile traction. And the carrier's filter for choosing the best mobile search products are not always the same as what the market would bear.

Enter Nokia and Motorola, which announced yesterday at the annual 3GSM World Congress that they will launch their own navigation services that don't require carrier networks. With the thought that carriers have been slow to innovate, both companies announced new GPS enabled hardware and navigation services that they will sell directly to consumers.

These navigation platforms will include, local search, directions, and the ability to download maps for any destination in the world. These services will be free, with the option to upgrade to features such as voice directions and live traffic updates. CNet has in depth coverage both announcements and some of the dynamics surrounding them.

This could be a significant move and the first shot in a battle against carriers to effectively sidestep their rule and offer compelling products that don't require cellular networks. WiFi enabled mobile phones that are able to make VoIP calls when in range a network are another example of something that could disintermediate carriers. And as municipal WiFi approaches reality, more phones like this will be offered.

Combine this with the announcements from Nokia and Motorola, and you can start to see the stars aligning for disruption to carrier dependence, and thus control. Eventually, this should in turn lead to the innovation in mobile local search, characteristic of a free market. Something like this needs to happen if Mobile Local Search is to get off the ground in the U.S, and you can start to see the wheels turning.

Posted by Mike Boland at 3:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 15, 2007

Online Video Gets Local

ClickZ's Kate Kaye wrote an interesting article yesterday on the revenue that is flowing into local video ads on newspaper websites. Interestingly, newspapers beat out local television station websites for video ad revenues according to a recent Borrell Report.

Though the $371 million expected to be spent on local video this year only represents about 5 percent of the $7.7 billion total for all local online ads, it will be more than double the amount spent last year. $5 billion is expected by 2012, which is more than the amount currently spent on online banner ads and listings.

According to the article: However, these small numbers represent entirely new revenue channels for local television and newspaper properties, which are competing against one another for advertisers long considered the stations' turf. In fact, newspapers are ahead in this game.

Broken down, newspaper web sites took in $81 million in local streaming video ads in last year, compared with the $32 million spent on local television web sites. In many cases the newspaper revenue came from up-sells from classifieds listings, and the biggest categories taking part in video advertising so far have been auto, real estate, health and employment. The biggest markets meanwhile have been New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Borrell predicts "there will be a lot of money made on the tens of millions of unsold pre-roll video avails across thousands of local Web sites." However it has been mostly unanimous that consumers don't like pre-roll ads. A more likable and pervasive form of online video advertising could instead be sponsored videos, over 60 seconds in length, by the likes of home improvement, health, and legal advertisers. This form factor accounted for about two thirds of online video spending last year according to the Borrell study.

The key is that the video advertising dial is moving towards local, driven by growing amounts of affordable online ad inventory. Bring in companies like Spot Runner that further put video advertising withing the grasp of small business advertisers, and this starts to get interesting. It will take some time before the paradigm shifts in the marketplace so that small business advertisers are aware of and interested in these opportunities, but this will happen.

Elsewhere in the world of online video, The New York Times reports how many radio stations, in order to gain a competitive edge, are broadcasting themselves (a la Howard Stern), on popular online video channels such as YouTube. Greg Sterling also points to a comprehensive index of the online video space by the Read/Write Web. And lastly, online video publishing and syndication network Veoh re-launched earlier this week. Lost Remote has the scoop.

Posted by Mike Boland at 2:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 14, 2007

HotFrog Brings Web 2.0. to U.K. Business Lookups

The curiously named Australian online directory HotFrog launched today in the UK.

Like its Austrailian forbearer, the site brings the buzzcloud concept (utilized most notably by social search engines such as Eurekster's Swicki and Yahoo!'s MyWeb) to directory listings. This makes a lot of sense given that online directories are category based.

The buzzcloud gives readers a quick representation of the post popular categories; and its front and center positioning gives off the immediate impression that the site is very web 2.0. (it also offers RSS feeds).

Listings are free to post and the site appears to employ a model where it collects as many listings as possible, against which it serves AdWords sponsored links. These are shown to the right and below listings within each category page.

The strategy to collect as many listings as possible is in line with its offer for any business to list itself for free. Its other proposition is that businesses can choose as many keywords as they want as meta tags for their listings. This will presumably improve SEO which is helpful to both local businesses and to HotFrog's goal of monetizing greater amounts of site traffic and gaining exposure and more content.

This tagging on the part of businesses could also allow for more effective contextual matching for sponsored links. Currently it seems like AdWords is their only form of monetization which means they will have to scale this up to a considerable degree to make any meaningful revenues. The free listing and SEO benefits are enticing but we'll have to wait and see if it gains traction among businesses in the U.K.

In terms of users, its site design is clean and uncluttered and it seems to have what it takes to gain traction in that department. It's a crowded field though, so either marketing (viral or otherwise) as a destination site or effective SEO to show up in Google SERP's will be paramount to HotFrog's success in this new market. How well businesses take the site up on its offer to tag their own listings could determine the fate of the latter.

You can check out the new UK site is here, and the press release for its launch here.

Posted by Mike Boland at 7:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

February 9, 2007

Facebook on the Rise

Social networking success story Facebook came up with a one-two punch of announcements over the past two days, as it looks to boost its social networking capabilities and become a legitimate competitor to dominant market share leader MySpace.

On Wednesday, Facebook partnered with Comcast to distribute a new online video series called Facebook Diaries. Facebook gets distribution and exposure for its new video efforts while Comcast gains content to bring web traffic to its site Ziddio.com and the ability to tap into a younger demographic among Facebook's 16 million users.

Then yesterday, the company announced a new partnership with online jobs site Jobster. This brings Facebook the added dimension of job hunting to its existing social networking mix, while Jobster gets a much needed boost in distribution and exposure. Michael Arrington at TechCrunch has a nice summary of Jobster's recent history, which includes an AOL-like dissmantling of the subscription wall to make way for an ad model.

The two young companies could be powerful together, and their union is reminiscent of MySpace's partnership with SimplyHired, which yielded MySpace Jobs. Given that a major chunk of Facebook's user base remains college-aged (it started as a high school and college social networking site as explained below), it could represent interesting targeting opportunities for job posting and other advertising to that demographic set.

The fusion of social networking and career building is also interesting, in that it could be competetive with sites like LinkedIn, which has formed a niche where these media collide. Jobser's free job posting model (explained in the TechCrunch article mentioned above) could also become a considerable threat to the Monsters, CarreerBuilders and HotJobss of the world, now that the company has vaulted its market position and exposure.

And speaking of threats, Facebook itself is nipping at the heels of MySpace. After gaining considerable traction with high school and college students - the site first required a .edu email address to join - the company released access to the general public in September. Its traffic then went up 16 percent in October and has been rising steadily ever since.

It has a long way to go to reach MySpace's nearly 80 percent market share in the social networking space (Facebook comes in second with about 8 percent), but anecdotal evidence suggests that many teens and twenty-somethings are flocking to Facebook. Or to use the vernacular, MySpace is "so 2005".

Ironic that the same viral marketing and herd mentality that built MySpace's massive user base could be its undoing. If this happens, it will take a while. Regardless, Facebook is on a tear and will be a company to watch closely.

Posted by Mike Boland at 6:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 8, 2007

Video Advertising Gets Local

The New York Times reports today on a few new video ad creation and placement providers. We've known about Spot Runner for a while, but it seems the idea is spawning a handful of new providers.

It's clear that one of the advantages of Spot Runner and others is to bring television advertising within the grasp of the majority of small businesses (for which it has traditionally been cost prohibitive). But it's also notable how this can also help national advertisers more efficiently reach local audiences.

If you bring in targeting capabilities and content volumes possible with IPTV and web delivered video, a compounding factor could be more favorable economies and a long tail effect of available ad inventory (similar to what online search did for small business and local advertising). All together, these factors bode well for small business advertisers and their ability play in the video advertising sandbox.

B&C meanwhile reports that local television revenues are up 41%. This is mostly due to growth in advertising and more small businesses in auto and real estate verticals coming around to the idea of television advertising. It will be interesting to see if this is an augmentation to, or replacement of, these businesses' traditional newspaper and Yellow Pages ad spends.

On a more national level, eMarketer reports on an Accenture study that shows the growing interest among advertising executives for IPTV advertising and its targeting possibilities.

There is a lot of potential for transforming the local and national television advertising landscape if you look at how all these factors could converge over the next few years. Teleco IPTV rollouts, the fate of net neutrality, consumer adoption of online video, and small business adoption of video advertising, are all vital factors. We'll continue to watch closely.

Posted by Mike Boland at 5:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 5, 2007

Krillion Joins the Online Shopping Space

The local online shopping space is quickly crowding up. Given the vast majority of online product research that ends in offline purchases (about 75 percent according to comScore), we've seen a few companies develop over the last 18 months in order to lead and track offline conversions.

NearbyNow launched last summer to provide product and retailer information for malls and shopping centers. StepUp Commerce meanwhile continues to attract an impressive amount of small business advertisers that wish to put their product and inventory information online. StepUp's acquisition by Intuit in September will position it to distribute this capability (along with Google AdWords) across Intuit's massive installed base of QuickBooks users (including 3.7 million small businesses). Finally, ShopLocal works with big box retailers to bring their circular information (product sales, availability and pricing) online.

Today, Krillion launched with a similar focus on this big box segment. More specifically, it is going after buyers for "considered purchase" items. According to co-founder and CEO Joel Toledano, this includes products that are more than $500 which, because of their size and price, are more likely to be bought locally.

"These tend to be larger bulky items that are bought in a physical store because they might be a touch and feel purchase such as a flat screen TV, or something that you want to talk to a salesperson about,” says Toledano. The company will start with an emphasis in the $18 billion home appliances category, but will eventually grow into other categories that similarly include large ticket items, such as consumer electronics.

One of Krillion's silver bullets will be its proprietary crawling technology that brings in raw product data, combined with its integration of this data into a series of search results pages that correspond to the many combinations of specific products, brands, categories and 40,000 US local areas. After doing this for the past 6 months, the company at launch has more than 275 million product and location results pages.

"This focuses on the ready to buy local customer who has done their research, is at the end of the buying cycle and is now essentially putting their hand up when their doing their query and saying 'here's what I'm looking for, here's where I am, just tell me who carries it'," says Toledano. "Think of it as the yellow pages meets Shopping.com"

Instead of considering itself a destination site for local shopping, Krillion will push content out using SEO so that these individual product results pages can be found in Google organic results for local product queries.

“There are only a half dozen brands like eBay and Amazon.com where people actually go to the URL bar and type it in," said Toledano. Beyond those, whether its Shopping.com or Shopzilla, consumers on a broad swath simply don't know those brands. They type in the product or retailer in a Google Yahoo! search box.”

The company will also integrate targeted ads throughout these specific product pages including links to complimentary products such as accessories or items that are part of corresponding appliance sets.

Given the many permutations of location and specific products, some will be more obscure than others and recieve more traffic than others. Regardless, the targeted nature of these searches, and their positioning near the end of the buying cycle for high consideration items, will make the ad space more valuable.

“To an advertiser, there is a great deal of value in the targeted nature of this," says Toledano. They don't have to do shotgun broad brush approach to advertise on a general category such as the term ‘digital camera', where they are lumped in with many other advertisers.”

This could be attractive to big box advertisers, and offer more of a granular local product search than is currently offered by ShopLocal and others. Gaining traffic and communicating its value to consumers could be its biggest challenge at the onset, but given that it will piggyback on the already existing brand affinity and traffic of Google, this could be easier for Krillion.

Its success here will therefore come down to its ability to execute successful SEO tactics throughout its hundreds of millions of product result pages.

Posted by Mike Boland at 9:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Graywolf Owns Local Search This Week

Michael Gray, aka Graywolf, is out to corner the market on local search content this week. He's posted the first four of an expected 20 interviews with local search marketers, collected in his post, "Local Search Tips, Tricks & Secrets."

Today's interviewees include Aaron Wall, Dean Bloomfield, Bill Slawski and Scott Smith. Throughout the week, Gray plans to release interviews with George Kepnick, Rich Skrenta, RC Jordan, Matt McGee, Rae Hoffman, Justilien Gaspard, Merrick Lozano, Carolyn Shelby, Greg Hartnett, Brad Geddes, Mike Belasco, Lyndon Antcliff, Jeremy Schoemaker, John Andrews, Rebecca Kelley, and Lee Odden.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 3:32 PM | Permalink

February 2, 2007

A New Local Search Product From Yahoo!

Om Malik over at GigaOm has discovered that Yahoo is testing a new local search product in Bangalore and New Delhi. Known as OurCity, it is a city guide-like product that brings together a bunch of Yahoo social media products like Del.icio.us, Upcoming, and Flickr. It is also meant to aggregate geographically relevant news, blogs, and info from Wikipedia.

This could be an intriguing local product given the geographic relevance of a range of content formats. Bringing more information and multimedia to specific geographies is an interesting area of local online media and is being done by PlaceBlogger (blogs), and TurnHere (video).

But for this to work, there will be a lot required of users and the jury is still out on the sustainability and scalability of the "folksonomy" strategy, being pushed strongly by Yahoo throughout its product line.

The benefit of course is a cost-effective way to acquire and index content and present it in new and interesting ways that have social relevance to users. For example, something that is already being done to some degree with Flickr is the geotagging of photos so that map mashups can be created that overlay photo links on maps.

Hillary Schneider gave an interesting example of this in her Keynote at the NAA show that showed a cross-country road trip plotted out on a map via picture links that pepper the route taken from Chicago to Los Angeles.

The question is, will there be enough users that will play ball, in order to have the critical mass of content and user engagement to build comprehensive social search products. Yahoo certainly thinks so.

Some evidence of user proclivities in this area was recently released in a Pew Internet and American Life Project study. It found that 28 percent of Internet users have tagged or categorized content such as photos, or blog posts. It also found that "on a typical day online," 7 percent of internet users participate in the tagging of content.

So it is being done, but is this enough? It's an interesting bet Yahoo is making and it will have a big effect on the company's success metrics and search market share over the next few years. We shall see.

UPDATE: Yahoo has posted about "Our City" on the Yahoo Developer Network blog, where they reveal that the project came out of Yahoo's Bangalore Hack Day developer event.

Posted by Mike Boland at 6:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 1, 2007

SuperPages.com Combines Local Search with Social Networking

SuperPages.com today launched a Reviewer of the Week program. The intent of this program is to add the trust garnered from social networking and reviews to their local content. Here is how it will work. Registered users will compete with one another to write the most reviews of local businesses in their local area. Each Wednesday, the user posting the most reviews will be identified as the Reviewer of the Week and featured on the home page of SuperPages.com. By adding this competitive twist, SuperPages expects to get more writers and reviewers to generate content. SuperPages.com already has more than 324,000 reviews and listings with consumer-provided content.

Posted by Amanda Watlington at 2:14 PM | Permalink

January 30, 2007

Live From NAA: Local SearchTakes Center Stage

I'm at the Newspaper Association of America Marketing Convention in Las Vegas this week. The general chatter in and around the conference grounds has a palpable air of online strategy development. These things have also had a thematic dominance of many sessions I've attended (albeit a self selected sample).

Today, a 90 minute session focused on the very broad category of local search. The always entertaining and insightful Greg Sterling did a good job keeping the conversation on track (and to the continued amusement of the audience, instituted an edict against sometimes-meaningless buzzwords like “leverage” and “solutions”). In a discussion with Greg following the session, he agreed that this topic has tentacles that reach into newspapers, yellow pages, shopping, social networking, video, mobile and of course online search.

Today the focus was not surprisingly on how these many areas apply back to newspapers – particularly with the strategies involved in bringing better search functionality to newspaper websites. An important anecdote came from an audience member who explained his local newspaper's choice to pull the plug on a one-box search feature when it proved ineffective after a few months.

Tim Judd, CEO of Search Initiatives answered that Google has raised users' expectations of search, so if you can't create a comparable search technology, you are destined to fail. Jim Michaels, Director of New Media for The Evansville Courier & Press answered this same question by saying that you have to be patient and less inclined to look for immediate traffic and revenue benefits.

Planet Discover's president Terry Millard meanwhile asserted that you need the marketing muscle behind new functionality or new websites in order to promote them. “It's not just that you build it and they will come,” seconded Teresa Lawlor, Marketing Director of MediaNews Group Interactive.

These challenges all get to organizational issues, particularly in newspapers where the luxury of being able to wait four years before monetization is realized (which is what Google did) is not present.

There are also technical challenges. Yes, Google has set the standard in search, but the discreet and segmented nature of newspaper content can make it difficult for their online operations to create the local search experiences they would like to. The goal in many cases is to integrate disparate forms of data – historically siloed in different search buckets – to create user-centric unified local search results.

This would involve, for example, returning search results for “BMW” with related news (auto reviews), listings (dealerships) and classifieds (private party listings). The range of search queries in news however is broader and more complicated than that of classifieds which in turn is more complicated than that of business listings, which are neatly bunched into a relatively small volume of search headings.

“In automating unified search, you will get roughly 60 to 80 percent accuracy in contextually relevant results,” said Planet Discover's Millard. The rest requires an investment of manpower to manually police the accuracy of the data and search results. This requires an upfront investment to create the foundation of a search index. This investment level and maintenance resources lessen over time, but that initial hump is difficult to execute and scares many newspapers according to Millard.

In terms of human power, there are also opportunities to allow users to police data with different “social search” models that layer on community interaction to go the last mile beyond where the algorithms take you. There are also more “passive” social search engines that don't require user tagging and reviews – sometimes a barrier to user adoption - but instead increase relevance in search results by using past click stream analysis or grouping users into certain categories of interests. Such platforms from Eurekster and Collarity are available in private label form for newspaper or vertical sites to plant on their websites.

Branding is also an important challenge: Is it better to build upon the current newspaper brand equity, or to build out separate brands without the “baggage” of the legacy brand?

According to Jay Small, there are a few scenarios where a new brand is advisable. One is when it is possible to obtain a city.com domain (i.e. Boston.com), which has shown effectiveness in gaining traction. It can also be valuable if you can build something that is significantly removed from the functionality and brand of the legacy product. This, like some online directories or standalone vertical search destination sites, is harder to market but can be a much better branding strategy and value proposition in the long run.

Along these lines, Terry Millard reiterated that you need to put in the proper marketing investment to expose the new brand, and that in these situations it's “all about marketing”. Teresa Lawlor agreed.

“To flip over an existing newspaper brand and integrate personalization entertainment, social bookmarking, and mobile functionality, this is a new sandbox in which you can do these things,” she said, “but you need the marketing dollars to see it through.”

Posted by Mike Boland at 9:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 25, 2007

The Blogosphere Sounds Off on Hyper-Local

In the wake of discouraging news from hyper-local destination Backfence.com (in some ways this served as a testimonial to the sustainability of online hyper-local destination sites as we pointed out a few weeks ago), Sebastien Provencher points to a few relevant blog posts.

Long Tail theory creator Chris Anderson coins the term: "The Vanishing Point Theory of News" on his blog:

Our interest in a subject is in inverse proportion to its distance (geographic, emotional or otherwise) from us. For instance, the news that my daughter got a scraped knee on the playground today means more to me than a car bombing in Kandahar…There's nothing new about this (it's a truism of the American newsroom that Paris, Texas counts for more than Paris, France), but it bears repeating. The future of media is to stop boring us with news that doesn't relate to our lives. I'll start reading my “local” newspaper again when it covers my block.

The need to position hyper-local news content to help newspapers gain a local edge on competing news aggregators such as Google News and Yahoo! News was recently echoed by Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat, and by Editor and Publisher columnist Steve Outing. The Wall Street Journal (sub required) meanwhile reported yesterday on the dilema facing many papers - most notably The Boston Globe - to deploy finite editorial resources to local rather than global coverage.

Provencher also posts a retort to Anderson's theory from Terry Heaton's PoMo blog;

Even though I am a strong believer in hyper-local content being key to the evolution of local media, I'm not sure I completely endorse this theory (full-disclosure: I'm a newspaper junkie). Would a “local” paper without national or international news make it more relevant? It's possible but in this case, you'd need another newspaper to quench your international news needs. And maybe that's truly the future of the newspaper industry. In a few years, you might find only authoritative international newspaper brands (New York Times, Le Monde, The Guardian, La Stampa, The Globe & Mail, etc.) and strong hyper-local newspapers. All the ones in the middle will either have evolved or died. This is very similar to what happened in the retail business.

This is an interesting theory. The reality is that the web has commoditized national news. The only way to differentiate it is to have a specific angle of coverage at which you excel (Wall Street Journal), or unique voices that demand a premium (New York Times). Notice that these are two major papers that can get away with charging for online premium access.

The third strategy is to leverage a position that can't be replicated by aggregators; local. This hasn't really been done in a meaningful way online by local newspapers, or any national publisher with a patchwork of local assets. The opportunity exists, however, to create attractive and unique local destinations.

This could involve personalized news readers (a la MyYahoo!) that bring together national news, local news, classifieds, directory listings, local weather and sports, movie listings (traditionally all siloed into different search buckets). This can all be customized with RSS, and can offer a unique local experience (although challenges still exist in getting people to use RSS - partly a function of the confusion that yet another 3 letter tech acronym elicits, and the time it takes to set up a feed reader).

Still many of these concepts can be applied to search, by having newspaper websites that bring up many of these different types of content (classifieds, yellow pages, news that is local, national, and even that of competing publications) in search results. Planet Discover -- bought last year by Gannett -- is working on some interesting search products that do this. The next step is execution; newspapers that don't do this will continue to lose readers to the comprehensive experience offered by Google News and Yahoo! News.

The newspaper industry is clearly in a tumultuous time and there is a great deal of experimentation with online models (the creation of local ad networks such as Yahoo!'s recently formed consortium and that formed by Gannett, McClatchy and Tribune are other examples).

How to maintain the advantages of hyper-local in a scalable online business model has proven to be a sizeable challenge. But there is also an opportunity for someone to fill this hyper-local gap on a national level. Maybe it's Backfence (likely not), or maybe the truth lies in a low overhead aggregation model like Placeblogger (more likely), but it's clear that the need is there.

Posted by Mike Boland at 6:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 5, 2007

Backfence Faces Setback

Hyperlocal destination site Backfence has lost its CEO and co-founder Susan DeFife due to a failure to see eye-to-eye with the board of directors. The move also comes amidst a round of layoffs in that axed off two thirds of the company.

This is an unfortunate setback, given the company's growth over the last 18 months from its original D.C. area community sites, to its west coast expansion and many Bay Area site launches (it now totals 13 sites in D.C., Chicago and Bay Area). In some ways the question over whether or not a local destination strategy is sustainable could be gleaned from Backfence's success metrics, as it has been a pioneer in this space.

Its apparent cash flow problems and layoffs could be telling, and a more sustainable hyperlocal strategy could be in an aggregation model like that of the newly launched Placeblogger. Time will tell if this is the case.

Meanwhile The Seattle Times ran a column this week by Danny Westneat that argued hyper-local reporting (i.e. school box scores, police blotters, etc.), though not very glamorous, can be an important point of differentiation that can help small papers maintain a local edge on online competition such as news aggregators.

Newspaper industry expert and Editor and Publisher contributor Steve Outing also encourages hyperlocal content develoment in his own list of recomendations to local newspapers.

Posted by Mike Boland at 7:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 26, 2006

Vertical Strategies in Local Search

Just before the holiday weekend, Bill Slawski had an interesting post at his SEO by the Sea blog. The qualities of online search make it a natural fit for local he contends. This can be seen by the degree to which local has been emphasized within Google (Google Local), Yahoo! (Yahoo! Local), Microsoft (Windows Live Local), and most recently, Ask (AskCity).

But the real opportunity in Local could be in vertical segmentation, he argues. Increased verticalization has in fact gained steam over the past year with the introduction and development of many successful vertical destinations such as Zillow and Trulia in Real estate and Oodle and LiveDeal in classifieds. This “verticalization” of Local Search was a pervasive theme at the Kelsey Group's ILM:06 show last month.

Some of the advantages of a vertical search strategy include a refined corpus of data which increases the likelihood of relevant results within a category that a user is presumably interested in (going by their presence on the site in the first place). This increased relevance can lead to higher click through rates and higher intent to buy.

Some local shopping destinations such as NearbyNow enjoy these advantages because someone searching for “sunglasses” in their local area is more likely to be looking to find a place to buy them. Compare this to a Google search where the user's intent isn't as easily discernable (they could be in a research stage, many steps before a purchase decision and, ultimately, a transaction).

So vertical search can be valuable, but it also doesn't come without its own set of challenges. Use cases are different across vertical categories so different rules and interfaces should be applied for optimal experiences. This challenge is particularly relevant to the local products of search giants mentioned above. These local search offerings are all grounded in a map interface, however a map isn't as relevant in some categories as others.

A map that plots the locations of local landscapers isn't as valuable as one that plots local movie theaters (landscapers come to you). However the map interface dominates search results in both of these categories (and all others) in Google Local, Yahoo Local, et al.. For landscapers, plumbers, roofers and other service categories, user reviews or credentials might represent a better use of this space.

Still, there are many challenges in creating these rules and varying interfaces across vertical categories. The same challenge faces internet yellow pages companies such as yellowpages.com. Smaller vertical players can meanwhile create experiences that are more customized to the use case of that category, but they can't scale to the degree that a Google or a Yahoo! can.

Perhaps the best of both worlds is to build a “house of brands” strategy that brings together many individual vertical brands under one roof. The Classified Ventures family of online classified destinations (cars.com, apartments.com, HomeGain) has done this to some degree, but many believe the slow moving nature of their newspaper owners (Belo, Gannett, McClatchy, Tribune and Washington Post) has held this consortia back from reaching its potential. It's still an interesting model and one to watch – and possibly model after - in the coming year.

Posted by Mike Boland at 7:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 22, 2006

Bringing Small Businesses Online

TheStreet.com has an article on the growing trend of small businesses advertising themselves on Craigslist. As opposed to individuals buying and selling merchandise, this involves local businesses creating posts that list business information or possibly product or inventory info.

Essentially, this utilizes Craigslist as a place to have a free landing page. But this kind of advertising precariously places such pages where they can be bounced around as newer posts push them down chronological listings.

More effective for some small businesses have been free landing page and microsite offerings that have grown in number over the past year, as the name of the game for many search engine marketers will be to get more small businesses online.

This comes with the thought that a significant chunk of revenue growth for search engine marketers will come from new business - those local and small businesses that have thus far steered clear of online marketing because they aren't inclined to do it, or they simply don't have websites. Bringing a business online with free development and hosting tools is thought to hook them, and to develop early loyalties as a place to also do their online marketing.

Enter the free landing page development and hosting offerings. Yahoo! has done this for a while with its free local listings product, and Google came out with Page Creator in February which it recently upgraded with its new "hosted business pages" tool. Companies that have introduced similar solutions include vFlyer and Affinity Internet.

Many of the small businesses in this boat are service businesses that traditionally advertise in the yellow pages. In many cases these businesses are better equipped to handle a phone call than a click, which can be an abstract concept to some. A recent study done by Nielsen//NetRaings and WebVisible suggest as much.

So in addition to more free website development and hosting services, we could see more click-to-call functionality in paid search. In the last month alone, we've seen this from Google and LiveDeal. Look for more to emerge throughout '07.

Posted by Mike Boland at 12:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 21, 2006

'Tis the Season for Top Ten Lists

UK-based local search engine 192.com has released a list of its top local searches for the holiday season. Some search term top ten lists, which always pour in at this time of year, can be a good indication of consumer buying activity (some, it must be noted, are heavily filtered as Danny Sullivan points out over at Search Engine Land).

“Royal Mail” tops the list, as the pragmatic requirements of the season occupy a significant portion of people's time and mindshare. But the more fun elements of the holiday season are also represented further down the list with “Restaurants” and “Toy Shop”. Golf clubs and jewelry also seem to be the most popular gifts in the UK this year (assuming people are visiting, rather than buying and gifting, beauty salons and hotels).

Here is the entire list:

1. Royal Mail

2. Garden centers and florists

3. Beauty salons

4. Restaurants

5. Hotels

6. Golf

7. Taxis

8. Toy shop

9. Jewelers

10. Churches

Other interesting lists that have come out in the past week include Google's and Yahoo!'s top search terms for the year explored earlier in the week by Greg Jarboe. AdAge listed its top 10 Internet acquisitions of 2006; The Seeking Alpha Blog has a top 10 list of tech storylines that defined '06 (social media and video are not surprisingly at the top); while Sebastien Provencher's new social/local media blog, Praized.com, looks forward to the top trends that will shape '07.

If Provencher is right, online video and social networking will continue to shape the direction of the media world and particularly local search. Local advertising's marriage with social networking was seen this year and it could grow considerably in '07, as more small businesses see the value in viral marketing on a local level.

We could see this and other intersecting trends in '07 and as innovation continues throughout the media world, and adoption levels for many developing forms of media (online video, mobile local search, social search, etc.) approach mainstream status.

Posted by Mike Boland at 3:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jake Baillie Leaving TrueLocal

I just received the email about Jake Baillie leaving TrueLocal for a boutique venture capital company.

Guess we are going to need a new member on the arbitrage panel. He will be missed in the space and hope he still attends the conferences.

His letter read:

I'm both pleased and saddened to announce my departure from TrueLocal to you. Last week the opportunity to do something that I've always wanted to do was presented to me - manage a small internet fund that incubates and provides funding to seed-stage new media and technology companies.

On January 1, myself and several employees from TrueLocal will be forming STN Labs, which will do exactly that.

As managing director, my role will be to evaluate, fund, and help these small and inventive companies become self-sufficient. We're starting out with a stable of existing investments which will be announced shortly, and beginning in April, we will evaluate new opportunities. We're looking to take on several entrepreneurs in residence in the short-term, as well as providing investments to companies in the 50K-500K range.

Throughout the remainder of December and January, I will be transitioning out of TrueLocal. Please feel free to contact me directly if you have any further questions or concerns about my transition. In the new year, I'll be sending out another email with my new contact information and more details on STN Labs.

Thanks for all of your support of TrueLocal, and here's to a safe and prosperous new year!

Posted by Frank Watson at 12:56 PM | Permalink

December 18, 2006

Searches Up, Dude! Ask.com Sponsors Surf Contest

Search and surfing will converge in Half Moon Bay, California in early 2007, when the Mavericks Surf Contest takes place. Known to surf pros and fans of the sport as the world's premiere big-wave surf event, this season's contest offers everyone the chance to surf Ask.com for all the details and get a variety of results from various Ask sources, including maps and directions online or via Ask.com Mobile search.

"Ask.com® is excited to be an integral part of the preeminent big-wave surfing event, and, as a leading search engine, to be the official go-to source for information for all things Mavericks," said Greg Ott, vice president of marketing. A quick search for Mavericks Surf Contest on Ask.com® will give fans quick access to webcasts and viewing locations, videos, bios on the surfers and the history of the event. In addition, with Ask.com® and Ask.com Mobile(tm), fans can find Mavericks images, news, maps, walking and driving directions, blogs and other information across the Web for fans everywhere. "We're excited to support this great surfing event, as well as to be a resource for all the Mavericks fans," remarked Ott.

On just 24 hours notice between January 1 and March 31, 2007, 24 legendary big-wave surfers will make the pilgrimage to the treacherous Mavericks surf break to compete for the famed title, and $75,000 in prizes to be distributed to the top surfers.

Surfers and fans alike can track the waves and stay informed on contest announcements at the official website maverickssurf.com.

Note: You would think that I got this info directly from Ask.com, since I receive a lot of press releases from the search engines, but no -- this one actually came from an PR company who has me on their list as an action sports journalist. So I just had to post since it was related to my two favorite things: search and outdoor sports.

Posted by Elisabeth Osmeloski at 5:42 PM | Permalink

December 7, 2006

Local Service Business Searches on the Rise

Local online marketing firm WebVisible conducted an online survey recently and found that 70% had used the Internet to search for a local service business and 46% did so in the past three months. Almost 90% found search to be “somewhat effective” or “very effective” in finding local services in their area. And 68% said they would most likely use the phone number on the website to contact a vendor.

This means that people are using the Internet to find local service businesses in significant numbers and are pretty happy with the experience. I've got a closer look at the survey results in today's article, Study: Search Driving Offline Conversions for Local Service Businesses.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 2:14 AM | Permalink

November 21, 2006

Web Increasingly Used For Local Service Business Searches

Local online marketing firm WebVisible conducted an online survey this past August regarding Internet usage to find a local service business. The survey used Nielsen//NetRatings' online panel and asked about behavior within the past 90 days. Among more than 2,800 consumer responses, 70% had used the Internet to search for a local service business and 46% did so in the past three months. (Roughly 78% of the US adult population is online.) Almost 90% found search to be “somewhat effective” or “very effective” in finding local services in their area. And 68% said they would most likely use the phone number on the website to contact a vendor.

This means that people are using the Internet to find local service businesses in significant numbers and are pretty happy with the experience. Also interesting is the traditional method used to contact these local businesses – the telephone (PPCall opportunity).

There's more interesting data in the survey and I'll be doing a longer write-up after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 12:29 PM | Permalink

November 20, 2006

Verizon Spins Off Idearc

Idearc is the newly spun off parent of local search provider SuperPages.com. The company started trading today on the NYSE. The SuperPages brand, which survives the spin-off, will continue to publish Verizon yellow pages. SuperPages has been the most progressive of the incumbent YP sites in embracing new business models (PPClick/Call) and consumer trends (ratings and reviews). Indeed, SuperPages sees itself not as a “yellow pages” per se but as a local search and shopping resource. Let's see how far the company pushes that metaphor now that it's on its own.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 9:49 AM | Permalink

November 15, 2006

Loki And 'Location Pull'

If you're not aware of it, Loki is one of the more interesting developments in local search. It's a downloadable toolbar from Skyhook Wireless, which initially launched in April, 2006 and has recently been upgraded. (The technology actually works on any WiFi-enabled device.) Once on a browser, it automatically determines user location by triangulating WiFi access points rather than GPS, which isn't on all devices.

Once installed, the user doesn't need to enter location into sites and applications. Those apps automatically show the relevant location when called up; this means the relevant city for Citysearch or Yahoo! Local or Fandango for movie tickets.

On one level Loki is a kind of a local "metasearch" engine, aggregating local content and tools in a single place. It embeds a range of local search engines, content and related tools to make it easier to conduct local searches from the toolbar. And there are a range of third-party extensions and add-ons, among them weather, movies, restaurant guides, real estate information, local news, store finder and numerous others.

Beyond making local search more usable, the most interesting implication of Loki is what Ted Morgan, CEO of Skyhook Wireless, calls "location pull." For example, if a retailer like Target tapped into this technology (assuming it's installed on a user's device) then, reading user location, Target could automatically offer a locally customized version of its site for that individual, including deals, the weekly circular, etc. Online newspapers, rather than asking for registrations, could offer a "national" or a "local" version of their sites accordingly. And clearly search engine (and potentially display) advertising would benefit from the greater location precision.

Loki offers an API for third-party developers and is also a Firefox add-on.

Here's a CNET video featuring an interview with Jed Rice, VP of Market Development for Skyhook Wireless, who was also on a panel at SES Local covered in today's Search Day article.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 8:41 AM | Permalink

The Intersection of Local Search, Mobile & WiFi

"Convergence" is one of those buzzwords that's been around forever, loosely used to describe the blending of media and technologies into one unified platform. Until recently, search marketers could safely ignore the hype, but no longer: convergence is finally real enough to pose both a threat and new opportunities for search marketers. This was a hot topic at the SES Local Edition conference, and guest writer Grant Crowell offers key takeaways on the issue of convergence in today's SearchDay article, Coping with Convergence: Local Search Meets Mobile and WiFi, Part 1.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 2:35 AM | Permalink

November 14, 2006

AskTheLocal UK Shopping Search Engine

AskTheLocal is a shopping search engine with a subtle difference; rather than find websites that offer particular products it matches the search query with a postcode to enable shoppers to visit a shop in person to buy the product. Another important difference is the reference to 'postcode' rather than zip code, because AskTheLocal is a UK resource.

The concept is very simple - retailers list their products with the search engine and users input their location and then search for products using free text terms rather than a listing or menu approach. The results screen then usually displays a photograph of the product, a description, the option of comparing prices or linking into Technorati in the hope that someone will have written about it, other items from that retailer and of course the price. Information is also given with respect to the physical location of the shop offering the product, the opening hours and telephone number. Finally there is a link to a map - the emphasis with AskTheLocal really is on locating products and then going and physically buying them.

It's a simple idea and well executed; while I have a few (minor) reservations about the service it makes a real change to find a local search engine for local people, and it is certainly worth exploring if you're in the UK. A similar service (not associated with AskTheLocal) is ShopLocal, so American readers need not feel left out.

AskTheLocal has already got a number of high profile retailers on board, such as Marks and Spencer, Argos, ToysRus and JJB which is helpful, given that searchers are almost bound to find some results for their searches. There are as yet only a very small number of local shops or chains, which limits the value of the service and I suspect areas of the country that are not well represented; I ran a search for a product and got results from shops that were up to 28 miles away and then the next result was for a shop that was over 200 miles away, so coverage is patchy at the moment, though hopefully it will increase in due course.

I would have liked to have seen a link to a retailers website as well - while I appreciate the emphasis of the search engine is on providing physical locations for products a link to a website is to be expected. Most of the items did have good descriptions, but I found a few cases when the result was limited to the title of a product while didn't actually help very much, though to be fair this is a criticism of the retailer and not the search engine itself.

While the service is still quite basic additional functionality is being introduced; the option of being able to check availability and the option of including discount coupons makes a lot of sense.

All in all, it's a search engine and concept that I think shows great promise, and once it has more large retailers signed up, and especially a lot more small niche specialised shops getting involved this could prove to be a very useful resource indeed.

Postscript from Greg: In addition to ShopLocal in the U.S., NearbyNow and StepUp (acquired by Intuit) are putting local business inventory online.

Posted by Phil Bradley at 9:40 AM | Permalink

October 24, 2006

November Elections Mashups

Maps have long been important in politics, as anyone who works in politics or watches the TV coverage on election night knows. And then there's the familiar saying, "All politics is local." Now, as reported on the Google Earth Blog, Google Earth has added "U.S. Elections Guide" and "U.S. Congressional Districts" information layers. By selecting these layers in Google Earth (not available on Google Maps) you can see boundaries of U.S. voting districts, links to information and news about the candidates, where to vote, campaign finance data and other election-related information.

Map-based real estate site HotPads has also created an interactive elections map for the coming November election. Click on any state and you can drill down on U.S. Congressional districts and information on representatives from Wikipedia and other sources. Here's an example from Florida.

I'm sure there are more out there. Let us know if you find them.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 10:50 AM | Permalink

October 22, 2006

Grayboxx: A Better Local Search Engine?

I hear lots of claims from startups about how they'll improve upon or do better than the competition. Most of the time, those claims don't prove to be true in practice. Of course if you didn't believe your own PR, why would you even try? Now a new San Francisco-Bay Area startup called Grayboxx is making similar claims about local search.

Local is now seeing a flood of startups that contend they can offer something better, simpler, more intuitive or more accurate to consumers and local businesses. The sheer scale of the local market – tens of millions of small businesses and many billions in annual ad spending – makes local a highly desirable, if tremendously challenging, opportunity.

Grayboxx CEO Bob Chandra rightly asserts that local community input – ratings and reviews – are spotty on even the best and most complete sites. Either the coverage is deep in selected categories but not across the board, or it's broad but thin. Indeed, social media sites and those with community content have historically been challenged to generate "critical mass" when it comes to user content, at least at the outset. Over time, sites that develop momentum and increasing content depth find that getting ratings and reviews becomes easier.

Chandra argues that in certain categories, which lack the "sex appeal" (my term) of bars and restaurants, it's almost impossible to find reviews/ratings; or if they exist, there are perhaps a small handful. Chandra told me the Grayboxx algorithm and methodology has allowed the site to compile hundreds of reviews on even the most ordinary and mundane categories, such as "notaries or pest control and tile contractors."

But Chandra says that Grayboxx's algorithm, which the company has labeled "PreferenceScoring," has allowed it to compile "community input" (ratings) on an unprecedented scale across 3,000 business categories. Chandra told me that "in over 500 categories there are more 200 cumulative recommendations within the category." In all he says the company has "50 million local endorsements are [that are] spread evenly throughout the nation." Chandra claims about 80% coverage of U.S. cities and numerous suburban areas at launch, which will happen shortly.

To prove what he is saying, Chandra invited me and others to conduct searches and compare results on Grayboxx vs. Yahoo Local and Yelp.

While he wouldn't elaborate on the specifics, Chandra says Grayboxx compiles data from many sources, some of which are considered proxies for user recommendations. The methodology, however, raises the question of the accuracy and validity of the recommendations. But Chandra says that when Grayboxx compares its results to critical and expert reviews "in the few categories users and critics get around to reviewing, Grayboxx matches those results."

Here's an explanation from the Grayboxx site:

Put simply, Grayboxx recommendations come from other people in your neighborhood. We use a patent-pending technique, called PreferenceScoring, in which we identify business references in user data such as e-mail address books and tagged digital photographs. When a user takes the time to store the name of a restaurant in his address book, chances are he likes the place well enough to do so...probably because he'll call again in the future for reservations or to order take-out. We aggregate these references (which we call "implicit endorsements") to local businesses - and these make up the recommendations you see on our site. The businesses you see on Grayboxx have met the interest of one or more of your neighbors. Our approach has brought an unparalleled level of community feedback to local search and we hope you see the difference. In addition, our algorithmic results strongly correlate with critic's choices...our top results correlate with CitySearch Editor's Picks in a range of categories such as Best Hair Salons. (70%), Best Fine Dining (80%) and Best Health Clubs (80%).

The current interface is skeletal at best. (The site is currently in "alpha.") But Chandra says that's just a matter of putting a better looking skin on the engine. That may be so, but the site's look and feel and ease of use will matter in terms of whether it ultimately succeeds or fails.

There's also the question of trust. Right now Grayboxx isn't a known brand and so it will take time to build up trust among users. If the algorithm is as good as Chandra contends that could happen relatively quickly. But local is still an extremely tough nut to crack.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 11:58 PM | Permalink

October 19, 2006

Verizon Announces SuperPages Spin Off, To Be Called "Idearc"

Ending several months of speculation Verizon announced yesterday that its SuperPages unit would be spun off as a separate company, to be called, somewhat awkwardly, "Idearc Inc." According to a BusinessWeek article the name is a combination of "idea" and "arc," words that Verizon told the magazine "symbolize how the directory business connects buyers and sellers."

According to comScore, SuperPages was the top Internet yellow pages (IYP) site owned by a traditional publisher and the second in terms of overall traffic (July, 2006):

1. Yahoo! Sites — 23.9% 2. Verizon SuperPages — 20.1% 3. Google Sites — 12.5% 4. Yellowpages.com —12.0% 5. Time Warner Network — 7.7% 6. Local.com — 5.9% 7. InfoSpace Network — 5.1% 8. Dexonline.com — 4.1%

comScore also reported that the IYP category saw 68 million searches in July and had 46% year-over-year growth. SuperPages itself claims more than 2 billion searches annually.

Here are the comScore numbers on market share in the broader "local search" category (IYP + search engines):

1. Google Sites — 29.8% 2. Yahoo! Sites — 29.2% 3. Microsoft Sites — 12.3% 4. Time Warner Network — 7.1% 5. Verizon Communications— 6.6% 6. YellowPages.com — 3.9% 7. Ask Network — 2.7% 8. Local.com— 1.9% 9. InfoSpace Network — 1.9% 10. DexOnline.com — 1.4% 11. All Other — 3.2%

Among the traditional yellow pages publisher sites SuperPages has been the most experimental and innovative, early on embracing PPC and PPCall (in print too), adding user-reviews (an anathema to most YP publishers) and trying to expand the range and usage of the product online beyond traditional service business listings. The company also has a mobile product, "SuperPages on the go."

In July, SuperPages acquired SEM firm Inceptor and did a distribution deal with Google to resell AdWords. SuperPages is not unique, however, in acquiring an SEM firm. RH Donnelley recently bought LocalLaunch. And in February independent yellow pages publisher Yellow Book USA acquired a lesser known local SEM firm ClickFoward.

SuperPages President Eric Chandler, last year, first articulated the concept that the directory publisher was effectively becoming like an "agency" for local advertisers, helping them to achieve broader reach online through simplified search engine marketing and other methods, in addition to selling its traditional yellow pages products.

Online revenues are hovering at around 15% or so of print revenues for the yellow pages industry overall. Much more revenue and profit are offline but growth is almost entirely online.

SuperPages had a reported $3.45 billion in overall revenues in 2005. The new company will have a 7,100 employees, about 3,000 of which are sales people, according to The Kelsey Group.

SuperPages is one of the best-known IYP sites -- it would prefer to be known as a "local shopping" site -- but it faces tremendous competition from not only search engines but a range of stand-alone "local search" sites and directories with user-generated content, such as InsiderPages and Yelp. Hitwise's LeeAnn Prescott found that traffic to "traditional" IYP sites was not growing as fast as that going to these "social directories," as I like to call them.

The spin off will probably be very good for SuperPages, which will have greater freedom to innovate and be able to keep its own revenues, which are traditionally partly siphoned off by the corporate parents of YP publishers for the cash flow.

Once freed, it will be interesting to see how aggressive SuperPages tries to be and how it adapts to a rapidly evolving local-search marketplace.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 8:05 AM | Permalink

October 17, 2006

Citysearch Adds SMS-Based Local Search For Mobile Phones

Citysearch formally launched its text-based mobile local search service today: CS411 (27411). There's also a send-to-phone feature (see, e.g., "Hotels, Burbank CA").

Doing the same search online vs. CS411 on a mobile phone yields somewhat different results. Users get four results in SMS, which were not identical to the online search results I got for the above search in my quick test. They were, in fact, more geographically accurate. (I received results only for Burbank vs. adjacent areas.) Citysearch consumer ratings are also provided, which you would expect and are central to the consumer value proposition.

Results I received were also "sponsored." Rather than a relevant advertiser link at the top of results, there was an advertiser-sponsor referenced at the bottom. The advertiser had nothing to do with my particular search for hotels but I would expect over time that will change.

In speaking with Citysearch EVP Scott Morrow a couple of weeks ago he stated that mobile was being seen as an important channel and future traffic source for the company and that Citysearch would be rolling out other mobile offerings in the not-too-distant future.

One of the interesting aspects of my discussion with Morrow was about "lead quality" and the differences between a click and a call and a map view, and so on. Citysearch is experimenting with different pricing strategies to better reflect this concept of lead quality, in terms of what the local advertiser actually receives.

Ask.com recently launched a mobile application, the local search component of which ("business listings") is built on Citysearch content and allows users to sort by rating, which is a very nice feature. Both companies are owned by IAC.

Here's a related post on my blog about the current state of mobile local search and related issues.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 9:54 AM | Permalink

October 12, 2006

Google And Palm Launch Maps For Smartphones

I'll resist the "maps in the palm of your hand" jokes here. But Google and Palm announced the launch of Google Maps for Treo smartphones. The site indicates that currently the application supports the Treo 600, 650 and 700 models. But I've seen reports that also say the new 680 is being supported, and so I would assume is the forthcoming 750.

Maps on a smartphone makes much more sense than a tiny Google map on a tiny mobile screen. The Google Blog has more information.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 4:33 PM | Permalink

October 11, 2006

Cool New Real Estate Tools

The real estate vertical is one of the most interesting online segments for several reasons. Among them are the tools that have been developed amid intensifying competition.

Two relatively new ones are Rentometer from iiProperty, a company that helps manage real-estate investments and rental properties, and Mapvine from a company called Rentvine.

Mapvine is a free tool that enables anyone to place map-based listings (rentals, store locations, etc.) on their sites without any technical knowledge or expertise.

Rentometer allows you to compare what you're paying to average rents in your area. For example, before my wife and I moved from San Francisco, CA to where we live currently we were paying approximately $1375 a month in rent (over four years ago). Today that looks like an incredible deal.

Rentometer also shows you the highest rents by zip and by city.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 9:41 AM | Permalink

October 10, 2006

Will Voice-Enabled Mobile Search Kill Directory Assistance?

Local media research firm The Kelsey Group just forecast "portal-backed wireless voice search [will] reach 1.45 billion queries in 2010" and cause "a significant disruption of the directory assistance market." On one level, this is self-evident. Because of increasing competition and free alternatives, consumer-pays wireless directory assistance (DA) will eventually go away, unless it becomes incredibly valuable and useful. Cingular is trying to do just that with help from Tellme.

I don't have the report referenced in the release so I can't comment on the forecast methodology itself or, more generally, its analysis. But I can comment on the general issues of usability and the mobile space in general.

Like other traditional local media, directory assistance (if I can use the term "media") is under pressure. According to Opus Research, worldwide DA revenues (wireless and wireline) are roughly $13 billion. But free directory assistance and its various cousins (e.g., 1800-San Diego, 4Info, UpSnap, 1800-Free-411), SMS, WAP-based search and mobile applications will chip away at consumer-pays wireless DA to the point where it's got very limited usage. The only question is: how long will that take?

In my mind the more interesting questions surround the usability and interface issues in the larger context of mobile-local search. This is something we've posted about multiple times in the past.

Voice has the capacity to be a much more efficient and user-friendly interface than a keypad on mobile devices (especially if you're not on a smartphone). But voice-driven mobile search must work. Deep Nishar of Google previously said to me that he didn't think that voice was "the key" to driving mobile usage. There are issues of background noise, accents and so on that impact query "disambiguation." In addition, the DA databases used to support voice-based mobile search can be inaccurate (just like local listings online.)

DA has been a surrogate for mobile-local search, since it has been the only game in town, so to speak, until recently. Now, as mentioned, there are a range of mobile alternatives, most are not great, to find local information while on the go. Microsoft, Google, Yahoo! and InfoSpace all have people working, to varying degrees, on voice interfaces. Nuance, Tellme and CallGenie are voice infrastructure companies that can voice-enable mobile applications for carriers or direct-to-consumer applications.

Right now, voice is not "the killer app" for mobile. But it could well accelerate usage of mobile data services and mobile local search if it works well. There will probably be a range of applications and user experiences that gain traction with mobile users, chiefly because of the range of devices out there and their capabilities and limitations. The optimal mobile interface and user experience will involve some combination of "modalities," perhaps with voice as an option but certainly the ability to use the keypad to enter text and save listings and/or browse content.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 10:59 AM | Permalink

October 9, 2006

Cingular Wireless Voice-Enabled Mobile Local Search

More and more directory assistance (DA) is starting to morph into voice-enabled mobile (local) search. This piece in the NY Times over the weekend describes a new deal between automated voice services company Tellme Networks and Cingular Wireless for an expanded service that will offer a range of options that are much broader than current DA. Here's a previous post about how directory assistance call volumes indicate mobile search category demand.

Here's more discussion of voice, DA and the mobile user experience on my blog.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 10:11 AM | Permalink

Windows Live Search Mobile PPCall Deal With Ingenio

A few weeks ago Google introduced sponsored listings into mobile search. Yahoo followed last week. Now Microsoft has partnered with Ingenio to deliver pay-per-call listings into Windows Live Search for mobile. But unlike the other two programs this is not being launched in beta.

Ingenio's advertisers are the only paid listings that will appear when users conduct a geotargeted search on Window Live for mobile. There will only be one advertiser shown for any given search and Ingenio's entire inventory will be funneled into Windows Live. When there are no relevant Ingenio advertisers, no sponsored listings will appear. (The company has existing mobile distribution through Jingle Networks' 1800-Free-411 and go2.)

Since Ingenio announced its original deal with AOL (see example) more than a year ago it has been steadily building distribution with smaller players in the local market. This is obviously a very significant relationship and may be a prelude to a broader deal with Microsoft. Ingenio wouldn't comment on that possibility, however.

Microsoft currently offers "call for free" click-to-call functionality on Live Local.

All three of the dominant search providers have now flipped the switch on sponsored listings in mobile. We should see a continuing acceleration of product development and competition in the wireless space. Early evidence argues that response rates (clicks/calls) in a wireless environment will be much higher than clicks on sponsored listings online because there are fewer competing advertisers (due to smaller screens) and users' needs are typically more immediate.

While the number of users conducting searches in a mobile environment is currently a very tiny fraction of what it is online, mobile search will be a significant channel in the next several years as the user experience improves.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 8:45 AM | Permalink

October 6, 2006

Hitwise: 'Social Local Search' Growing Fast

Hitwise's LeeAnn Prescott, who presented at SES Local, has posted some of the data she showed at the conference. In this particular example, what she compared was traffic to traditional yellow pages sites vs. directory sites that incorporated user-generated content:

"[G]rowth over the past year to the yellow pages custom category has been relatively flat, while the market share of visits to the custom category containing Yahoo! Local, Yelp, Judy's Book and Insider Pages has grown by 44% when comparing August 2005 to August 2006. While standard yellow pages sites are receiving significantly more traffic in terms of volume, these newer directory services, with maps, reviews, and community features are quickly catching up."

Posted by Greg Sterling at 10:59 AM | Permalink

Free Local Search White Paper From TeleMapics

Consulting firm TeleMapics is offering a free local search white paper, which you can get here. Called "Local Search: Time for a Tune-Up?," the document is 62 pages and provides a fairly detailed overview of the state of local search. For those already working with local search, there's nothing here you probably won't already know. But it's a good primer for those who aren't very familiar with the area -- and it's free.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 8:18 AM | Permalink

September 28, 2006

comScore: Local Search Gains Momentum

SES Local starts today in Denver, so it's timely that comScore released new local search data, which they'll be presenting at the show. Here are the top-level findings:

"According to the study, 63 percent of U.S. Internet users (or approximately 109 million people) performed a local search online in July, a 43-percent increase versus July of 2005. Google Sites (30 percent) and Yahoo! Sites (29 percent) garnered the largest share of local searches in July. Microsoft Sites captured 12 percent of local searches, followed by the Time Warner Network with 7 percent."

The release has the full market-share breakdown.

comScore also found that local searches were close in time to buying decisions:

"[P]erforming a local search drives consumers to take action. During the second quarter of 2006, 47 percent of local searchers visited a local merchant as a result of their search behavior, while 41 percent made contact offline. More than one-third (37 percent) made contact online as a result of conducting a local area search."

comScore defines "local search" in a relatively narrow way, including search engines and online yellow pages sites. But, in fact, user behavior with a local intent is a much bigger phenomenon, touching classifieds sites, verticals, online newspapers and social networks to varying degrees. Classifieds growth in particular has been striking, with 37 million users in July in that category alone.

And if you start to consider how many people conduct product research that converts offline, it becomes and even bigger category. But people might disagree with casting the definitional net too wide.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 10:13 AM | Permalink

September 26, 2006

The Internet, 'Family 2.0' And The 43-Hour Day

Yahoo and OMD issued the findings from the latest round of their ongoing global research project in 16 countries that involves online surveys and in-person interviews. What they found is that through technology and multitasking families are cramming the equivalent of 43 hours of activity into a 24 hour day. They also found that the Internet (and mobile phones) are a significant part of the fabric of daily family life.

There's a lot of interesting material in the findings. The top level data can be found in this release.

The following data are some of the more interesting findings published (some of this is verbatim from the release). Families spend more time online than watching TV:

Using the Internet 3.6 hours
Watching TV 2.5 hours
Using instant messenger 1 hour
Emailing 1.2 hours
Listening to radio 1.3 hours

Other results:

More than half (55 percent) of survey respondents age 18-34 agreed that without technology they "wouldn't be able to stay in touch with friends and family." More than a third in the 18-34 age group said their social lives would suffer without technology (34 percent) and that technology enabled them to overcome shyness (36 percent).

Two thirds (66 percent) of U.S. families surveyed use the Internet to research products, and 64 percent use a search engine every day. Families also use the Internet to share photos (62 percent), make travel reservations (60 percent) and research health (61 percent).

Internet now a primary resource for various categories of information, including some in local:

Families have adapted to new and changing media and technology, and now rely on the Internet as their top source of information on travel, jobs, finance and automobiles. Approximately half of respondents said they rely primarily on television for news (50 percent) and comedy (43 percent). Magazines are a significant source for celebrity gossip and other niche content. Newspapers are viewed as a strong secondary source, after the Internet, for information with a local flavor such as jobs, sports, concerts and events. And regarding advertising and media consumption...

Receptivity to advertising falls as ad channels become more personal. In the U.S., respondents reported that they were most open to ads in magazines and newspapers (72 percent), radio (60 percent) or TV (59 percent), and less receptive to ads on mobile phones or MP3 players.

Curiously there was nothing in the release about ads online or in search.

Postscript: Since viewing the report itself, I have a couple of things to add of interest:

Across the 11 categories of content that Yahoo-OMD explored (News, Travel, Jobs, Music, Movies, Finance, etc.) the Internet was the preferred source in all but two categories (News, Comedy/Humor), where TV was preferred with the Internet second.

Survey respondents in the U.S. were more open to ads ("It's okay to find advertising in each place") in traditional media than online or in mobile. The mobile finding is broadly consistent with other research in the market, but other studies have indicated people are open to paid-search ads and other forms of online advertising if it is perceived to be "relevant."

Posted by Greg Sterling at 11:44 AM | Permalink

September 25, 2006

Real Estate Search Engine Trulia Adds New Depth, Features

As the housing market cools, the real estate vertical is heating up. Today, real estate search engine Trulia launched several new features, a week after Zillow introduced new functionality and about three weeks after Yahoo! Real Estate announced a range of new tools and a site redesign.

Trulia has now expanded and is offering nationwide coverage through a mix of crawling and listing feeds. It's also providing a range of new information on real estate price trends, comparable homes and neighborhood guides (i.e., schools, commutes and crime data). Here's are example guides for Chicago, Illinois and St. Paul, Minnesota.

Perhaps the most fun new feature/tool on the site are heat maps, which show prices per square foot by area. Here's Chicago and San Diego, California. Zillow introduced something similar last week (Here's an example for Boston, Massachusetts.) The Trulia heat maps are interactive, however, and can be used as a way to locate homes for sale. Buyers can visually identify an area with a price per square foot they can afford and then go directly from the map to listings or an area guide to learn more.

Trulia is ad supported and is showing branded listings within relevant search results. Here's an example for a neighborhood in Miami, Florida. The ads at the top will be relevant to whatever criteria the user has indicated. There's also branded advertising on the adjacent maps. Trulia also has RSS feeds and alerts so users can stay abreast of properties within their criteria without having to visit the site every day.

Trulia is just a year old and has put together one of the most feature rich, useful and user-friendly of the real estate sites on the market. It is not as heavily trafficked as some but from a usability standpoint can go head to head with any site out there.

Real estate as a vertical is a perfect kind of a laboratory for local search. It offers an obvious and valuable implementation of maps, lots of monetization opportunities and ready would-be advertisers who are aggressive and generally ahead of the small business curve when it comes to creativity and online marketing.

Because there's so much money in the sector -- the National Association of Realtors estimates that approximately $12 billion dollars is spent annually in the U.S. on real estate marketing and advertising -- there's lots of competition and innovation.

Now with a slowing market it will get even more intense.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 12:24 PM | Permalink

September 20, 2006

Zillow Adds 'Owner-Generated' Content

Real estate search site Zillow.com has added personalization features and the ability for homeowners to publish their own information beside Zillows home-valuation "Zestimates."

A new "My Zillow" feature allows users to track homes and save other content to a personal page. Zillow previously allowed homeowners to modify and/or correct the details, features and amenities of their homes and recalculate the estimated value. Those details and modifications can now be made public beside Zillow's own Zestimate if owners so choose.

Zillow's Zestimates have been critiqued in some quarters for being inflated or otherwise inaccurate. This capability will help add more accurate data to the content on the site.

Finally, Zillow has added cool "heat maps" to the site, showing by color the price per square foot of any area in the country.

We wrote about Zillow previously here and here.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 7:29 AM | Permalink

Citysearch Launches in San Diego

Venerable local search provider Citysearch has launched a new site in San Diego, California. Recently, Citysearch has added "insider lists" (users' local favorites) and local sales events to its mix of editorial and user-generated content. After a period of retrenchment, Citysearch traffic is up and the Citysearch brand appears to be resurgent. The site also provides all the local content for sister IAC property Ask Local.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 7:11 AM | Permalink

September 19, 2006

Local Matters and Mobile People Partner for Mobile Local Search

Directory, directory assistance and local search infrastructure provider Local Matters today announced a deal with European mobile search company Mobile People. According to the press release, "The collaboration between Local Matters and Mobile People is designed to bring new revenue opportunities to the Yellow Pages industry by combining mobile search capabilities with existing yellow and white pages information for competing in the growing search marketing industry."

There are already a range of yellow pages-like mobile content services on the market. (Nokia has relationships in Europe with most of the local directory publishers and uses their data to power its local search product.) But the mobile needs and interests of consumers requires expansion way beyond traditional yellow pages content. The user experience is critical in mobile (even more than online) and directory publishers will need to rely on third parties with mobile expertise to create that user experience.

For yellow pages publishers, simply announcing, "now our content is wirelessly enabled," will not be sufficient to gain consumer adoption in a segment that will be even more competitive and difficult than local search online.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 9:11 AM | Permalink

September 13, 2006

Intuit & Google Announce Major Local Search Marketing Partnership

In a development with potentially sweeping implications for local search and small business online marketing, Intuit has announced a partnership with Google that integrates AdWords campaign management and other Google-related features directly into the workflow of QuickBooks, the company's bestselling software package for small business. QuickBooks has 3.7 million active small business customers. A similar set of capabilities is contemplated for a future release of Intuit's other bestselling software program Quicken.

Simultaneously Intuit announced the acquisition of SME marketing firm StepUp. (Reuters is reporting that the acquisition price was $60 million.) StepUp has been doing for local retailers what local SEM/SEO firms like LocalLaunch, WebVisible and ReachLocal are doing (with partners) for local service businesses – helping them establish a web presence and pushing their listings and content out to consumer destinations where they could be found online. (I'll go into this aspect of the deal and its significance below.)

The Intuit-Google partnership and the QuickBooks implementation were quickly put together for the 2007 release of QuickBooks, which hits the shelves later this month. Both companies see their relationship as a long-term partnership with significant mutual benefits. Intuit CEO Steve Bennett and Google CEO Eric Schmidt are holding a conference call later today to explain the relationship in further detail.

Here are the details of the QuickBooks integration as I understand them:

AdWords Starter Edition Integration: Small businesses using QuickBooks will have the ability to sign up for AdWords and manage their campaigns directly within the QuickBooks workflow environment. They won't need to go to Google to do so; Google will receive a feed directly from within QuickBooks. As an incentive to advertise, new AdWords users will receive a $50 discount. Beyond FAQs and standard information about AdWords, right now there doesn't appear to be any "hand holding" or other special support. However I was told that additional features and support would come in future implementations. Intuit told me that they would be helping Google better understand and meet the needs of small business advertisers. One-Click Listing on Google Maps: SME data contained within QuickBooks will pre-populate a set of fields to help SMEs upload their contact information and other details, which they have the ability to edit, in what amounts to one click to Google Maps. They will be enticed to do so with a message along these lines: "Get your business listed on Google for free." Inventory/Product Feed to Google: StepUp has been working with Google to provide local retailer inventory information to Froogle. StepUp has about 5,000 small business customers. Being acquired by Intuit and integrated into QuickBooks will give the company overnight access to literally millions of small retailers and their inventory data. About half of QuickBooks' 3.7 million customers use the software for inventory management.

StepUp's application is similarly integrated into the new, 2007 version of QuickBooks. What this enables is a product/inventory data feed directly to Google/Froogle. As part of the install process of QuickBooks 2007 retailers will be given the option to list all their products on Google.

StepUp works with other distributors (e.g., SuperPages) and intends to continue doing so. "Our mission is to help retailers be found wherever consumers are," StepUp CEO Kendall Fargo told me in response to my question about whether the Intuit acquisition and Intuit-Google partnership would mean any changes in the company's roadmap or objectives. Beyond the additional reach this gives them, he said "no" and also expressed a desire to work with other partners (e.g., MSN, Yahoo!, etc.)

Google Desktop Integration: Finally the Google Desktop search application is being integrated into QuickBooks so that users can search their computers and the data in QuickBooks with the Google Desktop client.

Implications re Small Business Advertisers:

Google has been working directly and indirectly with channel partners to acquire small business advertisers. Many of those partners are yellow pages publishers. But consider that the U.S. yellow pages industry has approximately 3.2 million advertisers in total. As mentioned, QuickBooks has 3.7 million active users and Quicken another 3 million (not all of whom are small businesses obviously). But you get the idea: Instantly Google gets access – through a trusted third party (Intuit) -- to a huge installed base of potential advertisers.

The direct integration of AdWords into the QuickBooks workflow may not be as effective as a local sales rep. knocking on a door or making a phone call, but it gets close and it's considerably more efficient in many respects. And, as mentioned, Intuit will be helping Google to make AdWords more "SME friendly" going forward.

This is a privileged position with a massive SME aggregator that currently Google's competitors don't enjoy on a comparable scale.

Implications re the Consumer Experience:

The StepUp facilitated product inventory information, which will likely be more complete and accurate than almost anything else in the market, will make Froogle (or whatever it eventually becomes) a differentiated source of local product information ("Where can I buy it today?"). Intuit/StepUp has said it will work and hopes to work with others in providing this same information. So Froogle's competitors could potentially benefit from this feed if they build the required APIs.

The Google Maps integration will similarly provide (assuming that merchants opt for this) lots of accurate local content that otherwise wouldn't be available or might be outdated.

Of course it remains to be seen how all this plays out, but this is a major win for Google and a big value-add for Intuit in its relationship with small businesses.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 2:59 PM | Permalink

September 7, 2006

RH Donnelley Buys LocalLaunch

The press release has yet to come out but it's official that RH Donnelley, the third largest US yellow pages publisher, has acquired local SEO/SEM firm LocalLaunch. That means YellowPages.com/AT&T is the only remaining major US yellow pages publisher that has not acquired an SEM firm. SuperPages recently bought Inceptor and Yellow Book purchased ClickForward previously.

I'll do a more elaborate post on my blog later.

Postscript Barry: Just a quick note that ClickZ has more details on this, and the Search Engine Roundtable has the community reaction to the sale. Congrats Justin and Brad!

Posted by Greg Sterling at 12:49 PM | Permalink

Borrell Bullish On Local Search Revenue Outlook

According to an article in today's MediaPost, Borrell Associates' newest local forecast is quite upbeat about geotargeted ad growth across categories, but especially in paid search.

Borrell predicts a 32% increase in local advertising online, to $7.7 billion by 2007. The firm also estimates local paid search will amount to $1.8 billion by next year. By 2010 geotargeted email and paid local search will together represent 50% of online local advertising. And the overall value of the local online ad market will approach $10 billion at the end of that forecast period, according to Borrell.

There's some additional analysis on my blog. We're waiting for a copy of the report and will follow up with additional posts after we get a chance to take a look.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 9:05 AM | Permalink

September 6, 2006

'Local Shopping' Competition Intensifying

Several years ago I was in a room with Chuck Davis, then CEO of BizRate (Shopzilla), and pitched him the idea of including local, offline store information in the company's database. He cited the complexity of getting the local information and the absence of a competitive need for it at the time. Times have changed and local (together with "social shopping") is the next frontier for comparison engines.

A range of competitors, including NearbyNow, ShopLocal, Yokel, Become, CNET and Froogle (and soon more newspapers), are offering some version of local, offline shopping data and inventory information to consumers. And today Yokel announced expanded local store and inventory information in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Here's more information from my blog.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 5:39 PM | Permalink

Classifieds A Big Gainer In Local Landscape

comScore is reporting that the classifieds category is gaining very fast with 47% annual traffic growth. Classifieds sites, as defined by comScore, collectively racked up 37.4 million monthly uniques in July. That's 22% penetration of the total U.S. online population. As one might predict the category leader is Craigslist, which had 13.8 million users and experienced 99% growth vs. the previous year. Only two sites grew faster than Craigslist on a percentage basis: LiveDeal (104%) and Oodle (463%).

Posted by Greg Sterling at 4:38 AM | Permalink

September 5, 2006

New Look YellowPages.ca Comes Out Of Beta

Canada's Yellow Pages Group took its new search-driven yellow pages redesign out of beta over the weekend. Here's what we wrote when the new site initially launched. The press release outlines the new site's features and capabilities.

Yellow Pages Group also operates the popular voice-driven mobile local search portal "Hello Yellow," as well as Canadian city guides and several vertical/classifieds sites. It is Canada's monopoly yellow pages publisher.

Local search competitor TrueLocal just launched a Canadian version of its site last week. You can read more on my blog.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 10:36 AM | Permalink

August 31, 2006

Tips On Getting Listed In Local Search Results

Patricia Hursh wrote a ClickZ column named Four Steps Every Business Can Take to Improve Local Search Results. The article goes over the what, why and how on Local Search. In short, how does one get included in the local results you see search engines providing? She recommends that you (1) update your business listings at Amacai, infoUSA, and Acxiom, (2) submit your site to local engines such as Google Local, MSN Local, Yahoo Local, Ask Local, and TrueLocal, (3) update your Internet Yellow Page listings at YellowPages.com, Verizon SuperPages, and SwitchBoard.com, and (4) make sure to have your address clearly listed throughout your web site.

Don't have time to do all of that, you can pay one of these two companies to do it for you; Relevant Ads or RegisterLocal. Also, if you are interested in understanding who local search engine powers who, see Bruce Clay's and TrueLocal's PDF chart.

Postscript Barry: Although Amacai is related to another sister company, Localeze, it does not actually manage local search content. Localeze, a completely separate company (Amacai is its subsidiary), manages local search content for local merchants.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:04 AM | Permalink

August 25, 2006

New 411 User Survey Points To Mobile Local Search Demand

Many Internet companies, especially some of the much-hyped Web 2.0 startups, are busy building tools and applications for which no mainstream consumer demand actually exists. In my view that's what killed many of early Internet companies after the first bubble burst – there was no existing use case to sustain them.

But the opposite is true of nascent "mobile local search," a set of half-baked tools and embryonic applications that seek to deliver local content to wireless users. People are eager for local information on the go; and when wireless data services become fast, easy to use and more affordable, you'll see adoption ramp quickly. Remarkably, the user demand for local content on mobile devices is much more developed than the carriers' and wireless content providers' current mobile offerings.

It's in this larger context that I write about a new study released this week from Tellme, an automated voice services provider and directory assistance (411) wholesaler. The company engaged Harris Interactive and surveyed 1,425 adult Americans about directory assistance usage. The study was conducted between March 31 and June 7 of this year.

At the highest level, the survey revealed that the majority (55%) of people calling 411 these days are doing so from wireless phones. (That makes sense because the Internet/local search is often a 411 substitute.) The study also revealed demographic differences in behavior and attitudes toward directory assistance. The findings showed, in addition, that mobile 411 callers are most interested in entertainment (restaurants, bars, movies), shopping and travel-related information. And reading a little deeper you also get a fascinating sense of the immediacy and intensity of user interest in local content in the mobile context.

Directory assistance is a mature, multi-billion dollar industry in the U.S. and Europe (although the industry structure in Europe is different). It is based on a consumer pay-per-use model, although a number of providers in the U.S., such as 1-800 Free-411 and 1-800-411-Metro, are now offering free, ad-supported 411 to consumers.

But as I lay out some the Tellme survey findings don't think about "directory assistance" (i.e., "What city, what listing?") per se, think about mobile local search with a voice interface. That's where directory assistance is headed anyway: category search with a voice front end.

From a user-experience perspective the wireless industry must address some of the more challenging usability issues before mobile data becomes mainstream in the U.S. Imperfect though it is, voice is one of the potential responses to some of those wireless usability questions.

On to the survey . . . First, the demographic findings:

As mentioned, 55% of all U.S. adults used 411 in a mobile context. That number was even higher for 18 to 28 year olds (63%). According to the findings only 26% said they used directory assistance most frequently at home. Almost half of women use 411 one or more times a month as compared with 37% of men.

The survey segmented the data by gender and according to three demographic groups: Boomers (41-60), GenXers (29-40) and Millennials (18-28). You can read the segmentation breakdowns by content category usage in the release. In the aggregate, however, when users called 411 they were typically looking for the following information:

• Restaurants & Bars: 43% • Retail Stores: 36% • Hotels/Lodging: 24% • Movie Theaters, Amusement & Recreation: 20% • Transportation: Taxis & Airlines: 10%

Another interesting cluster of findings surrounded use of 411 "alternatives." In other words, what did people do when they didn't call 411? (I for example pay Sprint $1.25 every time I dial 411, so I don't.) Again, there are differences by age and gender. But here are the overall data:

• Called a family member: 58% • Called a friend: 46% • Stopped at a phone booth: 29% • Called a colleague: 27% • Torn page from phone book: 7% • Booted up computer in the car: 7% • Driven to wireless “Hot Spot”: 5%

These creative alternatives – we've all done some version of this – reflect both the determination and the immediate need of mobile users to get information en route to their destinations. I believe these alternative behaviors also show a pent up desire for mobile applications that are more flexible and versatile than today's 411 (i.e., "What city, what listing?"). In other words, it reflects the demand for true "mobile local search" capabilities. Friends at home, for example, can also look up reviews, menus, store hours and so on.

According to mobile analytics firm Telephia 34.6 million U.S. wireless subscribers accessed the Internet from their mobile phones in June of this year. However, none of the top 10 mobile sites had a reach of more than 3%. Here are Telephia's top 10 sites:

1. Yahoo! Mail 2. The Weather Channel (Weather.com) 3. ESPN 4. Google Search 5. MSN Hotmail 6. MapQuest 7. AOL Mail 8. CNN 9. Yahoo! Weather 10. Yahoo! Search

Last September, Telephia reported on the top mobile content categories:

1. Email 2. Weather 3. Search 4. Sports 5. News/Politics 6. Entertainment 7. City Guides/Maps 8. Games 9. Portals 10. Business/Finance

Earlier this year AOL released the results of its own mobile user survey. Among the findings of that survey were that maps were the number one "must-have" new feature. And last July TNS found that local content (driving directions, restaurant reservations, and weather and traffic alerts) topped the list of services that users wanted on their mobile devices.

These myriad data points show the demand among wireless users for local content is strong and that they'll go to some lengths to get it. And unlike some of the startups online -- that will be waiting for a long time for consumers to show up -- users already have an expressed desire for mobile local search. It's now a question of the carriers and content providers getting all their "ducks in a row" and making wireless data services more affordable and more usable.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 12:51 AM | Permalink

August 22, 2006

NearbyNow Brings New 'Inventory' To Local Search

The "holy grail" of online shopping is local inventory information. Paradoxical as it may sound I say that because the overwhelming majority of transactions occur in local stores and that isn't going to change any time soon. Though e-commerce is growing fast, growing much faster is the influence of the Internet on offline transactions. Those Internet-influenced local transactions, worth more than $350 billion annually and climbing, typically start online in the form of price comparison shopping or product research.

Yet real-time inventory information has so far been elusive for most shopping sites – even those that offer local information, including ShopLocal, Yokel, Froogle, CNET and Become. All of these, to varying degrees, have local data but most of it is "proxy information" for inventory (i.e., item is normally carried or on special).

A new site called NearbyNow is pulling together real-time POS ("point of sale") inventory information from retailers large and small and presenting it through local-mall portal sites. The first up is for the company is Eastridge Mall in San Jose, Ca. On this site you can search for specific products and sale items. Nothing can be purchased online; it's all about driving people into local stores.

NearbyNow CEO Scott Dunlap says that virtually 100% of inventory is going to be there for all the stores in the mall. For example, here's a search for "kids shoes." I can see every store in the mall that sells kids shoes, the prices and the specific shoes available. It's much more efficient for consumers and the conversion rates for merchants are going to be very, very high. Retailers are also going to get a better sense of how the Internet is directly driving offline sales than from buying general paid-search.

A noteworthy site feature is the "reserve this product" in-store pickup capability (like Circuit City's very successful in-store pickup feature). Every item online can be "reserved" for onsite purchase at the local store. Consumers can be contacted by email or a store clerk to confirm the item is at the store or to otherwise inform them it's not (offering the opportunity to direct consumers to another store that does have the item).

Think about holiday shopping and how efficient this would be. Consumers could do all their local shopping online and then simply go from store to store at the mall picking up and paying for those items.

Another critical dimension of the offering is that NearbyNow is also working with in-mall kiosk vendors to provide the same product search onsite. In other words, a local shopping engine that offers comprehensive, structured data for only the stores in the mall, in the actual mall. NearbyNow has said it will sell contextually relevant or competitive ads on those kiosks (and its mall sites). And one can imagine that as much as the site will drive conversions, those in-mall searches and kiosk ads are going to drive even higher transaction rates.

The kiosk use case is similar to the wireless scenario that everyone has been salivating over for the past couple of years. The idea is that in a wireless context, the consumer is very close in time to a purchase and the need for the product or service is immediate. That's equally true for NeabyNow's mall sites and, even more so, for the in-mall kiosks. But there's the additional opportunity to expose and sell even more stuff to onsite consumers through the kiosks (or to users accessing the site on wireless devices).

Wireless users with smartphones (Motorola Q, Treo, Blackberry, etc.) will be able to perform those same local product searches, whether in transit or at the mall, by accessing the local mall site on their mobile devices. Dunlap said that text messaging is coming (and so are contextually relevant text-based advertising opportunities).

I also spoke to Dunlap about in-store kiosks as another potential layer of this offering – consumers within a Macy's or Bloomingdales search for inventory items and then are exposed to specials or offerings from other departments.

NearbyNow is currently buying paid search to build consumer awareness (driving people to product-specific results pages within the local mall site). But considerable promotion is going on within the local mall. In other words, the mall itself promotes its local shopping portal powered by NearbyNow. This is a highly qualified consumer audience that will likely be eager to use the mall site in the future.

In addition to providing the infrastructure for these local mall sites and kiosks, NearbyNow is in discussions to potentially license its local inventory data to third parties (think shopping engines, local newspapers, directories, etc.). Dunlap wants to do that in a careful way that doesn't promote e-commerce at the expense of the participating retailers. But I would expect NearbyNow's biz dev team to be very busy fairly soon.

I've argued many times in the past that shopping sites and portals will need to include local inventory information or be outflanked by those that eventually do. It's inevitable -- even more so now.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 4:34 PM | Permalink

August 15, 2006

Google Maps Gets Coupons

Hmm? How do you prove to local merchants who lack tracking software or even web sites that search converts? Coupons! That's right, the conversion tracking tool that requires no internet connection, cookies or software has come to Google Maps.

Google provides more information on how merchants can get going with coupons at its local business center here (for those logged in with a Google Account). They're available for free to anyone with a local business listing on Google Maps.

How do you get those free local listing? Easy. If you're logged into Google, provide your real-world location information here (for the US, UK, Canada, China & Japan). Then a letter will get sent to that location with a PIN to verify your listing. Once that's added, you can assign coupons to your locations.

To kick things off, Google's already seeded the maps with coupons through a partnership with Valpak, as described more in the press release below. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any live and in the wild. It would have been nice if there was a feature added to Google Maps to search and indicate you want to see only businesses offering coupons. Heck, I don't even see consumer-facing help information about coupons offered yet at Google Maps.

Here are some details from press stories:

Google to distribute discount coupons on mapping service: From the San Jose Mercury News, it provides a bit more detail about the Valpak partnership.
Google Maps offers discount coupons for US stores: From Reuters, some details on how this might challenge coupon rivals such as CoolSavings. I'd say it's not going to be much of a challenge unless a feature to easily find coupons at Google is offered. Hunt-and-hope browsing for them isn't going to cut it.
New at Google: Local Coupons: From the New York Times, has some quotes from Google on how this is intended to help small businesses who might lack web sites.

And here's the Google press release:

Print and Save – Coupons on Google Maps

Today, Google announced printable online coupons on Google Maps. When searching for local information, discount coupons from businesses are now displayed on Google Maps search results and business listing pages. These coupons can be printed out directly from a computer and redeemed at a physical store location of a neighborhood or local business. For users of Google Maps, coupons provide additional relevant business information and ultimately contribute to a better local search experience. For businesses, coupons provide another way to reach customers online.

Google has partnered with Valpak, one of the leading direct marketing companies in North America, to provide coupons from current Valpak advertisers on Google Maps. These coupons include savings from local businesses throughout the United States including dry cleaners, dentists, vets, pizza places, car washes, oil changes, handymen and home remodelers. New coupons from Valpak advertisers are added on a nightly basis to ensure the most recent offers are available immediately to consumers.

Coupons are available in Google Maps at no cost to businesses and consumers. Businesses simply need to log into the Local Business Center at Google Maps to enter in coupon information www.google.com/local/add. In addition, businesses can easily add or update their local business listings on Google Maps from the Local Business Center. Once coupon information is entered, the coupon is displayed on Google Maps within hours. Businesses do not need a web site to participate.

"We're very pleased to be the launch partner with Google to offer Valpak's print-at-home online coupons to more consumers and to give Valpak merchants valuable enhanced distribution tied to their existing listing on Google Maps." said Todd Leiser, Vice President and General Manager for Valpak.com, Valpak's online coupon portal. "Valpak's blue envelope has been a North American institution for nearly 40 years and has the type of real consumer value that is perfect to support Google's mission statement of organizing the world's information".

In addition, Google AdWords advertisers can use coupons through the Local Business Center. In the coming months, AdWords advertisers will be able to drive traffic to their coupons on Google Maps. By driving additional traffic to their coupons the advertiser can reach more customers.

To find a coupon for a business in your neighborhood please visit www.maps.google.com. For businesses who want to try coupons on Google Maps please visit www.google.com/local/add.

Postscript: Mike Buckley's gotten one of the ads going and describes the process over here. The coupons don't actually appear in the pop-up box on the map, as I thought. Instead, try this search. Look to the left-hand side, at the textual listings. See the word "Coupons >>" under each listing. Click on one like this, and you'll see how coupons are listed for display.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 5:36 AM | Permalink

August 9, 2006

Yelp Now Mobile With Help From Palm

Yelp Mobile is now live. The site is optimized for the Treo but works on any web-enabled phone. Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppleman said that the idea originated with Palm, which approached Yelp and wanted to create a mobile version of the site for the Treo. The new site (mobile.yelp.com) is co-branded with Palm.

Palm believes that this will be something of a differentiator for the Treo. Palm's marketing VP Page Murray said in the press release, “Fast access to Yelp's trusted and insightful reviews will help accelerate user adoption and engagement with Treo smartphone web-based services.”

The new Yelp Mobile allows for searching and browsing by category and neighborhood and delivers Yelp's valuable user reviews of local businesses. There's an average star rating that appears at the listing level, but users can also drill down and see the full range and text of user comments. Currently there are no ads in Yelp Mobile.

There's no GPS or triangulated location awareness. But users can input an intersection or address and narrow or expand the search radius (1, 3, 5, 10 miles, etc.) from where they are or where they're going.

Yelp doesn't have an SMS application currently but may develop one in the future.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 3:51 AM | Permalink

Marchex Building Out Local Search Domains

Today Marchex announced the launch of 100 new local and vertical search domains. These sites have real content, user ratings, dynamic category specific navigation and other features, which make them much more interesting than typical parked domains. Marchex is able to do this because of the recent integration of OpenList's content and search functionality. Read more on my blog.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 3:26 AM | Permalink

August 3, 2006

Find 'Nearby Stores' With Become

There's lots of data from many sources that reflects the dominant consumer shopping paradigm involving the Internet: research online, buy locally. Even though e-commerce, excluding Travel, will approach $150 billion this year, according to Forrester Research, that's a small fraction of offline spending. But more and more of that offline buying is influenced in one way or another by the Internet.

Among the shopping engines, ShopLocal and Froogle offer local buying information. CNET also has some local inventory information (via Channel Intelligence). Now Become.com has joined that illustrious group with a new "nearby stores" feature.

According to the company:

Launched with over 30,000 retail locations, “Nearby Stores” listings include dynamic Yahoo! Maps™ so shoppers can visually locate the closest merchants . . . To find local merchants, Become.com visitors simply choose the item they want to purchase such as “digital camera,” click on the “compare prices” button and input their zip code. Nearby Stores are indicated on the far right column with a link to detailed store information, including addresses, telephone numbers, hours of operation and maps.

Here's an example details page (thanks to Gary Price). Become will be demonstrating the new feature at the company's booth next week at SES.

Local buying/inventory information will need to be integrated by all the shopping engines over time for them to remain competitive.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 3:49 PM | Permalink

August 2, 2006

What Is 'Photosynth'? Microsofts's 3D Photo Mapping Tool

The first official project/product from Microsoft's Live Labs is called "Photosynth." What is it? It's hard to describe succinctly. It appears to be kind of mashup of things: photo sharing, visual search, mapping and 3-D.

To me, at least conceptually, it's pretty exciting. Here's a video overview from Microsoft. (The video is something of a commercial for Live Labs, but also showcases Photosynth as a very provocative product.)

Earlier this year I did a longish post on Google Earth as an alternative search/browsing paradigm: the "Geobrowser." Google and Microsoft are now in something of a mapping arms race that has little to do with consumer or advertiser demand. And Microsoft, notwithstanding Google Earth's impressive features and developer community, believes it has the edge.

To see what's really interesting about Photosynth and its implications one needs to step back. The Internet began as a text-based medium and is now becoming more and more visually rich. The growth of image search and the meteoric rise of online video are just two examples of this. Online, multiplayer gaming and virtual worlds like Second Life are other examples of emerging, visually immersive online environments.

People have difficulty imagining what search will look like five years from now. But it may in fact be that we collectively look back in a decade or so and see today's text-based search as a quaint precursor to a much more engaging and multi-dimensional search paradigm – literally in 3-D.

According to the video Photosynth was a collaboration among groups at Microsoft, including the Virtual Earth team. The crew at Virtual Earth wants to build a rich, "immersive" visual environment that ties the real and the online worlds together. (I blogged about Microsoft's vision for mapping here.)

Photosynth represents the merger of photosharing, community, search and 3-D mapping, with just a touch of gaming thrown in. Effectively it's an alternative web-search paradigm based on visual imagery. This type of approach doesn't replace the need for text-based search entirely but it could substitute for today's search in a substantial number of cases (especially for anything local or travel).

The vision of creating a "photorealistic" virtual world online is extremely ambitious. But ultimately I believe it's possible – and very exciting. The application will reportedly be available for download later this year.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 11:02 AM | Permalink

July 27, 2006

Yahoo Partners With British Telecom For Yahoo Local UK

Revolution Magazine reports that Yahoo has partnered with British Telecom to share Yellow Pages data. Yahoo will add 120,000 businesses who advertise in The Phone Book from BT within the Yahoo Local UK platform. This helps BT offer an additional service to their Phone Book customers and gives Yahoo access to some more data and marketing opportunities they may have not had otherwise.

Post Script from Greg: Yell is the dominant yellow pages publisher in the UK and was previously owned by BT before it was sold a few years ago. Yell provides all its content to Google, as the basis for Google Local/Maps in the UK.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:29 AM | Permalink

July 25, 2006

SuperPages Buys Inceptor

As reported in ClickZ today, SuperPages, which is itself up for sale, has acquired SEM firm Inceptor for an undisclosed amount. Verizon has been the most forward thinking and acting of the yellow pages publishers when it comes to offering performance-based products and leveraging search. This acquisition gives SuperPages more range in what it can offer and how the company can implement it -- and brings that cost in house.

For more on this deal see my blog post.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 8:36 AM | Permalink

July 20, 2006

Windows Live Local Worth Another Look

Windows Live Local debuted with a splash with most attention focused on its spectacular "birds eye" aerial imagery. Since then, Microsoft has worked to improve the service, improving the user interface and adding unique features not found in other local search services. SEW correspondent Greg Sterling puts Windows Live Local through its paces in today's SearchDay article, A Closer Look at Windows Live Local.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 2:20 PM | Permalink

July 17, 2006

Mobile-Local Search Now In 3D

Point and search mobile technology vendor GeoVector, which partnered with mapping company Mapion to bring a pointing-based mobile local search offering to Japan, is now introducing 3D search on Japanese mobile phones. Here's an example of the 3D rendering on the phone.

GeoVector also says it's in talks with a "major US carrier" to bring its technology to the US market.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 7:48 AM | Permalink

July 12, 2006

ShopLocal Taps Topix for Geotargeted Ads

This isn't search, but it is local. ShopLocal has partnered with news aggregator Topix.net to offer dynamic banner ads that are targeted by ZIP. The program services national advertisers trying to drive consumers into their local stores. An example dynamic skyscraper ad is visible here.

ShopLocal is providing the ad content and Topix provides the local news pages on which the ads appear. Here's the press release. Read a somewhat longer post on my blog.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 7:12 AM | Permalink

July 10, 2006

Click Packages Draw Local Advertisers Into Search

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reports on the "bundle of clicks" search distribution packages that all the major yellow pages publishers in the U.S. are now selling to their local advertisers. Here's an amazing quote from Simon Greenman, SVP of digital products at R.H. Donnelly, "Our strategy is to connect our customers with their customers wherever they may be."

That's a radical statement for a yellow pages executive to make because he's not asserting that print yellow pages is the best lead generation vehicle "and we also have Internet." He's saying Donnelly is "agnostic."

Some will read that and be skeptical. But to the extent that Greenman can make that kind of statement to the Journal on behalf of Donnelly it reflects a culture shift.

All these products (click packages) are not created equal; some are budget based and some are pure arbitrage. The former will survive, the latter won't. Some involve SEO and SEM, some only involve paid search. Most have been in the market for more than a year now, with fairly high renewal rates according to anecdotal reports I've heard.

These click packages radically simplify the process of buying search for local advertisers. There's no setup and no campaign management; it's all outsourced. It's yellow pages as SEM firm. And the demand, based on interviews I've done with executives, has been significant. Fulfillment in some cases is a challenge, however. (Local traffic is fragmented and not all aggregated at Google and Yahoo! by any means.)

Almost all of these packages include phone tracking to substantiate the clicks, making the whole proposition feel more like delivery of "leads" or "customers" rather than anonymous clicks. But clicks and calls are not 1:1 and there is some sloppy language in some areas being used by the yellow pages sales force ? referring to clicks as "leads" ? according to some folks I've spoken with.

In addition to yellow pages, there are verticals (e.g., ServiceMagic, HomeGain), webhosts (MarketHardware, Affinity, Web.com) and newspapers (McClatchy, Hearst) that offer a version of this same product to the market today. But get ready for local cable companies, local TV affiliates and potentially radio to do the same tomorrow. Everyone that has local advertiser relationships and/or a local sales force will eventually be selling Google and Yahoo! (and MSN).

For search engines that's both good and bad. For now, however, it's good because they wouldn't get these advertiser revenues in the absence of this type of program.

If you want more information on who's making these products available to the market and on how they work, read a longer post on my blog.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 7:02 AM | Permalink

July 9, 2006

The Changing Face of Local

This ClickZ article discusses a new JupiterResearch report called "Local Advertising: Blending Categories to Compete Effectively." The article doesn't go into great detail about the findings or conclusions from the report. But based solely on my reading of coverage in the article it appears to make two relatively straightforward observations about local:

Search engines/portals could steal traffic and potential ad revenues from yellow pages and other stand-alone local sites that seek to cater to traditional directory advertisers
The local product definition is changing and categories are merging as the distinctions between classifieds, service listings, local retail and user-generated content and community are starting to blur.

The first conclusion above is something that has been true and fairly obvious for at least three years. Here's Chris Sherman's coverage of an early report from 2003 I wrote on essentially the same subject when I was at The Kelsey Group. The only difference now is that there are many more local competitors, beyond yellow pages and search/portal sites.

However, the Jupiter report doesn't appear (based on the article) to get into discussion of the sales channel issues and some of the "structural" barriers to local advertiser acquisition by portals and search engines. I go into that complex set of relationships in some detail in this post.

The report's apparent other main observation, referenced above, is much more interesting and part of a larger evolution of local online. It goes to the question: What is the right mix of content and features in local? No one yet really knows what that is. Indeed, there's probably no single, definitive answer.

Offline the differences between trade publications, newspapers, yellow pages directories, local TV, direct mail/coupons, etc. are structural/organizational and very clear. Online those distinctions, basically the legacy of these offline publications, start to break down. There's no necessary reason that classifieds, retail content, service listings and video, for example, shouldn't be featured in the same online product. And there's momentum toward a more comprehensive product that offers a broader use case. (See my post on SuperPages as one example.)

On one end of the spectrum are Google, Yahoo or MSN search, offering conceivably everything available online. On the other end is a very specialized niche directory that provides narrow but deep information about a single subject. The ideal local product is somewhere in the vast expanse in-between.

Yellow pages publishers (and to a lesser degree newspapers) are alert to the threats the report identifies and are actively engaged in the product definition question. In addition to SuperPages, Canada's Yellow Pages Group and Australia's Sensis, both publishers of yellow pages, have integrated classifieds among other local content into their online offerings.

The report cites Microsoft's Windows Live Expo as example of a hybrid marketplace that includes local classifieds, display ads and service listings. Here's my February post on the same general themes.

I tend to believe that what one might call an "integrated local marketplace" is what consumers ultimately want -- the convenience and efficiency of getting their local needs met in one place. If I'm right this gives the search engines/portals an advantage "on paper" because of their more comprehensive content. But, to date, they've failed to fully leverage that opportunity in their local offerings, although they are improving under the intensifying pressure of competition.

It's very easy to discount the assets of traditional media publishers in the competition for local online traffic and ad revenues. But it would be wrong to do so. By the same token, the search engines' technology, faster product development cycles and brands make them quite formidable as local competitors.

It's by no means clear that five years from now (when mobile local search is more prevalent) the local market will be any less fragmented or chaotic. One can hope, but reality always turns out to be more complex and "messy" than the predictions suggest.

What's very clear today is that online consumers want local content. What's also clear is that local advertisers want to be found online. But unlike traditional local media, which more or less "owned" the entire value chain (sales, content, distribution/usage), it remains unlikely in the near term that any single player or segment will duplicate that online. The many moving parts make local a lot more complicated than it would appear from "30,000 feet."

That's what's so interesting and vexing about this space.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 12:46 PM | Permalink

July 7, 2006

SuperPages For Sale

Verizon has formally filed with the SEC to sell its directory unit, which contains the print yellow pages and online yellow pages/local search businesses. A likely sale could bring as much as $15 billion. And because AT&T does not look like it's going to spin off its directory business, SuperPages could fetch a significant premium.

Verizon has been by far the most experimental and innovative of the US directory publishers to date, embracing PPC marketing and PPCall (including in the print directory). It has also sought to expand the product definition by integrating web search, Shopping.com, eBay listings, ratings and reviews and other content to broaden the utility and usage frequency of SuperPages.com.

Indeed, the company has sought to expand from the notion of a ?yellow pages? site into something more like a local shopping portal. The company has also reconceived its role, vis-à-vis local businesses, from strictly a yellow pages publisher to a local marketing agency, which sells print and online yellow pages in addition to other products (including SEM).

Read a longer version of this post on my blog.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 7:29 PM | Permalink

July 6, 2006

Wi-Fi Comes to New York Parks

The New York Times today is reporting on the progress of a project to unwire New York City parks, which was announced three years ago. Reportedly by early August of this year 10 of New York's "most prominent parks" will have Wi-Fi access. The project is being implemented by a small company called WiFi Salon. Mobile handset maker Nokia is now underwriting the project as a sponsor.

Nokia has taken an exceptionally strong interest in mobile-local search and has partnered with yellow pages publishers in several countries to offer local business and entertainment information though its content portal on its handsets.

And though this New York park Wi-Fi offering isn't mobile-local search per se, it does present the possibility of location-based content and advertising. According to the article, "at each hot spot, users will encounter an initial Web portal with information about the park and local history and advertisements for Nokia and other sponsors, which could include retail kiosks that do business in the parks."

Posted by Greg Sterling at 7:55 AM | Permalink

July 5, 2006

Windows Live Local Integrates 'Call For Free' Into All Business Listings

The intrepid Gary Price called my attention to the quiet integration of "click to call" functionality into Windows Live Local over the weekend. I couldn't determine whether this was homegrown or whether Microsoft was working with a partner such as eStara or Ingenio to offer the service.

Consumers can click a "call for free" link that appears next to listings. That in turn launches a pop-up window requesting the user's phone number. After the user inputs her number a call is connected with the listed business. Here's a category search for "Hotels, New York" showing the call for free links.

The system will also remember your number so it truly becomes "click to call" the next time you use it. Google was testing a similar system on AdWords months ago, but not on Maps/Local. Now those ads are nowhere in evidence. (There was some anecdotal information at the last SES New York that the Google product was performing fairly well for a couple of advertisers I spoke to.)

YellowPages.com also offers this capability (from Ingenio), but not for every listing. It's an advertiser-only product. Amazon's A9 Yellow Pages offers click to call across the board for all listings (through a partnership with eStara). On A9/Amazon, click to call is not currently monetized to our knowledge.

People often confuse "click to call" (call completion/connection) with "pay per phone call" (an ad model). They may overlap, but they're not synonymous. Microsoft has not introduced pay per phone call. But any click to call infrastructure lays the groundwork for potential pay per phone call advertising scenarios later.

There's real consumer convenience here, especially after the user's phone number is remembered, taking some of the potential friction out of the process of contacting local businesses. And while this offering isn't the first in the market, Microsoft's two chief rivals don't currently offer this capability in their local products. It's not a "must have" but rather a "nice to have" capability at the moment.

Let's see if consumers connect with this.

Postscript from Danny: The call functionality might be from Microsoft's acquisition of Teleo, which we covered here: Microsoft Acquisition To Lead To Pay-Per-Call Ads?

Postscript Number Two from Greg: Local stalwart Citysearch reminds us that the site also offers a service (in selected cases) called "Click2Talk," powered by a company called CIRXIT.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 6:24 AM | Permalink

July 3, 2006

'Point and Search' Redux

After my most recent post on "point and search" mobile technology, prompted by last week's NY Times' article on GeoVector's efforts in Japan, Search Engine Watch alum (now Director of Online Information Resources at Ask) Gary Price directed me to a number of his earlier posts on mobile search using camera phones. In this post he discusses Google's voice search patent, "point and search" mobile technology from Microsoft and several-other camera phone search tools.

Last week, when I was out, I was also contacted by representatives of Intelligent Spatial Technologies Inc., who pointed out (pun intended) that they also have a mobile local search technology based on pointing. The company claims in its press release it's more versatile than GeoVector's offering in Japan.

There are several use cases (or, if you prefer, "modalities") now developing in the mobile search world: SMS, free ad supported directory assistance, automated voice-driven mobile search, the wireless web and the perhaps more provocative "point and search." Because of the multiplicity user scenarios, some or all of these models may co-exist for awhile. (It's likely that we'll also see blending of models and technologies.)

I believe, however, that a couple of models/user experiences will emerge as superior, drive more adoption and come to dominate the space. Those models will attract ad dollars accordingly. It's too early to pick winners yet.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 4:05 PM | Permalink

June 28, 2006

'Point and Search' on Japanese Cellphones

The NY Times covers "Point and Click" mobile local search in Japan on GPS-enabled mobile phones using technology from American firm GeoVector. I wrote about GeoVector's technology and the very different user paradigm it represents earlier this year.

Beyond the intriguing possibilities of tying together the mobile and physical worlds, there are two things that are quite interesting about the technology and use case: 1) it accommodates the current limitations of cellphones and 2) it's more "passive" than other forms of mobile local search. In other words, the input mechanism is more like taking a picture than "triple tapping."

There's a natural advertising model here too that marries the user location with a "search mentality." When a user is searching online, he or she is seeking information about a product or service. As they say in the yellow pages industry, there's a "ready to buy" mindset ? or at least potentially ready to buy. (As we know, search engine users typically don't buy in the same session.) But mobile users looking for a place to eat are probably "ready to eat."

Indeed, mobile phone users looking for a local restaurant or retailer can receive offers/coupons from a location nearby or immediately in front of them using this technology. One might argue that's no different from relevant paid search ads on mobile devices (which Google is testing in Japan) when I've searched for a local restaurant or other local business category. But the "point and search" simplicity makes it different.

Whatever creates the best user experience and thus drive broad adoption of mobile data services will also determine the ad model. User experience precedes monetization: let that be the mantra for the mobile local search industry. Once the user experience is right (and there may be a few that "work"), effective mobile advertising can follow.

It's incorrect to assume that whatever's happening in Asia in mobile will necessarily make its way to the US "a couple of years from now." But GeoVector is an American company and in this case we can probably expect some version of "point and search" technology to roll out in the US (although GPS isn't widely enabled yet, though there is cell tower triangulation) as competitive carriers seek to differentiate their services.

Until then we'll just have to read about it.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 10:30 AM | Permalink

June 23, 2006

'Social Directory,' 'Directed Blogging'?: Whatever You Call It Yelp Has Got It Down

The odds were against Yelp when it entered the local search/directory market just under two years ago. (As an aside, I am using a the label "social directory" for sites like Yelp, InsiderPages and Judysbook because they layer community on top of a traditional directory advertising model.) Two years ago the market was already relatively mature with sites like the venerable Citysearch, the search engines and portals offering local search and/or online yellow pages. In addition, all the yellow pages publishers had sites themselves. Then there were online communities like Craigslist, not to mention newspaper sites with their local content.

So if one were to have handicapped Yelp in the beginning, one would have said it's a long shot (including this one) to achieve usage, visibility and scale. Cut to two years later and Yelp is doing it. The site started out in the San Francisco Bay Area and is now rolling out nationally. While not the most heavily trafficked local search/directory site, it arguably has one of the most engaged audiences of any of the companies in its space.

The site looks like a party. It's got lots of personality compared to some of its competitors, which seem "cold" by comparison. And it's not uncommon to find 10, 20, 30 even 40 or more reviews of numerous businesses vs. the typical one, two or five reviews on many of Yelp's competitors.

Sitting with executives from one of the big search sites several years ago, we discussed the challenge of getting user reviews from a base of zero. It's been proven that if a site has lots of community content or reviews, more will follow ? people are more inclined to go into a crowded restaurant than an empty one. But building that base of content and developing that momentum is the challenge.

Yelp has found a "formula" that appears to have worked. The site has MySpace-like profiles (its users are somewhat older on average) that offer a fairly wide range of personal expression, including photo sharing. In that way it resembles a blogging site. But that profile content sits on top of local business and entertainment content, built on a conventional directory advertising model. The "culture" and subject matter of Yelp is "directed." Thus one could describe it ? and they do internally ? as a "directed blogging" site.

In addition, Yelp has held local parties to build offline community and awareness. I've not attended any of those but my understanding is that they've been popular and quite successful for the site. And apparently these "Yelp parties" continue in some cases without the active involvement of the site.

In addition, Yelp has one of the best map-based local search tools. There's no "flyover" or zoom from space capability, but the user experience is generally very good.

If you want more information on these social directory sites, including how to gain access as an advertiser, read Phil Stelter's Local Search column this week in ClickZ.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 12:46 PM | Permalink

June 21, 2006

InfoSpace Rebrands, Upgrades Local Search Site

InfoSpace, which also owns and operates the Dogpile metasearch engine, has cleaned up its interface and yesterday rebranded its local search engine as "Infospacefindit." The chief purpose behind the rebranding according to the company is to create consistency between its mobile and online local search platforms. In addition, the online platform is moving from one that more resembles an Internet yellow pages product to a local search engine. The company has struggled to gain market share in local search online but has a very strong position in mobile.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 7:24 AM | Permalink

June 20, 2006

Canada's YellowPages.ca Launches New Local Search Site

Since this is Local Search Day at Search Engine Watch, here's some additional news. Canada's yellow pages publisher, Yellow Pages Group, which also operates city guides and a variety of other Canadian web destinations, has launched a new beta version of its flagship site, YellowPages.ca. The new interface is considerably more appealing and the new site has a number of improvements, outlined in the press release. YellowPages.ca provides the content for Google Maps/Local and MSN in Canada.

You can also read some additional detail on my blog.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 9:32 AM | Permalink

A Web of Local Search Services

The major search engines tend to capture the lion's share of press, but there are dozens of other players in the local search space, offering myriad opportunities for search marketers trying to get in front of people searching for local products and services. I've got a review of an excellent guide to many of these services in today's SearchDay article, Who's Who in Local Search.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 8:47 AM | Permalink

June 16, 2006

More Real Estate Search Engines & Sites

There were many interesting responses to the Real Estate Roundups that appeared in Search Day earlier this week (part II) and last week (part I). Most of the feedback called attention to other sites or features that had not been mentioned in those two articles. Of course, there are far more real estate sites than can be discussed in 1,100 words, so I had to leave out many interesting sites. (Some were excluded because I simply was unaware of them.)

Here is a selection of the sites that readers brought to our attention:

Real Estate blog Curbed, operating in New York, San Francisco and LA also has a companion NYC restaurant site, Eater.

The month old UrbanRegistry.com covers the New York market, with an intention to expand to Boston. Also focused exclusively on New York is Natefind, which offers the ability to see results on a map or in Google Earth (right column).

Like the better known Zillow, RealEstateABC.com offers immediate valuations of homes with the capacity to adjust variables that affect the valuation of the property.

One of several sites to start using video, DNN.tv has real estate news in a "nightly news" format and offers local real estate listings paired with local community videos (a la TurnHere.com).

There's also the very "Web 2.0"-feeling propsmart, which prominently features Google Maps and is quite similar to Trulia in some respects.

This didn't come from feedback to the articles, but was featured by Microsoft's Steven Lawler in his Where2.0 presentation earlier in the week: John L. Scott Real Estate. The site integrates Virtual Earth into the presentation of listings and allows for "traditional" or map-based real estate searches.

Finally, if you didn't get enough from the two pieces we ran, there's Joel Burslem's Real Estate Marketing Blog that tracks the online trends and activities of the industry.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 5:44 AM | Permalink

June 9, 2006

Brands, Search and Local

ClickZ local columnist Phil Stelter wrote a piece this week about brands taking notice of local search. Geotargeting online is something that all brands are waking up to and will need to address. Like all politics, most spending is local; 97% of consumer buying behavior still happens offline, despite the impressive growth of e-commerce. But the Internet's and search's influence over that offline spending increases daily. Tracking that growth and a true picture of consumer behavior is what prompted comScore to launch qSearch Retail this week. (On a related note, ClickZ's Kevin Lee has a nice article on search, multi-channel retailing and some of the practical steps marketers can take now to track offline conversions.)

Beyond the top search engines and a few of ad networks, buying local online right now is very inefficient if you're a large brand marketer or their agency. It's hard to get the reach and exposure you've historically been able to get from traditional media, like print newspapers. But expect it to get substantially easier over the course of the next 12 months. According to comScore, brands and trademarked terms represent only about 20% or 25% of search query volume. But they convert much better than the "generic" queries that comprise the remaining 75% to 80% of search. That's generally because consumers signal they are typically "farther along" the buying cycle when using those terms. There's a much longer discussion of how to market against that behavior that is beyond the scope of this post.

In the near term, manufacturers will need to work with retailers to drive people to local stores where they can buy their brand merchandise. There are a number of tactical ways to do this via paid search and other local vehicles (online newspapers, Internet yellow pages). And shopping engines are a potentially fruitful area for brand marketers and manufacturers, though most aren't yet set up to offer local store options where consumers can buy offline. By contrast, ShopLocal, CNet, Froogle and Yokel are to varying degrees offering product inventory information and where you can buy offline, locally. This is consistent with the dominant consumer use case (shop online, buy offline). And as of last night, Google has integrated enhanced product data and brought it into Maps through a partnership with StepUp.com, which is aggregating local retailers for online distribution.

In the implementation, clicking on a link gives you a way to see images and inventory information about products in local retail outlets. It's not a perfect integration, but it will get better. I write in detail about it on my blog. The larger point is that Google, ShopLocal, CNet and Yokel recognize that after consumers conduct their research online they fundamentally want to know where in their local markets they can buy what they're looking for -- today. Brands need to catch up to that behavior and start marketing accordingly.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 10:23 AM | Permalink

May 31, 2006

Redfin Gets Funding and Prepares to Go National

Seattle-based Redfin.com was one of the first real estate mashups to employ a map interface as a primary navigation tool for real-estate search. The site was quickly joined by other real-estate mashups, HousingMaps.com (the early poster child for mashups), HomePages.com, Trulia and, more recently, Zillow.

Today Redfin announced that it was expanding to other markets and that it had secured a round of $8 million in venture capital funding, lead by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen?s Vulcan Capital.

But perhaps the most interesting aspect of the new developments is that the business model has changed. Most real estate listings sites are ad supported, but Redfin is becoming a discount broker-agent and will actually help individuals buy and sell homes for reduced fees and commissions, even providing rebates to buyers (they say as much as $10,000 on a $500,000 sale). This is similar to ZipRealty?s discount broker model.

Redfin is apparently also opening local real estate offices, a move that IAC?s RealEstate.com also recently made.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 2:29 AM | Permalink

May 30, 2006

Marchex Acquires Local-Vertical Search Company Openlist

New York-based Openlist, a local, vertical search engine, was acquired by Marchex, which provides search and contextual marketing but also owns a network of thousands of "direct navigation" domains. Little-known Openlist was co-founded by former Jupiter analyst Matthew Berk as Local-i and has been around for roughly two years.

The deal is worth $13 million in cash and stock and Berk, among several others, now joins Marchex. One can think of Openlist as Citysearch built by aggregation. I think that Openlist is doing some of the most interesting work in Local right now; and the acquisition makes Marchex a potentially more formidable company in both local and vertical search.

You can read a more extensive post about the deal and the two companies on my blog.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 8:49 AM | Permalink

May 26, 2006

NetRatings Data: The Local Angle

Danny posted here about April Nielsen//NetRatings data reflecting that Google had crossed the 50% threshold in search market share. I want to point to another part of the release, which jumped out at me: the Internet driving people to local retailers ("big boxes" in this case).

All of the top five shopping queries according to Nielsen are ultimately local:

1. ?home depot? 2. ?walmart? 3. ?target? 4. ?sears? 5. ?best buy?

These are people who likely have done their research and are now looking for physical/local stores to buy what it is they want. This is striking because as much as the Internet is fueling the growth of e-commerce, it's driving offline shopping behavior. While this may be somewhat ?counterintuitive? for many people, this is the dominant shopping paradigm for the foreseeable future: online shopping, offline buying.

I've written a bit more about this on my blog.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 10:32 AM | Permalink

May 17, 2006

YSM and Geotargeting

Danny already posted in pretty extensive detail -- my laptop battery died or I would've put this up sooner -- regarding Tim Cadogan's presentation at Yahoo Analyst Day. Tim was very thorough and credible in discussing the upgrades and improvements to the platform.

One area of interest to me, of course, was his discussion of local.

He said in their numerous conversations with advertisers one of the top requests was improved geotargeting. (Cadogan saw this benefiting both large and small business advertisers, and Yahoo by extension.) Yahoo Search Marketing has long had geotargeting but it has generally been perceived as less flexible and less effective than Google's program.

Cadogan said that advertisers would notice many improvements around geotargeting on the new system including enhanced targeting by DMA, city and radius around a zip code and that these would be represented visually on a map.

Yahoo's acquisition last year of Whereonearth is partly responsible for the reportedly new and improved geotargeting, which should be global in scope. He also said that the technology will help deliver better locally relevant content across the network for consumers.

When I was with The Kelsey Group I asked then comScore SVP Jim Larrison to do a "thoughtful" analysis of local search to determine how much consumer traffic and what percentage of "search" carried a local intent. comScore's methodology was fairly "conservative," measuring traffic at local domains (e.g., local.yahoo.com or superpages.com) and those queries with geo-modifiers (e.g., "new york sushi bars"). The Kelsey Group estimate, which I had helped originally formulate, was that about 20% of search had a local intent. But Larrison's analysis suggested that, if consumer behavior was examined carefully, the number was closer to 40%. Larrison?s number came out at one of the Kelsey Group conferences and now has been picked up a number of times.

Indeed, today I heard that number reflected back to Cadogan in an audience question about what percentage of search was local in nature: "Some estimates put it at about 40% of queries." Cadogan gave a quick and qualified answer that the stated number was "in the ballpark."

CFO Sue Decker who fielded questions with Cadogan after he was through with his formal presentation also stressed the importance of local and geotargeted ads to Yahoo going forward. In her final remarks later in the day she also talked about Yahoo's successes with small business advertiser acquisition.

Here's more from my rambling raw notes on this morning's presentations.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 5:54 PM | Permalink

GenieKnows Local Search

Last week Canadian-based search engine GenieKnows.com rolled out a local search beta (currently only available in the US). It offers dynamic maps, neighborhood/nearby business search and a number of sort/refine features, including by distance. Here is a full explanation of the various features.

From my basic searching and review of the site, it seems to me unremarkable. Local is now a very crowded space and the table stakes keep getting raised. For loyal GenieKnows users this will be a welcome addition to its capabilities. However, a Google Maps, Yahoo Local, SuperPages or Citysearch user will be left wishing for more content and functionality.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 7:27 AM | Permalink

May 16, 2006

Citysearch: Act II

Citysearch is a little like a house that was built in the country and now the suburbs have grown up around it. It was one of the early local search sites, debuting in 1996 and eventually buying its chief rival, Microsofts Sidewalk (they probably regret that move now). Digital Cities (now AOL City Guide) was the other main competitor.

In the early days Citysearch spent lavishly on editorial content (yours truly was a freelancer for Citysearch a time). That all changed with the dot-com crash in 2000 and the need to drive toward profitability, which the site has now reached. An editorial staff remains but its considerably "leaner" than it was in the early days.

Citysearch was the undisputed source of restaurant and local entertainment information and one of the few sources of local reviews. But times have definitely changed and it now competes with the local products of the major search engines, including Yahoo! Local and Google Maps, stand-alone sites like Local.com and Openlist, social networking-directory hybrids such as InsiderPages, Judysbook and Yelp, not to mention yellow pages and newspaper sites. And the competition is getting more numerous seemingly by the week.

For all its ups and downs over the past couple years, Citysearch retains a strong local brand and, according to Scott Morrow, Citysearch executive vice president of search and products, is delivering better click-throughs and a better ROI for local advertisers than general search engines could. To drive traffic Citysearch optimizes its content at the profile page level for search engines and also buys paid-clicks. Citysearch sells clicks and calls on the site to local businesses but also offers broader distribution on Google, Yahoo and beyond through a relationship with MatchCraft.

Citysearch has tried and struggled a bit to move beyond its core categories. But in my briefing yesterday I was told by CEO Briggs Ferguson that 51% of Citysearch?s traffic is now outside the core A&E sections. Ferguson also told me that Citysearch had 41,000 local advertisers and about 500,000 user reviews on the site. The company has an ambitious program to boost reviews by 1 million in the next few months.

To that end, Citysearch has started to create ego-based incentives for people to write more about their favorite local businesses and local experiences. Insider Lists is a set of recommendations and reviews that feature collected writings of individuals. These are not user profiles per se (a la MySpace or Yelp), but it starts to approach that. How far Citysearch will go in the direction of ?social networking,? to acquire more content, remains to be seen.

Yet the strength of the site is the mix of user-generated reviews and editorial content (i.e., ?Citysearch lists? and ?Best of Citysearch?). The company also has a local sales force, an asset many of its competitors lack.

The site is well positioned to take advantage of the growth in local search consumer behavior. The question is how will Citysearch fare given the intensification of competition and rise of local search engines and localized social networks that are trying to do very similar things. Yet according to comScore Citysearch has seen 185 percent traffic growth over the past year. So apparently it?s doing well ? much of that having to do with search engine optimization.

Another question is what will be the relationship between Ask Local and Citysearch within IAC going forward. Ask Local?s content is from Citysearch and the two sites could be seen as somewhat redundant but there's also no reason the two sites couldn't co-exist as distinct doorways into local. We'll see which brand has more local traction over time.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 2:35 PM | Permalink

May 15, 2006

Planet Discover Acquisition a Potential 'Turning Point' for Newspapers

I spoke this morning with Terry Millard, CEO of local-search vendor Planet Discover. As has now been widely reported, the company was purchased last week for an undisclosed sum by Gannett, which is now the nations largest newspaper publisher in terms of number of publications and revenues.

Millard and his brother, who is the CTO, will stay on. Gannett intends to operate the company like PointRoll, as a separate entity. Planet Discover is behind integrated search at three Gannett publications and many more newspapers, as the industry tries to confront adoption of the Internet for lookups that used to be done exclusively in newspapers and yellow pages offline. (Newspapers have been dealing with the challenge to classifieds usage and revenues for several years.)

Millard told me that the acquisition and forthcoming investment will enable the company to pursue its long-term product roadmap and further build out the company's search-technology infrastructure.

Here are the results for a query on ?home improvement? on Tuscon.com, which Planet Discover powers. The company is also behind McClatchy?s Triangle.com and South of Boston Media Group?s Wicked Local Search. And while the user experiences on these sites are imperfect, they are considerably better than what's available through most newspaper sites.

The general idea is: improve site search and the user experience and more usage will ultimately generate more revenues. I agree with that logic but local market fragmentation makes it somewhat more complex to realize than the ?ipso facto? relationship I describe.

Gannett has said it will roll out Planet Discover?s search technology on all its local newspaper sites. And while newspapers have been getting into local search here and there in dribs and drabs, this development marks a turning point for the industry. Similarly, but in a different way, so does the earlier McClatchy-WebVisible deal to sell paid-search distribution to local newspaper advertisers.

Gannett's acquisition will force newspapers large and small to think about site search and their local search strategies more generally.

In addition to newspapers, there are many ?constituencies? in local search vying for eyeballs as well as advertisers: yellow pages, search engines/portals, vertical sites, classified sites, local TV affiliates and local radio sites. Not all are executing of course. But this list illustrates how crowded this nascent market is becoming ? also how fragmented.

There are dozens, if not hundreds of local sites that accept ads and many more places where consumers can search for local information online. Aside from the major search engines and some yellow pages sites, "local search" is a confusing proposition for everyone. In the aggregate it's a multi-billion dollar opportunity but realizing that opportunity is complicated and a long term proposition.

Newspapers have long had the capacity (on paper) to ?own? local search but have had trouble executing because of their internal cultures and reluctance to radically overhaul or otherwise experiment with newspaper sites. ?Secondary brands? (e.g., YourHub.com, Sacramento.com, Readexpress.com) are emerging, which allow newspapers to experiment with different content, different functionality and navigation while still preserving the ?sacrosanct? main newspaper site. Successful experiments can be incorporated into the main site. An alternative strategy is to have a local search destination, such as Triangle.com or Sacramento.com that pushes newspaper site content out through that single engine/portal.

Despite the furious competition between Google, Yahoo!, MSN and directories in local (and maps), no one yet owns the category. Newspapers and yellow pages publishers have a local sales channel, which provides an advantage in acquiring and retaining local advertisers. But search engines have considerably more traffic. Nobody has all the pieces of the local search puzzle. All of this makes for an interesting dance of business development and partnerships.

Judging from history, the newspaper industry would be something of a long shot to succeed in local search. But the future of newspapers depends increasingly on the Internet ? a fact that newspapers now clearly understand. And they are becoming more serious by the day about it.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 1:57 PM | Permalink

May 10, 2006

Yokel Local Shopping Part II

One of the great challenges of local shopping sites like Yokel is getting the data online. Brian points out in his post that Yokel doesnt currently have real-time inventory information, but directs consumers to local retailers (mostly nationals like Home Depot and Sears) that are likely to have the desired products (clicking on products takes users to retailer websites).

This ?data problem? -- getting data from true local businesses and real inventory information -- is significant and shared by the sites that currently offer comparable services, ShopLocal, Froogle and CNET.

In a way this retailer data problem (especially re small retailers) is a mirror of the challenges of getting local businesses to advertise online. The market is incredibly fragmented and about half of local businesses don?t yet have a web presence. Getting true local retail information into the database is a messy, long-term proposition. It will take time to solve, perhaps longer than people hope, but it will eventually be solved.

Despite the challenges, the consumer use case for Yokel is rock solid. As Brian's post suggests, in the quote from Yokel CEO Scott Randall, e-commerce is less than 3% of total US retail. That number is not likely to grow higher than 10% within the foreseeable future (if that). But the Internet is growing daily in its influence on local transactions, buy some estimates to the tune of more than $200 billion. People fundamentally want to buy locally after they?ve done the online research to determine what they?re going to buy.

In my conversations with product managers at many of the major shopping engines, they recognize platform "agnosticism" as the "Holy Grail" of shopping. Meaning: after I determine what to buy I can buy online or find a local retailer with the item in stock. ShopLocal and Froogle offer limited versions of this today.

The data challenges represent significant barriers to entry in this "local shopping" arena. But it will become a feature of all the shopping engines eventually once the data and local retailer aggregation problems are solved.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 1:29 PM | Permalink

Yokel Launches Local Shopping Search Engine

Yokel today announced the beta release of its local shopping search engine. Yokel is run by Scott Randall, former CEO of FairMarket, and Don Zeresky, former VP of Products for Lycos.

Local search engines, especially local shopping engines will continue to be important as most people still research online and then buy offline at local retailers. As Scott explained to me, "even people who go to online shopping comparison engines still buy offline. 98% of commerce is still done locally." Yokel is set up to solve this problem. Scott continued "there seems to be a void. Yokel answers the question, where do I buy [product x] at a physical retailer near me?"

Scott admitted that we're still very early in the shopping game. Yokel does not provide real-time local inventory information, but rather looks at ever increasing specificity questions. Consumers first want to know what stores carry a particular category of items, then a particular brand, and then a particular item. Consumers don't start out knowing they want a HLR5667W (specific Maytag dishwasher). This also reflects the approach Yokel took to aggregating local information.

A local hardware store without a major web presence will not necessarily have 1000s of products listed on its site. However, Yokel still views such a store as important and would list the store on Yokel as selling a particular category of items.

Yokel covers about 1.5 million locations (not unique stores) at launch. The company is also digging especially deep in Boston with the launch of its first city centric site, http://boston.yokel.com.

Results for Yokel are culled in a variety of ways. Scott explained "Manufacturers know their authorized dealers, so we'll know which stores carry GE products, for example. If stores have websites, we'll get that information. We'll have people on the street, too."

Posted by Brian Smith at 10:33 AM | Permalink

May 9, 2006

GeoVector and the Mo-Lo Search 'Use Case'

I continue to think about the challenges of mobile-local search, where there is arguably a more compelling consumer use case than on the Internet -- user needs are generally more immediate. Microsofts Search GM Erik Jorgensen publicly stated that he believed the majority of local searches will eventually be conducted on mobile devices. In concept it's not hard to agree. But the question is one of timing and technology. The form factor (hardware), the business model and network speeds will all need to come together to drive consumer adoption. Once the use cases are established then we can think about how to monetize them with advertising.

Bill Slawski previously covered GeoVector's recent patent for "pointing based" local search on mobile devices here. GeoVector's technology is already on display in Japan and the use case it offers could be something of a breakthrough for mobile-local search and location-based services.

Here?s how it works according to the company:

?Users can point their phones at retailers, restaurants, billboards, banks or historical sites to instantly retrieve information on what they are looking at, or find what they are looking for. Utilizing GPS technology and a digital compass built into wireless phones, GeoVector allows users to ?Click on the Real World? similar to how computer users point and click with a mouse to access information, conduct transactions or play games.?

The problem with mobile-local search is that waiting for mobile users to adopt smartphones will delay the mainstream development of the market for location-based services for 10 years (it may take that long anyway to mature). But GeoVector?s technology and approach is interesting because it doesn?t rely heavily on screen size or keyboard entry. And it?s not the mobile Internet per se. It?s about coding the real world; the use case is pretty simple and conceptually compelling.

I haven?t used it so I don?t know how well it works in practice, though it should be deployed in Europe soon. Mobot and NeoMedia are also in this space (let the patent disputes begin). But these companies' technologies all create connections between the digital and the real world in ways that are more immediate and more trackable than the Internet today.

The ?mobile Internet? and location-based services may develop in ways that are completely different than the Internet itself, which would make sense given the limitations of the devices and the use cases. Accordingly, monetization scenarios would follow usage and consumer adoption. And these technologies start to point to the ways that all could happen.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 1:05 PM | Permalink

April 28, 2006

Local Traffic Estimation Tool Released By TrueLocal

TrueLocal, a local search engine, announced the release of a local traffic estimator tool. The tool enables TrueLocal advertisers to enter in a zip code and a search term, the tool then gives you information about traffic from the previous month at the engine. The estimator also provides data on "map clicks, or listing views, in relation to the most popular categories and nearest zip codes to the searched term and location."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:10 AM | Permalink

April 21, 2006

Google Local Goes Back To Being Google Maps

Google gave us the heads-up about this earlier this week, that Google Local was going to be renamed Google Maps. Now it's happened. Either URL you use, http://local.google.com/ or http://maps.google.com/ comes back with the Google Maps name.

But wait a minute! Wasn't Google Maps just renamed Google Local a few months ago? Yep, back in October. Google explains briefly to News.com how they flip-flopped because people kept calling Google Local "Google Maps."

Hate to say it, but perhaps they should go back to two different sites. Local results can still be in Google Maps and vice-versa, but separately, they might be easier to maintain with more targeted front pages for what people probably expect. For example, compare Yahoo Local to Yahoo Maps.

Postscript: Google has more on the change on its blog.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:37 AM | Permalink

April 3, 2006

Greg Sterling Leaves Kelsey, Starts New Blog

If you read stories on local search, you've heard the name Greg Sterling, a long time Kelsey Group analyst on the subject. Greg's now headed off on his own to consult and research on local, search, small business advertisers and their move from traditional to online. He's also got a new blog here, and news of his new site will be posted there in the near future.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:36 PM | Permalink

March 28, 2006

Infospace Launches Local Search Beta; Local.com Gets Pay-Per-Call

Infospace has released a new Infospace Local Search site that's in beta. You'll find it here, with a rundown from Gary Price on features here and coverage of the deal from ClickZ in Local.com and InfoSpace Jockey for Local Search Traffic.

The ClickZ article also covers Local.com gaining pay-per-call ads.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:52 AM | Permalink

Google Lands Deal With Verizon SuperPages.com

ClickZ reports that Google has landed a dead with Verizon SuperPages.com to provide some backfill sponsored results for SuperPages.com. Google will be using its AdWords PPC engine to help Verizon better monetize their online Yellow Pages engines, SuperPages.com. The deal will allow Verizon to increase their inventory of ads. SuperPages will be managing the accounts and they will buy the Google advertising on their behalf.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:52 AM | Permalink

March 24, 2006

Google Tests New Image Ads In Google Local

Shimon Sandler found that Google Local is testing another form of PPC ads in Google Local. If you search on booksellers nyc at Google Local, and if you look at the map you will notice some results have little coffee icons. If you click on the coffee icon within the map, more info pops up. This pop up contains a header named "Sponsored Link" and with local information and a large Barnes and Noble logo.

PostScript: Shimon also says that this is named "GeoAds." Reportedly, it is available to all, if not most business segments. How do you sign up for your business? Well, I am not 100% sure. You can go to Google Base and do a bulk upload of your multiple business listings or add/edit your local business listing. I tried the local business listing, but was unsuccessful in adding a sponsored listing or logo to my result.

If you are a Mac user, like myself, you most likely won't see the coffee icon, in either Safari or even Firefox. But if you are a PC user, you should see the result on both IE and FireFox. Here are screen captures if you are like me.

Perspective Screen Capture:

Zoom In Screen Capture:

This is an alternative form of ads in Google Local. First time we noticed sponsored ads was when Google placed blue pins in the results.

Want to discuss? Join our forum thread named Google Tries Alternative to Blue Pins in Google Local Maps.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:40 AM | Permalink

March 20, 2006

Yahoo Launches Local News Beta

Search Engine Journal reports that Yahoo News has launched a local beta version. For example, you can go to news.yahoo.com/local/New+York to check out local news in New York. I do not currently see an RSS feed for local news results. There is a link to "Suggest a Local News Source" that takes you here. I am a big fan of Yahoo's local efforts, especially at local.yahoo.com but these local news headlines can be done better, in my opinion. Postscript From Danny: Want to see all the local news available? Visit the Yahoo Local News home page here. You should see a map of the US with a drop down option to choose a state, then a local news area. Don't panic if that page then suddenly refreshes to automatically take you to a particular area. If that happens, look in the lower right-hand side of the page. You'll see a "Browse More Local News" area with the map and the drop-down box.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:24 AM | Permalink

March 10, 2006

Will Local Search Engines Replace National Search Engines for Local Search?

ClickZ reports "about half the panelists believe local search engines will replace national search engines like Yahoo, Google and MSN when it comes to specific market needs," according to Borrell Associates's "2006 Local Search Advertising" report.

Two-thirds of the panelists say that this can happen as soon as five-years from now. My own personal feeling is that this won't happen. Yahoo, Google and the other engines, in my opinion, are doing a wonderful job with their local search portals, and the vertical integration with their main search portals. In addition, Google and MSN have wonderful search advertising targeting, with Yahoo not lagging that far behind. But with local search revenue to hit $987 million this year and double the year after, there is plenty of money to be shared amongst all the engines.

An executive summary of the report is available here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:08 AM | Permalink

February 2, 2006

TrueLocal Australia Users Crash Into TrueLocal North America

Jake Baillie from TrueLocal (see our review from December here) mentioned to me earlier this week that down in Australia, a new Rupert Murdoch/News Corp/News Interactive-backed truelocal service has launched. OK, clearly there's a potential legal issue if Murdoch tries to move his service into the North American market that Jake's search engine service. But it's not a big deal unless that actually happens, right? Apparently not. Via Barry over at Search Engine Roundtable, Will the real TrueLocal please stand up? from the Sydney Morning Herald covers how hundreds of Australians are apparently going to Jake's TrueLocal rather than Murdoch's.

Jake's quoted in the article as saying News Interactive was aware of his service. Despite this, I gather News Ltd. decided not having the .com address was OK. Bad move, though probably a nice payday for Jake down the line.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:02 PM | Permalink

January 12, 2006

MSN & SuperPages.com In Local Ads Agreement

SuperPages.com local advertisers now appear in MSN local search results. Type in a query, such as deli, New York or dentist, Dallas and superpages ads are displayed at the top of the page, above local search result listings.

Backfill ads appear to be generic—for example, a search for books in Seattle displays ads for Overstock.com, Simply Audio and discount magazine subscriptions.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 4:25 PM | Permalink

Google Tests New Local Ads On Maps

Google Tests Local Ads on Maps at ClickZ covers David Galbraith spotting that Google now appears to be inserting paid ads into maps on Google Local. For a search on hotels new york, he's spotted "blue pins" that correspond to what may be new sponsored links that come above editorial listings to the left of the map.

On my end, I see the textual ads but not the blue pins. Neither does Gary. A search for pizza san francisco shows a text ad but no blue pins. A few other searches I did also showed sponsored ads but no pins.

As I said, the sponsored links seem new. I don't recall seeing them on Google Local before, but it could be they were there but less noticeable before Google Local and Google Maps merged. We're checking on this and tracking down the mystery blue pins!

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our SEW Forums thread, AdWords Balloons in Google Maps.

Postscript: Statement from Google, "As part of our continuing effort to provide a positive advertising experience for users and advertisers, we are always exploring ways to improve the way we display ads. We are currently conducting a limited test of ads on Google Local. We do not have any other specific details to share at this time." Also, text ads have been on Google Local since 2004.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:56 AM | Permalink

December 11, 2005

UK: Thomson Directories and Skype Announce Partnership

How about a large local directory provider and a large VoIP service partnering and tossing in a bit of the click to call concept? Netimperative reports in Skype partners Thomson for local search that access to local directory listings from the Thomson Local Search directory/database will soon be available to users of the Skype web toolbar.

The results of the search will display three sponsored listings at the top of the page and a list of businesses down the left hand side which are then geographically displayed on a map. These business listings have been optimised for one-click calling, which means that any phone numbers shown on the results page can be called using Skype, by clicking on the Skype button.

A quick review of the Skype toolbar download page shows that the company has similar "directory" relationships in other countries. For example, in Germany Skype works with Deutsche Telecom. The Skype toolbar also provides access to results from eBay (makes sense), Ask Jeeves, and Yahoo.

Posted by Gary Price at 8:48 PM | Permalink

December 6, 2005

Local Search from Promising Upstarts

Local search is emerging as an important vertical service for Google, Yahoo and the other major players. But local search is still comparatively new, and isn't always as effective as global web search. In today's SearchDay article, Two Alternative Local Search Services, I take a look at smaller services offering a different approach to finding businesses and services in your own neighborhood.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 5:13 AM | Permalink

December 2, 2005

On Craigslist, Job Loses at Mainstream News Orgamizations, and Citizen Journalism

The San Franscisco Weekly reports in the article Craig$list.com, that the very popular classified ad site, its founder calls it an online marketplace "like a fleamarket," is beginning to cause layoffs at well-known and established news organizations. The story offers all sorts of interesting facts. For example, Craigslist founder, Craig Newmark, still uses text-based Pine as his email program. Probably not a bad idea. (-:

Seriously, the article includes plenty of good reading. Here are a few passages from the nine page article.

Newmark now suffers from a moral dilemma: He feels guilty about helping cause job losses and poorer-quality papers, but he's excited to accelerate the decline of the big, bad mainstream media. He seems determined to remedy his sins against the media by changing it for the better, lending his name and dollars to a citizen journalism movement populated by J-school professors, idealistic techno-futurists, and so-called citizen journalists. The hardest-hit publications are in the Bay Area, which accounts for about one-quarter of Craigslist's traffic. The Chronicle and its competitors lose more than $50 million per year because of job ads that have migrated to Craigslist, according to a 2004 report by Bob Cauthorn, the former vice president of digital media at Chronicle Web site SFGate.com, who is now working on his own media venture, City Tools. The San Jose Mercury News alone misses out on $12 million annually in employment ad revenue because of Craigslist, according to recent estimates by Lou Alexander... While the failings of the modern newspaper industry are many, if Craigslist wasn't costing them big bucks, it's unlikely that publishers would have created a host of Craigslist-copycat sites. BackPage, the mostly free classifieds site launched last year by SF Weekly's corporate parent, New Times, is only slightly more commercial than Craigslist, offering additional paid services that place an ad higher in the listings or print it in the paper. While it stopped the bleeding of classifieds from New Times papers, Senior Vice President Scott Spear admits that BackPage has little chance of overtaking Craigslist in its established cities. Nationally, BackPage has 1.8 million visitors per month, less than the number Craigslist attracts in the Bay Area alone. To Craigslist's executives, the consequences for competitors and other industries aren't important. Their choices are justified, they believe, by what the user community asks for. Every month, 10 million people worldwide click through 3 billion pages of Craigslist.

A good read not only on Craigslist but also its founder and ciizen journalism in general. Btw, OurMedia, Wikipedia, and Korea's OhMyNews are also mentioned.

Posted by Gary Price at 4:59 PM | Permalink

November 22, 2005

Froogle Offers Local Shopping Feature

Google's Froogle shopping search engine added a new feature to let people find products and services for sale in bricks-and-mortar stores near locations they designate.

For example, if you wanted to find all the stores selling cameras near Newport Beach, California, a search for cameras newport beach or cameras 92663 brings back matching results, both in a list and plotted on a map. You can also search just for cameras, then enter a ZIP code, city or state into a second search box that will appear.

How is this different from just doing a search on Google Local? Well, you can compare. Here's cameras 92663 on Google Local. You'll see that camera stores are listed in Google Local, while Froogle lists individual cameras for sale in various locations.

Another example is a search for ipod video 92663. In that case, Froogle shows you that several CompUSA stores have it in stock. A quick drive, and it would be in your hands if you needed it fast. In contrast, the same search on Google Local does poorly, bringing back two Apple Stores that probably have the item in stock but mostly a lot of places that won't, such as The Friends Of The Newport Beach Library.

Google's Shopping Service to List User's Local Stores from the New York Times and Google unveils tool to map shopping trips from the Associated Press say the data comes from a third-party inventory database that Google won't name. Google has long accepted feeds from merchants and others for Froogle, so it's likely making use of multiple sources to compile the data. Both stories cover that Google hopes the new Google Base service will also help add this type of data into Froogle in the future.

Comparison Engines notes that the feature CNET already offers a Local Stores search as part of its CNET Shopper service. Sadly, a search for ipod video 92663 brought up no matches, nor did I have much luck coming up with any product that would show me a Local Stores tab in addition to the Online Stores tab as you see in this example.

Postscript from Gary: Two other online shopping databases also allow you to search by location/Zip Code. First, Cairo.com, the shopping search engine allows the user to enter a location/Zip and a product type of category and find where products are available locally. For example, this search for Cameras 20901 found a number of hits for stores near my home (you can narrow by a radius). The results appear to come from primarily large retailers (Target, Rite Aid, Circuit City, etc.). One-click provides a map and directions to the store. Another useful feature from Cairo is their "Sales Alert" feature that will notify you by email if/when the price of a specific product is reduced. Cairo also offers a "price match tracker" to learn if another store is selling the item for a lower price. Btw, the Cairo datatbase is also completely browsable.

Second, ShopLocal.com offers much the same with mostly items from prirmarily large national stores but I also spotted a few regional and local merchants. ShopLocal also provides price alerts and does offer some online shopping options. For example, you can quickly determine the online price versus going to the store and purchase price.

Postscript 2 From Gary: It's also worth noting that Amazon.com offers an option to order selected books online and then and then pick the book up at a nearby brick and mortar bookstore. For example, a search for John's "The Search" illustrates this option.

The same is true for electronics. For example, I can order this Apple 30GB Color iPod from Circuit City online and then go pick it up today at a nearby Circuit City location.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:56 AM | Permalink

November 7, 2005

Google Local Goes Mobile

Adding to its various search services for mobile phones, Google has introduced Google Local for mobile, a stripped down version of its web-based local search, with heavy emphasis on maps and driving directions. It's a nice, but limited service, and only works on Java-enabled mobile phones at this point. More about the new service in today's SearchDay article, Google Launches Local for Mobile.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:00 AM | Permalink

November 3, 2005

Yahoo Maps Adds New Features and Tools

Yahoo has upgraded its Maps service, integrating local search results and adding a lot of cool "wow" factors to the service. They've also released a bunch of tools for developers to hack their own maps. More in today's SearchDay article, Yahoo Enhances Maps, Integrates Local Search.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:01 AM | Permalink

November 1, 2005

UK: Thomson Directories Now Powering Local Search Results On Tiscali UK

A quick note from the UK search scene. Netimperative reports that Thomson Local listings are now being used for local searches on the Tiscali UK site. Web results on Tiscali UK come from Google.

The service is accessed from Tiscalis home page. Users enter the type of business and location they are looking for and select the UK businesses option from the drop down menu alongside the search box. The results page shows the Thomson pay per click advertisers appearing at the top of the page, with online directory listings displayed on the left hand side. Priority is given to advertisers.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:50 PM | Permalink

Verizon SuperPages.com Adds Features

Verizon announced today that SuperPages.com now includes user reviews that lets searchers rate the more than 18 million local businesses, a new comparison shopping tool, and access to coupons and circulars from a particular local area.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 3:27 PM | Permalink

October 20, 2005

Local Search and Online Reservation Services: A Winning Combination?

Netimperative has an article about a new service from the popular UK directory 192.com (they also offer aerial photos) that now offers you the ability to search for a restaurant (about 1300 are currently available) and then make a reservation online. Web-based online reservations are not a new idea. For example, OpenTable here in the U.S. offers online reservations for more than 3000 restaurants. Other companies also offer similar services. That said, I wouldn't be surprised that with the combination of several popular topics these days including, local search, mobile access, Wi-Fi, location-based services, VoIP, and even pay-per-call to some degree, it wont be very long before some of the large search companies are providing online reservations for restaurants and other events. Remember, Ask Jeeves parent IAC/InterActive also owns Ticketmaster and CitySearch. Talk about synergy!!! Heck, with Google Ride Finder you could even have a taxi or car service waiting to take you to and from dinner. (-: Direct links to online reservations seems like a no-brainer for many of the big search players.

Posted by Gary Price at 2:09 PM | Permalink

September 30, 2005

Local Matters Goes After Local Search Tech Market

The eWeek article, MapQuest Founder Chases Local Search Crown, offers a look at a new local search technology player, Local Matters, and its founder Perry Evans.

Evans was also the founder of MapQuest and a co-founder of Jabber, IM technology. We first blogged about Local Matters in May. The company plans to license its local search technology platform to providers of Yellow Pages.

By returning search results for small businesses that do not have Web sites, Evans argues that his company can outperform local search services from Google Inc., Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp., America Online Inc. and Amazon.com's A9 engine..."Local search is a booming business, but Google and Yahoo are offering a very limited experience. The content they provide is not pervasive about local business and that gives us a big advantage. There's no better place to find local business data than the Yellow Pages," Evans said.

The article goes on to say that Local Matters will offer mobile search (via SMS) and the ability to "shuttle" results to wireless devices. This sounds similar to how you can quickly send results from Yahoo Local to a mobile phone. Perry Evans also tells eWeek that future versions of the Local Matters platform will include the use of "widget" technology like what's seen from Apple and Yahoo's Konfabulator.

We're already playing with widgets quite a bit and we think we can do something there to present personal local lists on demand. That's an exciting area for us."

Postscript: For more about Perry Evans and Local Matters check out this interview he did with Adena Schutzberg and Joe Francica in Directions Magazine. We've also learned that Evans will be the keynote speaker at the Location Intelligence Conference in April.

Posted by Gary Price at 3:01 PM | Permalink

September 21, 2005

Mobile Access + Local Search + GPS

A new article from News.com: Tech turns phones into back-seat drivers, reports on a presentation at Demofall today of the Destinator Anywhere Server. It along with personal versions of the product allow mobile searchers to use their GPS enabled phone or mobile device to find and access info based on where they're located.

Essentially, the technology is a mix of services like Yahoo Local (which provides comprehensive listings of local businesses and attractions) and mobile phones incorporating GPS...When the Destinator service is instructed to look up, say, a sushi restaurant in some specific town, it interfaces with Yahoo Local and comes up with a list of choices. When the user selects a choice, the service creates a map and proceeds to direct the user to the sashimi, speaking out the directions as they drive.

You can learn more about Destinator here. Darn, it's presently not available for my Treo 650.

You've got to think that with the massive amount of interest in both local and mobile search these days, Destinator and companies offering similar types of technology would be ripe for acquisition by some of the large web search players.

Posted by Gary Price at 5:10 PM | Permalink

September 2, 2005

Google Launches Google Local In China

I've been meaning to mention long-time search marketer Shakil Khan's new blog on life in China, Chinawhite, where he's going to be touchin