I’ve long believed that neighborhoods represent a key ingredient in how local search and media evolves. Back around 1995, Brad Inman held a brainstorming retreat for online real estate people at his redwood forest home. I still remember Brad’s passion about the importance of neighborhoods in the fabric of online real estate - and community in general; as a former real estate newspaper writer Brad used to love doing neighborhood profiles. While the concept has stuck with me, the content gap made it an impractical pipe dream.

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local social, local shopping, strategy, OpenSocial, facebook | 2 Comments »

It’s encouraging to see Kelsey Group take a lead role in sponsoring the industry dialog on the verticalization of local search.

We all have our own definitions of vertical search - most commonly we align around large shopping niches such as automotive, real estate and A&E. However, of late, we’re seeing this expand beyond “classified verticals” into key life event or considered purchase segments such as attorneys (avvo), weddings (wedding channel) and new homes (zillow).

why are YP’s vertically challenged?

Why are publishers watching the development of local vertical search from the wrong side of the podium?

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search, local shopping, publishing, strategy, local vertical | 4 Comments »

The NY Times does an interesting piece on (yet) another enhancement to the Google Search Engine Result Page (SERP). The article, entitled “A New Tool from Google Alarms Sites” profiles a new “search within a site” box that has begun appearing, unannounced, into the SERP.

Add another emerging example to the growing list of “third page / second click” creep.

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local shopping, third page, strategy | 1 Comment »

Greg Sterling previewed our new 3-week old beta of GuideSpot.com in his blog yesterday, with an appreciated nod “Over time the site could evolve into something very interesting and valuable.” At Local Matters, we certainly would agree. Here’s a little more on the site, and how we see it positioned in the social-vertical-search triangle of local.

Clearly, the growth momentum is there for social participation - consumers are more comfortable with self-expression and interaction every day. Sites that align with this trend generally outperform those that center on search, and create more fundamental pull and engagement. When we looked at this space, we centered our energy on the concept of a consumer’s list at the core of a social engine.

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social, local shopping, local guides, publishing, OpenSocial | No Comments »

Kelsey does a nice job highlighting and challenging us to think about the user participation model of YP. Mike Taylor leads into the debate on the TKR website with his “Will Consumers Ever Rule the Yellow Pages”? post:

Can publishers make the print product relevant to younger adults experiencing the life events that drive usage — getting married, buying a home, having children? Online, are publishers simply porting over an advertiser-oriented business model onto a user-oriented Internet? Does the Yellow Pages industry fully grasp how the way people search for local information has changed?

While it’s healthy for YP to fess up to lagging in each of these areas, the question I’d center on is where from here? (more…)

local social, local shopping, YP, strategy | 3 Comments »

I ran across this great image on FaceBook (credit kblabs)

This reminded me of a concept I’ve been mulling around for awhile.

The so-called “wisdom of crowds” has been widely discussed, and is central to the opinion gap that drives real value in local search. However, crowds consistently exhibit predictable “follower style behavior”. The notion of “collective opinion” is not nearly as interesting as the notion of finding the (small number of) voices that are valuable to me. (more…)

social, local social, local shopping, strategy | 3 Comments »