I’m bummed that I had to bow out of this year’s Where 2.0 conference; I had been slated to speak, and had a list of people to meet and sessions I wanted to hear. One of the most interesting sessions, moderated by Greg Sterling, was on the “monetization of maps and mashups“.

Following a blogger’s coverage of the session, I was really tweaked by one comment, roughly paraphrased by blogger John McKerrell, in attendance. From Skyhook, Jed Rice:

“When we started trying doing more local targeting and being able to insert a lat/lon.We had to flood adsense with a lot of local information to get any information from them at all. We had a click-through rate of 7/8/12% as if you can position ads around a relevant map you get a higher click-through. But there’s a problem that there isn’t enough ads to serve, requires a huge inventory to serve at such a granular level.”

This is a pretty important observation.

Experience is beginning to demonstrate that AdSense does not offer much hyper-local ad inventory.

(more…)

mobile search, maps, local mobile | 1 Comment »

When you have little time and lots of money, your strategic move is obvious.

I thought I’d push out a few armchair quarterback suggestions on MS-Yahoo’s strategic moves in the local media space.

For simplicity, let’s call it MSY - plus, it just might get kind of MeSsY. (more…)

search, local social, Jabber, YP, strategy, maps, local mobile | No Comments »

Local search with that promise gets my attention!

That’s a line from BMW’s announcement of (purportedly) the world’s first Google Local Search showing up on a dashboard. You can see photos and more details at Jalopnik, a niche news site for autophiles. Only available in Germany on BMW cars, it’s the next logical step from prior announcements from Google, Yahoo and MS on their “send to car” features. You can get a little orientation on YouTube here.

So, is the dashboard yet another media screen worthy of attention? (more…)

mobile search, strategy, maps, local mobile | 1 Comment »

The old adage, “go big or go home” just seems so darn… understated …

One week the blogsphere is abuzz with the early screen grabs from Google Health. The next, Google goes beyond Earth into the atmosphere, with the announcement of Google Sky.

I’m betting we’ll see Microsoft’s Black Hole Explorer announcement any day.

maps, diversion | No Comments »

I’ve long been a fan of the writings of Mark Morford, a SF-based writer whose voice leaves me rolling on the floor consistently. Here is his take on Google Street View, an excerpt below. Good Friday reading, as in good for a Friday, certainly not for “Good Friday”.

Ah, Google, you great wicked benevolent super-cool vaguely disturbing Big Brother überbitch mega-company, quietly taking over the entire goddamn Net universe and most of the terrestrial world, too, one cool but simultaneously unnerving innovation at a time.

Enjoy the diversion. The article “I Can See Your Thong From Here” with classic Morford humor raises the privacy issue with aplomb.

maps, diversion | 1 Comment »

The proceedings of Where 2.0 are being covered well in local blogs by Kelsey and SEL affiliate bloggers Krasilovsky and Sterling. The juxtaposition of MapQuest v. Google & MS at this event warrants commentary. As Google announced the latest volley in the dimensional geo war v. Microsoft, MapQuest tried to pour cold water on the lovefest by highlighting how far removed these innovations still are from everyday life, and how the “real demand” is for personalization not “dimension”.

How do you interpret this - is this a Gandhi or a Dangerfield moment? Are we witnessing a game-playing exercise gone awry between west coast geek cultures with billion dollar toy budgets, or is this research just the jealous mutterings from the kid who used to control the playground whose daddy won’t buy him enough cool new toys? (more…)

search, local shopping, YP, maps | No Comments »