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March 13, 2005

AOL already offers VOIP PC to PC "phone calls" between it's users in the UK, and competitor Wanadaoo also offers this. BT are too in the UK.

Now AOL US will start offering calls to landlines via VOIP - and allow users to connect their existing phone handsets up via their broadband connections (now more scrambling around trying to find the PC microphone).

This has long term implications for pay per call and local search - the easier it is to dial out / receive a call on your PC after clicking on a pay per call listing, the more likely the general public are to accept pay per call as an easy to use, quick way to ask businesses (local or otherwise) questions and place orders.

AOL has already partnered with Ingenio to offer pay per call advertising, so hopefully they are working on joining up the pieces.

Posted by duncan at 06:50 PM | Comments (0)

March 12, 2005

Google have added reviews to Google Local results covering restaurants and other local businesses.

They've also worked on improving results by adding to the structured data displayed in results using "unnamed" business information sources and the web itself.

According to eweek they are also looking at ways to allow businesses to update their listings (Yahoo has this feature already).

Reviews and online ratings of businesses are a logical progression in local search results; we all listen to friend's recommendations about restaurants or local contractors (especially builders, plumbers, accountants etc).

So adding this functionality is a no-brainer; the challenge is ensuring the reviews are trustworthy (i.e. businesses aren't favourably reviewing themselves) and that users trust them enough to a) believe the reviews and b) add to them. We've already seen customer reviews of products take off on sites like Amazon; people are prepared to contribute for free to websites they view as holding value for them. And this sort of "community" momentum can be kick-started with free prize draws, discounts etc.

These sort of reviews link in very nicely with social networking sites like Friendster and Orkut and business networking sites like Linkedin and Plaxo.

How long before these networks are enabling users to recommend local businesses and suppliers? Well Linkedin already helps members find jobs, recruit staff - or recommend services.

So the future of search doesn't just include local search: it includes trust. If the problem of ensuring reviews are genuine can be solved, then this will be a real bonus for searchers - and for good businesses.

Con-men, rip-off merchants and bad chefs beware the search engines.

Posted by duncan at 03:41 PM | Comments (0)

March 11, 2005

Via a comment on an earlier posting, this new local search site, AtLocal.com, has been brought to my attention.

According to Sam who posted the URL and I assume is connected with the site: "There is lot of valuable local information out there in the Internet. Atlocal is a new local search engine that does it differently than Google Local and Yahoo local. We do not use IVPs data or cross match with IVPs data at all."

Right now the site is limited to a few areas of the US, and pulls data from ePilot as well as what look like normal web results. The site desing is basically the same as Google. Example here.

You can submit your site if it covers New York, New Jersey, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts or Pennsylvania.

Right now the site is quiet basic - it'll be intersting to see how this independent approach develops.

Posted by duncan at 08:39 PM | Comments (0)

CNET has an article on how mobiles will be "the next thing in search" and how the search engines are launching SMS and WAP based search services in the US.

This is hardly news for anybody in Europe or Asia; mobiles and search have been converging here for a while and mobiles are more common. There are apparently now more mobile phones than people in the UK (! - some people have two, one for work and one for personal calls).
Smartphones are catching on with companies and more workers are being provided with phone and PDAs in one Smartmobiles.

UK mobile network 02 recently started offering advertising on their phones and mobiles already provide local content and business listings. My Vodafone handset, for example, tells me where I am and lists local cash machines etc. 26 billion SMS text messages where sent in the UK in 2004.

So mobile-based search certainly has big potential: but if the search engines are slow in launching their mobile services outside the US they might find the YellowPages companies and others have tied up the markets before them...

Posted by duncan at 07:43 PM | Comments (0)

March 08, 2005

Rob McGann at ClickZNews looks at a report that suggest IYPs are falling behind search engines in providing local search results.

Put simply, the report says this is because it's harder to find businesses on an IYP site than a search engine with local results.

I agree this is true some of the time; but nobody has the perfect resutls set (or data to generate results from).

The search engines are especially useful if you carry out a non-local search and the engine prompts you to refine the search by making it local (e.g. a search for "cosmetic surgery" is refined to "cosmetic surgeons in Cape Coral"). Right now Google, Yahoo and MSN do this to a degree.

The "helpful" factor of this will win loyalty from searchers - possibly to the extent they "forget" about IYP sites and do their local searches on the main search engines.

Of course, it is far from over for the IYPs; they do have loyal users and could keep them - and increase them. Improvements they could make include better interfaces, more content about businesses (perhaps a review/recommendation function) and innovate into SMS-based search.

Most of all, they should recognise the need to grow their ad revenues on a performance basis (PPC or similar) and to buy in the technology they need (pay per call for example).

As noted in the report, they could consider offering local SME services too, becoming the one-stop launching pads into PPC, SEO and Yellow Pages listings for local businesses.

Posted by duncan at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)

Interchange (who own the ePilot.com PPC engine and offer a suite of technologies for powering local search sites) have announced they have acquired Local.com and are going to launch a local search site of their own.

Full press release here.

Local.com already has US, Canadian and (some) international city guides. The site offers articles and functionality for hotel and car rental searches and booking.

Interchange will relaunch the site later this year and deploy their local search technologies on it - so I expect to see local PPC advertising and their KeywordDNA technology used to map keywords to business listings.

More on their technology.

This is a continuation of their stated 5 point strategy: developing local-search services, expanding their Advertiser Network, expanding their own Distribution Network and international expansion (they made a recent European acquisition).

Interestingly, they are an Overture LocalMatch ambassador as well as owning their own PPC.

Posted by duncan at 01:36 PM | Comments (0)

March 02, 2005

Alongside their standard PPC search, contextual and behavioural offerings, Kanoodle offer a local search advertising program, LocalTarget.

I'm not sure how long they've offered this, but it is another good move from them (putting aside the partner and traffic quality issues I know some advertisers have with them).

The site says they are building a network of advertising partners whose websites are locally-focused - so theoretically they should have targeted traffic.

Another "to try" local advertising program.

Posted by duncan at 05:39 PM | Comments (0)

In their latest research report Jupiter have played down the potential value of the local search market:

According to a forecast provided by JupiterResearch analyst Niki Scevak during a session Monday at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in New York, spending on local search will reach $879 million in 2009. That figure is far lower than a recent forecast from search analyst firm The Kelsey Group, which predicted spending to exceed $3 billion by 2009.(Source: Media Week)

Sadly I couldn't find a snippet of the report on the Jupiter Research website or in their blogs.

Their thinking is based around the idea that local professionals won't be that interested in local search ads online as they view see the Internet as a way to gain clients.

Well, three immediate reactions from me: 1)they pay for Yellow Page ads - so they "get" advertising; 2) wait until they see their competitors in results on the search engines, IYPs and cell phones; 3) a good sales person will be ready for this sort of opposition.

I'm not saying every local professional will want to advertise online; but most will want at least a basic listing (like free printed Yellow Pages / business directory listings).

Posted by duncan at 01:33 PM | Comments (0)