WebProNews

Tag: Local

  • Microsoft Tests New Local Mobile Ad Product

    Microsoft Mobile Advertising has started piloting a new local ad product for mobile. Geodelic, a third party publisher of a location-based discovery app is conducting the pilot.

    "We are conducting this pilot to gain insights into end user behavior and engagement with local mobile ad products," says Raj Kapoor on the Microsoft Advertising Blog. "This ad product is geared towards driving store traffic for our advertisers, as well as to provide consumers with easy access to store details, directions and local offers."

    Two advertisers participating in the pilot are Hyatt and Quiznos. Microsoft says pilot participants belong to local categories such as restaurants, services, travel, and shopping.

    Hyatt and Quizos participate in Microsoft ad pilot

    The pilot will launch in Los Angeles, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Seattle at first. It is served through Microsoft’s adCenter platform.

  • YouTube Local News “News” Just Part of YouTube Direct?

    SF Weekly ran a story yesterday evening about YouTube having a "top secret news experiment" involving citizen journalism and "going local in San Francisco". Peter Kafka at All Things Digital played down the news, saying he was told by "a person familiar with the sites’ plans, "YouTube is working with a San Francisco TV station to launch a  new iteration of its YouTube Direct platform." YouTube Direct has been around since November.

    Key features of YouTube Direct include:

    – Built on the YouTube API, this 100% open-source solution provides you with an easily-integrated audience engagement platform for your website

    – The customizable interface allows you to tailor the look and feel of the tool precisely to your audience

    – Visitors can answer your call for content by uploading their videos to YouTube via your site without leaving the page

    – Users can also upload photos, in addition to video

    – A moderation panel enables your editors to review and approve/reject all submitted videos and photos, deciding which ones meet your organization’s editorial criteria

    – All videos approved by your editors include a link back to your site when viewed on YouTube

    An official announcement about San Francisco is expected next week. Read here for earlier coverage of YouTube Direct 2.0, announced in April, with partners like ABC News, Gannett, the Huffington Post, NPR, and the Washington Post.

  • Upgrading Local AdWords Ads to Location Extensions

    Google is about to transition local business ads in advertisers’ AdWords accounts to ads that are compatible with the location extensions the company introduced last year.

    "This feature allows you to include information such as your business name, address and phone number in your existing text ads," explains Emily Williams of Google’s Inside AdWords crew. "When a potential customer performs a search, their location or search terms are dynamically matched to your business locations, and your most relevant location appears within your ad on Google.com and Google Maps."

    "We’ve heard from many of you who’ve already switched to location extensions that campaign management and attracting customers in your area is now simpler and more effective," she says. "With location extensions, you can deliver more exposure and local relevance by using the same ads for all your business locations without the overhead of maintaining a different ad for each location."

    Google is offering the options to upgrade your local business ads to text ads with location extensions, and to automatically transition your local business ads.

    There is a step-by-step guide here that walks you through the transition process. You can organize your addresses, choose relevant landing pages, connect your addresses with AdWords, review your existing local business ads and create new ones, and review your geo-targeting settings.

    Original local business ads will be deleted and recreated as location extensions with specific address overrides after the transition, so stats will be reset to zero.

  • MerchantCircle Aims to Duplicate U.S. Success Internationally

    MerchantCircle is going international. The local business social network, which gets nearly six million unique monthly visitors (according to Compete data), should be increasing that number greatly as it expands into Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

    We recently looked at a partnership between MerchantCircle and Demand Media’s AnswerBag that presented some interesting opportunities for local businesses. However, a representative for MerchantCircle tells WebProNews the AnswerBag partnership "will not be live with international releases at this time. We need to build up our network of merchants internationally to help answer consumer questions."

    MerchantCircleStill, MerchantCircle was already getting a great deal of use before that partnership came along, and it will be interesting to see how it does in new territory.

    "Our long term vision is to provide as many small businesses as possible worldwide, the same tools that millions of U.S. based merchants have been able to leverage," says chairman and co-founder Ben Smith. "Mom and pop businesses in other countries struggle with online marketing and its associated costs the same way American small business owners do. We have received a number of requests to expand MerchantCircle’s offering internationally, and we see significant potential to form partnerships in each country."

    MerchantCircle helps small businesses network with one another and market their businesses with various tools. They must be doing something right, because they’re the largest local business social network in the U.S.

  • Facebook Finding More Ways to Compete with Google

    Apparently Facebook is not content with only taking over the web, but wants to get some penetration into the physical world as well. Taking a cue from another dominant company, Google, Facebook is now giving brick and mortar businesses decals to put in their windows. While Facebook tells WebProNews the decals are currently only a test with a small number of businesses, I would expect this to be expanded in the future.

    Is Facebook a worthy competitor to Google? Tell us what you think.

    Increasing Competition with Google

    Google Favorite Places - Decals Google has been sending decals to businesses as part of its Favorite Places program. In fact, they even just announced the expansion of this last week. Whereas Google’s decals include a QR code pointing to the business’ "Place Page," Facebook’s include a link to the business’ Facebook Page.

    Google has its fair share of competition from a variety of angles. Apple is getting a great deal of the attention in this regard (making two big moves yesterday), but Facebook is up there as well. Facebook is already a key competitor in terms of where people spend their time online. Facebook expanding its presence all over the web only increases that, and will likely play a big role in the diversification of how people obtain information – in other words, maybe a little less Googling. Some of us have even speculated on the possibility that Facebook could one day create it’s own AdSense-like network.

    Implications for Local Search

    Facebook Pages Show you how many people like it and how many of your firends do. In a recent article, we already touched upon the idea that Facebook is positioning itself to have a greater presence in how people find information at the local level. Even before Facebook’s latest announcements, business pages have been a great way to engage with local customers.

    In that article, I referenced a quote from Search Engine Land contributing editor Greg Sterling, who says, "It [Facebook] could do nothing in particular or it could build the single most effective local directory and search site that exists. This data will be more valuable than anything Google has or any individual local publisher-partner possesses. That includes Yelp, YPG or anyone else that joins the Open Graph and implements these new Facebook platform tools."

    All of the "liking" of local businesses that will be facilitated by Facebook’s new Open Graph strategy may be further facilitated by these decals. We don’t know at this point how many businesses are getting these, but if this becomes widespread, it could be pretty powerful for businesses, and perhaps even more so for Facebook itself. As Facebook notes in a letter to those who receive the decals, businesses are already including their Page URLs on various materials – receipts, napkins, storefronts, etc.

    Does Facebook Want to Replace the Website?

    There has been some discussion lately that perhaps Facebook was going to make Facebook Pages obsolete by putting the "like" button all over the web and changing the "become a fan" button on Facebook Pages to "like". The thinking here would be, what’s the point of liking a Facebook Page for a brand, when you can just like that brand’s site? I think Facebook has the opposite in mind.

    As I’ve discussed in the past with regard to Google’s Place Pages (and to some extent, Facebook Pages), maybe they’d rather make the website obsolete and have the Facebook Page (or Google Place Page in previous examples) take their place. If Facebook wants to be the new web, and it wants "likes" to be the new links, why wouldn’t they want Pages to be the new sites? The decals point to Facebook Pages.

    In reality, businesses are not going to be giving up their websites anytime soon and handing over full control to Facebook. However, businesses that don’t even have a website may find that a Facebook Page is pretty easy to set up and can connect them with a whole lot of people (much like Google’s Place Pages can). Maintenance is much less of a hassle when it comes to a Facebook Page as well, and some may find that attractive in itself.

    Mashable suggests that in the battle for the more dominant decal (in terms of what businesses actually want to display), Facebook may have a leg up with its 400 million+ users and "the value of an instant Fan". While Google has no shortage of users, that "instant fan" concept carries a great deal of weight. When someone visits a Place Page on Google, they can find information about the business, sure. But if they’re already at the business, how much value does that really have, when compared to the one which will put that person essentially on the business’ mailing list – the Facebook version. When they’re a fan, you can communicate to them and with them directly. 

    Facebook says businesses that promote their Page off-Facebook tend to see a 20% or greater increase in connections.

    Which would you rather have in your window, a Facebook decal or a Google decal? Would you display both or either? Let us know.

  • Augmented Reality App to Provide Greater Value to Local Businesses

    Augmented Reality App to Provide Greater Value to Local Businesses

    It’s a very interesting time for local businesses. Mobile apps are opening many different opportunities for them to be discovered and new and creative ways. Likewise opportunities for engaging with customers and providing them with offers are becoming increasingly apparent.

    Layar    , which makes a pretty useful augmented reality app, announced Layar Stream today, which will fuel the discovery of augmented reality content that is available around you.

    First, a little about Layar’s app itself.  It already has more than 1.6 million users, and serves 1.2 million augmented objects a day. Over 600 layers are published on the Layar Platform with over 2000 in development. Layers within the app let smartphone users point their phone in any given direction to find items as diverse as nearby restaurants and bars, Twitterers, crime spots, sports and events, apartments for rent…you name it. Some layers are free and some are paid.

    What the Layar Stream will do is generate a stream out of the augmented objects that are available around you. With so many layers in development, this will likely become an increasingly important element of tapping into the ones that you will find useful.

    "Layar Stream is the necessary building block to make Augmented Reality part of every day life," says CEO Raimo van der Klein "There is a whole augmented world out there that is waiting to be discovered. You just need to tap into Layar Stream"

    The Layar Stream will be available in the next version of the Layar app to be launched later this month. It will go to Android first, and then iPhone.

    With iPhone (not to mention the iPad) maintaining a great deal of popularity, and Android usage rapidly growing, you can see where this app might provide great value to local businesses.

  • Citysearch and AT&T

    Citysearch and AT&T

    AT&T Interactive and Citysearch have expanded their relationship, so that sponsored listings on YP.com (the rebranded yellowpages.com), can be displayed across CityGrid, Citysearch’s local content and advertising network the company told us about in March.

    CitySearch - CityGrid Citygrid, Citysearch told us, would give local advertisers access to a pay-for-performance ad platform and campaign tools, a scalable SEO solution on the web, local listings optimization, and wider distribution.

    One commenter on our previous coverage of Citygrid said, "I saw their presentation and I feel that any SEO value is minimal. I love the concept of a one-stop shop for all things local, but this is not a complete (or even almost complete) solution. Maybe as it gets developed out a bit it will have more value.”

    "The expansion of our partnership with AT&T Interactive is an opportunity for two leading names in local to offer additional value to both advertisers and consumers," says Citysearch CEO Jay Herratti. "By combining AT&T Interactive’s massive sales organization with the reach of CityGrid, local advertisers will be able to reach millions of consumers across a variety of local properties."

    "The local marketplace is an increasingly attractive and effective opportunity for advertisers to reach ready-to-buy consumers," adds AT&T Interactive President and CEO David Krantz. "Combined with the reach of AT&T Interactive’s comprehensive local ad network, our collaboration with Citysearch supports our long-time commitment to drive qualified leads for our advertisers across the web and other high-trafficked platforms including IPTV and mobile."

    Do you see this expanded relationship as a good thing for your local business?     Let us know what you think.

  • Google Expands Tag Advertising for Local Businesses

    Last week Google changed the Local Business Center to Google Places, and along with that change came some new features for local businesses. We looked at those here.

    Among those changes was the addition of Google’s tag advertising. For $25 a month, businesses (in certain cities) can use Tags to highlight their listings on Google.com and Google Maps. These are yellow markers that let you promote important aspects of your business. They can be used for things like coupons, photos, and other select features.  They don’t affect the rank of search results, but they give customers more information and may prove beneficial.

    Google Tag advertising - new feature for Google PlacesGoogle promised that while the offering was starting out in a limited number of cities, that number would be expanding. The expansion process is underway. Google has now announced the addition of 11 new cities.

    The new cities are: San Jose, Houston, Austin, Atlanta, Washington DC, San Diego, Seattle, Boulder, Chicago, San Francisco and Mountain View.

    "You’ll notice that we’ve added Mountain View, CA to the list of cities participating in the trial," says Product Manager Shalini Agarwal. "Because we are still tweaking the product a bit, we thought we’d make it available in our hometown so we can get quick feedback as we work on new features."

    Businesses in the available cities can sign up for Tags from their Google Places accounts.

    In a couple weeks, Google says it will launch a new tag type: "post to your Place Page". This will be a freeform text field that will let business owners highlight custom messages announcing sales or events.

    The company did not indicate when more cities will become available, but I would expect the feature to make regular expansions in the not-too-distant future.

  • Yahoo Whips Up Clever Food Finder

    Yahoo Whips Up Clever Food Finder

    It must be rare for a person to crave a certain restaurant ("ooh, those straight-backed chairs would hit the spot right now"); instead, most hankerings relate to food.  Yahoo seems to have introduced a very helpful feature, then, as it’s started allowing users to search for exact menu items instead of eateries.

    A Yahoo representative explained in an email to WebProNews, "As part of Yahoo!’s strategy to uncover relevant details about real-world things (aka the ‘Web of Things’) that are hidden in the billions of pages on the Web, we’re now extracting and surfacing specific restaurant menu information in our Web and Local search results."

    Go ahead and give the feature a try, if you’d like.  Just type the name of a dish along with either a city and state combo or a zip code, and you should see something like the following screenshot:

    Our tests turned out rather well, all in all.  Perhaps the feature isn’t perfect; strictly speaking, Pazzo’s offers a chicken parmesan hoagie, and it’s clear that what Johnny Carino’s serves is a panini.  Still, those distinctions are somewhat difficult to make, the number of restaurants in Lexington is rather small, and those sandwiches sound quite good, which tends to justify the results in our eyes.

    This is definitely an area in which Yahoo now has an edge over Google and Bing, at least.

  • The iPad Debut Of UrbanSpoon

    The iPad Debut Of UrbanSpoon

    According to Techcrunch, app store veteran, UrbanSpoon, has officially launched their iPad app. I agree with them in that the iPad app will not be useful for quick dinner solutions (like it is when firing up the app on an iPhone), however the iPad app will be useful for longer, more thoughtful decisions. Details of the UrbanSpoon iPad app below:

    Comments

  • AT&T: Buzz the “Best Way” to Get Your Business in Front of Facebook Users

    Update: AT&T Announced today that Buzz.com is now available to the pubic. To read more about the service, read our exclusive interview with AT&T about the services below.

    Original Article: Google Buzz has captured a lot of the buzz around services with "Buzz" in the title (of which there are a few), but before Google Buzz was even announced, AT&T Interactive had already launched a beta version of its latest take on local business search at Buzz.com. Buzz.com has only been available on an invitation basis so far, and will remain that way until some bugs are ironed out, but you may find AT&T’s Buzz becoming a bigger part of your life than Google’s simply, because it will be coming at you from your Facebook friends.

    We spent close to an hour talking to AT&T about the product, checking out a demo of the service, and getting a feel for just what AT&T plans to do with Buzz.com. Right off the bat, Charlie Hornberger, director of product development told WebProNews it’s not as much about getting in front of people on Buzz.com, but getting in front of them on Facebook. That’s just for now anyway, it’s already integrated with Facebook, and Twitter is next on the list, he says. Then they’ll figure out what other networks to integrate, whether that be Gmail contacts, instant messenger lists, or anything else.

    Buzz.com is focused on only positive reactions to businesses. Users can "favorite" businesses and recommend them to their friends. So as far as reputation management goes, there shouldn’t be too many issues here from the standpoint of monitoring negative commentary. Although if your competitors are getting a lot of "buzz" and you’re not, that may be worth looking into.

    AT&T's Buzz.com - how it works

    Hornberger doesn’t appear too worried about any branding issues around the name Buzz. Jokingly, he said it seems like "if you don’t have Buzz then you have a problem." The very nature of Buzz.com shouldn’t make it much of an issue anyway, because it’s essentially coming at you right in your Facebook news feed. You don’t necessarily have to go to Buzz.com to feel its presence, although he views having buzz.com as a URL as a "great asset," because it "makes sense for this product."

    Before you get all riled up with visions of Farmville-style Facebook updates, relax, because Buzz’s Facebook integration is set up to prevent feed-spamming. If a user shares a lot of businesses at a time, it will consolidate these into a single update on Facebook. Some Facebook users may still wish not to see such things, but they can adjust their settings in Facebook the same as with anything else. Frankly, this is adding more value to the user than learning about friends’ pseudo-farming practices, because if a friend recommends a dentist, for example, that might be useful to you at some point.

    Businesses will want to make sure they’re listed in Buzz.com, because not only will they be listed in Buzz.com, they’ll be listed right in Facebook users’ news feeds anytime a Buzz.com user "favorites" their business, and shares that with their friends. Hornberger calls it a way to get on Facebook "in the best possible way."

    Currently there is not a place on Buzz.com that businesses can go and get listed, but he says there will be soon. However, listings come from the same database that powers AT&T’s YellowPages.com. I’d advise making sure you have a listing there, complete with a link to your site. They are looking at other potential ways to expand listings as well, including potentially, a way for users to submit things besides businesses (like a public tennis court for example).

    They will have a mobile web app available in a couple weeks for Buzz.com. Hornberger says they haven’t started on one for the App Store, but even if they do, it will be more for visibility purposes, and the web app will likely provide the better user experience (no mention of an Android app).

    For now, you can use Buzz.com if you get an invite. Everyone that gets an invite can send out more invitations. There is a chance you are already seeing people post Buzz.com activity to Facebook. Until the kinks are worked out, it will continue to be on an invitation-only basis, but that will likely change in the not-too-distant future.

    Buzz.com could play a significant role in the local search space as it grows, and is probably not something businesses want to ignore. On a side note, Buzz.com utilizes AT&T’s existing partnership with Microsoft by providing Bing Maps imagery, so this could be considered another factor in Bing usage.

    Have you used Buzz.com? Share your thoughts.

  • MerchantCircle, Demand Media Provide New Local Search Opportunities

    MerchantCircle, a social network for local businesses, which boasts over a million businesses, announced an expanded partnership with Demand Media. I spoke with Darren Waddell, VP of marketing for MerchantCircle and Sean Pate, the company’s Director of PR about this and some other news.

    MerchantCircle has had a pre-existing partnership with Demand Media that functions in several capacities. For one, Demand’s domain registrar is used to give MerchantCircle businesses domains that MerchantCircle recommends based on their business profile. In addition, Demand Media content appears on merchant sites. For example, a plumber may have plumbing-related content from Demand Media on his site to make it more relevant and useful to users. Now, there is a new element to the partnership – Q&A.

    Demand Media’s AnswerBag is a Q&A site, and the 122nd most popular site on the Internet, according to Merchant Circle. Now, AnswerBag questions will be routed to MerchantCircle businesses to answer when appropriate. This way, in theory, if a person asks a plumbing question, it will go to a plumber, and make for a more helpful and relevant answer. In turn, the MerchantCircle business (the plumber) will get more exposure, credit for answering (which can enhance the appearance of credibility), and even links – so businesses have an incentive to answer questions.

    AnserBag meets MerchantCircle

    "The more you’re able to show off your expertise online the more likely you are to get more business," Waddell tells WebProNews. Through the partnership, MerchantCircle is basically providing greater distribution of the answer given. Plus there’s another perk: potential search engine traffic. "We’re a really good complement for SEO-savvy businesses to help people get more exposure on Google or other search engines," says Wadell. "A good complement that can help get them more traffic."

    The AnswerBag deal isn’t the only piece of news. They also announced a partnership with HelloMetro, a company with hyperlocal sites for over 1,000 cities, serving between 4 and 5 million unique visitors a month. MerchantCircle will power its directories. 

    MerchantCircle is also now leveraging the Yahoo Answers API to introduce even more questions to its merchants. They’re taking questions from Yahoo Answers and introducing them to merchants. They say they take only really relevant questions that pertain to categories that are strong in merchant’s circle, and again, merchants can get more links. If you go to a merchant’s listing page, you’ll see all the questions they’ve answered. You can see what they’re experts in, which can be a strong selling point for a business.

    Q&A search is getting to be a big business these days. Even Google has recognized this, as evidenced by its recent acquisition of Aardvark. MerchantCircle has put an interesting spin on it that seemingly offers a fair amount of potential for businesses to capitalize on. With these partnerships, that potential should only grow.

  • YellowPages.com Rebranded as YP.com

    YellowPages.com Rebranded as YP.com

    In local search news, AT&T Interactive has rebranding its popular YellowPages.com to YP.com. AT&T’s Jamie Carracher tells WebProNews, "YP.com will replace YellowPages.com as its flagship web property and brand."

    This was actually revealed last summer, but is now being implemented.

    YP.com launched as the new Yellowpages.com

    About the change, Carracher says:

    – Predictive text search technology that automatically suggests potential search terms as a user enters a business name or category.

    – Search results, supported by YP.COM’s database of over 21 million business listings, allow users to filter results by neighborhood, Video Profiles and business coupons.

    – While in beta testing, advertisers averaged a 28% increase in calls and clicks per search as a result of placement on YP.COM

    "Our new direction with YP.COM reflects our investment in developing local search technology that helps create stronger engagement between consumers and the businesses they are seeking to discover, find, and connect with," says David Krantz, president and CEO of AT&T Interactive. "With the help of our users and 5,000+ local market sales experts, we have a tremendous opportunity to keep helping our advertisers grow their business, while delivering a search experience that brings together richer content and transactional capabilities."

    Users can filter results by neighborhood, Video Profiles and business coupons.

    AT&T is also currently tinkering with Buzz.com, a social local search tool that draws from the same database as YP.com. Read our recent interview with AT&T for more details about that. 

  • Citysearch Has New Way for Local Businesses to Advertise

    Citysearch recently announced a set of APIs to make all of Citysearch’s local listings content and advertising available to other Websites and mobile apps. It’s called CityGrid. Today, the company announced an online advertising solution called CityGrid Complete, as an extension of that.

    CitySearch - CityGridCityGrid Complete was built around an investment from Citysearch in OrangeSoda. CitySearch tells WebProNews that with the investment, they will offer local advertisers:

    – Access to a pay-for-performance advertising platform and campaign management tools

    – Scalable search engine optimization solution on the Web, including targeted keyword optimization, and reporting (ranking, conversation tracking and trending)

    – Local listings optimization, including business profile optimization and phone call tracking and reporting

    – Wider distribution across CityGrid

    "Whether it’s driving new customers to our advertisers from major search sites or mobile applications, CityGrid Complete is about delivering local businesses the highest quality leads for the best value," said Citysearch CEO Jay Herratti. "By combining the distribution power of CityGrid with OrangeSoda’s platform, every small business in America now has access to a one-stop local advertising solution with SEO strategies and tactics that historically required a large dedicated team of experts."

    "Every search engine has introduced local directory listings prominently in their organic search results and this has given small businesses another way to get featured in the search engine results real estate," said Jay Bean, CEO of OrangeSoda. "For over 15 years, Citysearch has helped small businesses gain exposure on other websites, and now they want to help small businesses gain better exposure through organic search results. By bundling our expertise and tool set with CityGrid, we are offering small businesses a revolutionary local online advertising package that no other company offers."

    OraneSoda has provided SEO services to brands like International Truck, Remax, and Jiffy Lube.

  • Bing Talks Local Business Listings

    Bing Talks Local Business Listings

    In case you missed it, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer spoke at SMX West in Santa Clara yesterday, addressing the search marketing industry for the first time (you can watch that at our new site live.dev.webpronews.com). Obviously, much of the conversation was centered around Bing. A little bit later in the day, WebProNews caught up with Mikko Ollila, Senior Product Manager on Bing Local to talk a little bit about Bing’s efforts in local search.

    As Ballmer noted in his keynote, Google "did search right first," and Ollila mentioned Google as well, but he says Bing’s local experience is more natural (almost like being there). He says it’s designed to help users make quick decisions, in as little as three clicks.

    Ollila says that Bing gathers business info from different providers, making it difficult for Bing to ensure accuracy of unclaimed listings, although he maintains they do a pretty good job of it. The best thing business owners can do, he says, is to find the Bing Local Listing Center, and go and take a hold of their own listing. "Just take ownership and make sure all your information is represented correctly," he says.

    He says it’s probably already there and correct, but if you own a business and want more traffic, you should make sure and get ownership of the listing. Bing tries to make it as easy as possible, giving the user a "wizard" type of interface.

    Ollila mentions that a lot of business owners get fired up about local listings, and upset about bad reviews. Bing crawls the web for reviews and plugs them in to business listings. He says businesses will often get mad at not just the reviewers, but at Bing for listing these reviews. He says, "There’s no real magic answer for getting bad reviews other than take care of your customer."

    As you know, maps and local go hand in hand, and as we covered last month, Microsoft introduced some new Bing Maps features at TED, including a streetside photos application, world wide telescope integration, indoor panoramas, and video overlay technology.

    Microsoft wants to gain any ground in can in search, and the company is showing that this time around (with Bing, I mean) they are taking it very seriously. Still the very dominant Google isn’t exactly slowing down in its own efforts. As Ballmer pointed out in his keynote, since Bing launched, efforts from the competition seem to have increased right along with the companies own efforts. Right around the same time Microsoft unveiled these features, Google introduced its Google Maps Labs, which hosts experimental features for Google Maps that users can turn on/off.

    Features give customers reasons to use products, which is why it is important for businesses to at least acknowledge the efforts being put forth by the major search players in this area. Even if a specific map-related feature doesn’t affect your business directly, it may give a potential customer reason to simply start using local search with a particular provider, which makes it all the more important for a business to make sure it’s properly represented in the listings with said provider.

    Do you use Bing Local? How would you rate Bing’s local experience compared to Google’s? Comment here.

  • AlikeList Points Customers to Local Businesses Their Friends Like

    As we’ve written about a lot lately, local search is continuing to evolve, and that evolution is not just coming from the biggest names in search. We recently had a discussion with RateItAll President Lawrence Coburn about user location-sharing as  new kind of query that can yield local business results. ChaCha is bringing in Q&A to local search.

    Another site, called AlikeList aims to make local search a social experience, where consumers turn to their trusted friends (and friends of friends) for business reviews, so they don’t have to rely on the words of strangers. Basically, users can see which businesses their friends "like."

    AlikeList has over 14 million businesses listed in its database, and 10’s of 1000’s of businesses are recommended in over 1,000 hyper-local cities in the US and in 5 major metro markets. We asked the company how a consumer benefits from the site’s strategy of not offering any negative reviews. In other words, what is to keep a user from looking for a more balanced source?

    Co-founder and CEO Jim Delli Santi tells WebProNews, "AlikeList enables its users to see ‘Likes’ from their friends, from friends-of-friends and from all AlikeList users. The goal is to replicate real-world, word-of-mouth referrals online. If a friend recommends a business, you already know his/her preferences, and based on those preferences you can make a decision to follow/not follow the recommendation."

    AlikeList.com brings social element to business reviews

    "Similarly, a referral from a friend-of-a-friend is stronger than a referral from a stranger because you have a general understanding of their background and preferences," he adds. "This is faster than traditional services because you don’t have the ‘review the reviewer’ to try to learn if your preferences match, and you don’t have to worry if negative reviews are coming from a business’ competitor or someone with an axe to grind.  In addition, when you need an important local business fast, a dentist or plumber for example, it is much faster and easier to find the ones your friends like and use, instead of reading reviews about dentists and plumbers from strangers or ones people don’t recommend in a negative review."

    There’s no question that time is increasingly becoming harder to come by and more valuable a resource in the age of information overload. What incentive would customers have to take the time to "like" businesses on AlikeList?

    Jim says, "AlikeList saves people time by offering an easy way for them to share and discover their most trusted local businesses with their friends. ‘LikeLists’ are available 24×7, and let people quickly find a trusted business and move on about their day. This is helpful for low-value decisions like ‘which pizza restaurant to choose,’ but this is vital for making high-value decisions like a doctor, lawyer or auto mechanic."

    "People can spend lots of time researching which of these high-value service providers to use, or they can quickly check the ‘LikeList’ of a trusted friend," he adds. "In addition, your LikeList and TryLists serve as personal yellow pages, easy to reference quickly when you need them, or easy to refer to them when friends ask for recommendations.  In addition, your LikeList will contain deals and messages from the businesses you like, so you can receive offers directly, without sifting through offers from businesses you don’t want or need."

    The company stresses that AlikeList was not built to be "another local reviews competitor", or a media company, but that it was created to be "an online local marketplace on which businesses and consumers can interact and build relationships."

    Businesses can create special offers and promotions, which are posted directly to their AlikeList page. Customers can receive discounts or other special offers, and businesses can get people to promote them on their "LikeLists."

    AlikeList has mobile apps "in the pipeline," the details of which will be shared when they’re ready. This could be a vital factor in the service’s success. 

  • Local Business Search as Q&A

    Local Business Search as Q&A

    Human-driven Q&A search service ChaCha launched some new functionality this week for local businesses. Now users can access information about over 15 million businesses in the U.S., courtesy of partner Localeze.ChaCha spoke with WebProNews about why the company considers itself a legitimate contender in the ever-growing local search space.

    "Across all platforms – mobile (SMS), online and now Facebook – we are up to nearly 20 million unique users per month," a ChaCha representative tells us. "Our run rate over the past several months has [averaged] 15 million uniques per month.  The user base is split almost half male, half female – with over 80% of users between ages 13 and 24.  We also answer over 1 million questions per day, and over 400 million answers have been served."

    With an ever-increasing number of ways to access local business information, one might wonder what ChaCha brings to the table that can’t be found from other existing sources.

    "Unique User benefits on ChaCha were the deeper questions, answers and info about the businesses, and in the future, the ability to get mobile coupons, join a businesses mobile lists, get discounts and more," she says. "These are the ChaCha value-adds over other sources, and features and content will continue to expand."

    "We will be providing means for businesses to not only upgrade listings to add mobile and online coupons, but to add and edit top questions about their businesses – for example, say it is a Sushi place and a business wants to state the most popular item…they could provide that as one of their key questions and answers," she adds. "They will also be able to add mobile text-based loyalty lists where users can get updates, news and special from that business on their mobile phones."

    ChaCha - Local Business Listings

    February isn’t even over yet, and already 2010 has been a big year for local search. A lot of that has come from search giant Google, which could make for tough competition for anyone. Google has, for example, started showing mobile users "nearby places", allowing businesses to post announcements/coupons on their Place Pages, while also showing reviews from more sources, tailoring mobile search suggestions to location, and even suggesting competitors for local business searches.

    Other sites and apps are taking advantage of consumer location-sharing, making local search more real-time in some ways. ChaCha has a lot to contend with, but clearly the company is confident it can compete as a go-to place for local business search. The company plans to expand on its local business features in he coming months.

    Would you use a Q&A service to find local businesses? Comment here.

  • Why Even Local Search is Becoming More Real-Time

    As the web quickly becomes more mobile and social than ever, we see apps filling voids that were mostly left empty throughout the history of search and social media. People are increasingly sharing their locations with their friends, certain apps, certain sites, and even the world.

    While sharing one’s location can present its own set of dangers, as PleaseRobMe bluntly reminded everybody last week, people continue to share their locations and businesses have been, and will continue to take advantage of this. In fact, you might even say that this is becoming a major part of search marketing, and we’re not just talking about Google (which of course has its own location-sharing/obtaining capabilities).

    Simply sharing your location has simply become a way of sending out a generic query, and local businesses have some tremendous new opportunities as a result. WebProNews just spoke with RateItAll president Lawrence Coburn on this very topic out at the Online Marketing Summit in San Diego.

    "The thing about Foursquare and Gowalla, and these check-in apps, is like, a single tap of your phone is a powerful piece of data. It creates a connection with the merchant (with a bar or a restaurant) that you’re at," explains Coburn. "It tells your friends where you are, and then in the aggregate, it tells the services like Foursquare and Gowalla what places are hot. And then you can imagine, like a local coupon or a local ad network overlaid on top, where a business is having a slow Tuesday, and they can blast out to everybody in their neighborhood, and say ‘hey, we’re doing half off beers in our place RIGHT NOW,’ and they can decide that on the fly, and reach a community that’s right around them."

    Now that’s real-time local search marketing, and in fact a far more effective strategy of utilizing real-time search than simply getting into Google’s ever-moving regular real-time web search results for a brief second. Potential customers sharing their locations means businesses can provide a real-time call-to-action to get them inside their establishment while they’re nearby.

    As Coburn notes, search marketers can utilize location with APIs. Foursquare and Gowalla both have APIs, for example, which means any developer can build stuff on top of those popular products.

    He also recommends that if you’re going to start building up content, to add a field to your database around lat/long (latitude/longitude). You can then deliver content based on that location information, whether it be news, deals, coupons, tips, recommendations, etc. When you can get to the user in a way that reflects right where they are (assuming they’re willingly sharing this information), you can give them more relevant content, which is what search is all about.

    For more on ways businesses can utilize the increasingly mobile, geo-ized world, read this recent WebProNews article.

    Do you consider lociation-sharing to be a significant element of your marketing efforts? Discuss here.

  • Google Suggests Competitors for Local Business Searches

    Google is offering suggestions for "nearby places you might like" on Google Maps when you look up a place that you do like. So if you like a particular bakery, you might be presented with other places within the same vicinity that Google thinks you might also be interested in trying.

    "When you live in New York City, everyone has an opinion on where to eat," says Tammy Stern of the Google Maps team. "And usually, telling someone a place you love will lead to a long conversation of a string of other places you should try. For example, one of the more interesting restaurants I’ve eaten at in NYC was recommended to me by someone who knew I loved a different restaurant by the same owner. And, when I told a friend I was heading to the Lower East Side to get some yummy knishes for lunch, he told me to make sure I checked out the famous Guss’ Pickles right around the corner and that I might consider picking up some smoked fish at Russ & Daughters down the street."

    Nearby places you might like

    "You’ll notice that we do not limit these suggestions to places sharing any specific characteristic; instead, we use a broad set of signals to come up with what are hopefully the most interesting suggestions," says Stern. "We’re still working on refining these signals, so bear with us if your serendipitous discovery of a new place is even more unexpected than you’d anticipated."

    This feature could have both positive and negative effects on local businesses. On the one hand, it could give established customers ideas to go to your competitors. On the other hand, you could be the competitor and benefit from that.

    The suggestions are just the latest feature in a recent slew of local business-related features from Google. The company is clearly focusing a great deal on this aspect of search.
     

    Related Articles:

    > Businesses Benefit as Customers Share Current Locations

    > Google Makes it Harder to Hide from a Bad Reputation

    > Google Tailors Mobile Search Suggestions to Location

  • Businesses Benefit as Customers Share Current Locations

    Is the world really ready for geo-location? That’s a question that a lot of companies are answering with a resounding "yes." The rise of smartphones has led to a variety of businesses looking to cash in on your whereabouts. Smartphone users have their devices on them all day long, wherever they go. Naturally, these companies can find ways to capitalize on this.

    Will location sharing become mainstream practice? Share your thoughts.

    Google can use your location to deliver you "more relevant" search results on your phone. It can let you and your friends let each other know your respective locations. It can point you to local stores competing for your attention and ultimately your business. Google can serve you ads based on your location. Just last week, the company introduced mobile ads with phone numbers you can click to call.

    "The ads and phone numbers you see are based on your location," the company says. "So, if a store or restaurant has multiple locations, you’ll be calling the nearest one, and not making reservations in some other city."

    Click to Call

    A couple months ago, Twitter made it possible to geotag tweets, and will likely expand its geo-related capabilities as the new year progresses.

    "The added information provides valuable context when reading your friends tweets and allows you to better focus in on local conversations," Twitter said, when it announced geotagging. "Now you can find out what live music is playing right now in your neighborhood or what people visiting Checkpoint Charlie are saying today about the anniversary of the Berlin Wall. These are only the beginning and we are really looking forward to seeing the creative uses emerge from the developer community."

    The world is still waiting on Twitter to really get into the monetization side of things, but that will happen sooner or later. It will be quite interesting to see what role geo-location plays in that.

    Twitter Geotagging

    Meanwhile, Facebook, the world’s most popular mobile social site, has recently updated its privacy policy in a way that allows for location-based features, and is rumored to be working on its own "Foursquare killer". Some think once Facebook gets going on geo-location, there will be no stopping it, and no hope for currently popular mobile geo-apps like Foursquare and Gowalla (the former having just gotten involved with perhaps its most mainstream effort yet in a deal with cable network Bravo).

    "The popularity of the apps has attracted notice from other Web startups that rely on local advertising," says BusinessWeek’s Aaron Ricadela. "Foursquare boasts nearly 300,000 users, and Gowalla has more than 100,000. On Jan. 15, Yelp—a Web site that reviews shops, restaurants, and night spots and that on Jan. 27 announced a round of funding worth up to $100 million—introduced the ability for users of its iPhone app to check in at businesses."

    "Now, as tech industry heavyweights such as Google (GOOG), Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Twitter, and IAC/Interactive (IACI) try to capitalize on the smart phone explosion with mobile ads that target people where they congregate, startups compiling a trove of data about users’ migratory habits could make attractive acquisition targets for those companies," adds Ricadela. "At one point in January, a Foursquare user was checking into a location every second, the company said."

    That’s a sign that the people who are into sharing their location are really into it. But is the number of people willing a majority? Does it have the potential to become one? With so many privacy concerns frequently voiced around the web each day, it is hard to imagine, but that’s not to say that geo-location-related businesses have to secure a majority of the public to be successful. There are plenty of people left in this world who are still leery of even social media for privacy and reputation reaons, let alone a service that lets people know exactly where they are.

    But obviously there are plenty of people up for this kind of thing, and enough so that businesses everywhere should take note. Many aready have, but the public’s willingness to share their location is still uncharted territory for many small businesses that could be taking advantage of this phenomenon.

    So what can a business do? Here are a few things:

    1. Keep up with what mobile apps are popular on the most popular devices

    2. Study what makes these apps and their respective users tick.

    3. Determine which of these has a functionality that your business can directly take advantage of

    4. Verify your business at Google’s Local Business Center

    5. Keep a close eye on what Google is doing in the local search space (there are frequent announcements that directly relate to this)

    6. Keep a close eye on how Twitter users interact with geo features, particularly those who follow you

    7. Definitely keep a close eye on Facebook announcements, looking for geo-related tidbits to drop

    8. When using social media, include your business location in updates when appropriate, and promote offers (time-sensitive perhaps) that encourage nearby people to stop in (if you have a brick and mortar store) or meet for a quote at a nearby restaurant for example (be creative…without being too stalkerish)

    Share other ideas here.

    It’s important to consider that people who are sharing their location are opting in to do so. Google users have to share their location with Google to get the benefits Google has to offer from this information. If they are showing their location with the public on Twitter, they must be comfortable with anybody knowing that location. Apps like Foursquare make games out of location, and even offer ideas for businesses to get directly involved.

    What ways have you used customer location in your business strategy? Discuss here.


    Related Articles:

    > Twitter Makes Geotagging Tweets Possible

    > Facebook Most Popular Mobile Social Website

    > Google Simplifies Finding Nearby Businesses from Your Phone

  • Twitter Launches Local Trends for Everyone

    For a week or so, some Twitter users have been seeing a new feature called Local Trends. This feature shows users things that are being heavily talked about at the city and state levels. Twitter has now announced that the feature is live for all users.

    "Twitter trends began as a way to shed light on popular conversations. It’s interesting to know that one topic can now spread across the world in real-time, and Trends help us discover which of those topics are paramount on a global scale," says Twitter’s @jennadawn. "As Twitter evolves, and more people share what’s happening in their own world, we want to provide another way for people to discover topics that may be relevant to them."

    At this point Local Trends are only available for the following areas:

    Local Trends on Twitter

    "The big events that come up around the world will always become a global conversation, but what about the big events that only happen in your world that only matter to those around you? Or the slight differences in the way Californians perceive an event, like Obama’s election victory, versus those São Paulo, Brazil?" she continues. "Local Trends will allow you to learn more about the nuances in our world and discover even more relevant topics that might matter to you."

    The feature could prove especially helpful for bloggers and journalists covering local news. At the very least, it will show what people are most interested in, in any particular area.

    Twitter says it will be improving the feature over time by providing more locations, languages, and data through the Twitter API. There aren’t many locations available yet, but once the feature gets built up it should present an interesting picture of what people are talking about everywhere, which could be quite interesting.

    Related Articles:

    > Price, Dates Of First Twitter Conference Announced

    > Twitter Going To The Dogs

    > Twitter’s Suggested Users Now More Personalized