Your Suspect

Back in August of 2007 Google announced their Local Business Referrals Program. A lot of people shook in their boots, others doubted any success. I suspected that it was doomed to fail.

I just don’t see Google coming into this space, sprinkling it’s Google fairy dust on the marketplace and voila - cracking the code. OK, so maybe Google’s isn’t trying to crack the code, but just penetrate the market a bit more than they’re able. Google should want to penetrate this space, of course they should, but doing it themselves? Gimme a break! And this approach is just silly. I kind of get the sense that this is a desperate move by an increasingly clumsy and goofy corporation that will yield very little. Next step for Google? Snatching up local search players.

Success in the local search market will not come from a giant like Google or Yahoo or Microsoft. It will come from the small startups like, well, like CitySquares.

Here’s Matt McGee’s post on the demise of the program, which gives some more detail. Here’s what Google had to say:

On December 31, 2008, we will end the Google Local Business Referrals program, which was one of many Google Labs initiatives that we had developed as part of our ongoing commitment to experimentation and testing new ways to help businesses establish a presence online.

Many relationships have been built as a result of Google Local Business Referrals, and local connections between representatives and businesses have been forged that we hope will continue. However, the program will conclude at the end of the year as part of our effort to ensure that we prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business.

So, what’s next for Google and their local ambitions?

Local Search fail, google, local, sales

I believe that this local search thing is quite early, and to keep up with the Jones’ I’ve started to refer to it as Local 1.0. Hear me out here, because I’m diving deep.

Web 1.0 was a passive web, about adoption and about moving to an interconnected digital medium, and Web 2.0 is very much about participation, creation, and transforming that interconnected digital medium into a platform. Just as Web 1.0 was static, passive, and largely about adoption, so is local, today, and as we’ve come to know it.

Resourceful Idiot does a pretty decent job of explaining the iterations of the Internet. He starts by saying:

“You can group each of the ‘Web x.x’ as a different movement when it comes to internet usage. Web 1.0 is the movement that took place during the beginning of the internet.”

Web 1.0 was about adoption, and about the movement of media, business, and commerce, to the digital medium that is the World Wide Web. Everyone was moving online to reach a larger audience and achieve better efficiencies. The first to move was big media like newspapers, news stations, music, magazines, etc. Everyday services and resources went online, like the post office, libraries, phone books, the dictionary, the encyclopedia, public transportation services, travel agencies, shipping services, mortgage companies, banks, day trading. Consumer services, business services, B2C, B2B, all of them were moving their data and content to the web. All of this content was mostly static, and that was fine. Read more…

CitySquares, Local Search, New Media and Web 2.0 citysearch, IYP, local, local 1.0, local 2.0, Local Search, SEM, seo, sidewalk.com

When the first iPhone came out last year I stayed away mostly because of price, and because I was warned by numerous people, websites and blogs that a) any first generation device from Apple is for die-hards and early-adopters and b) it wouldn’t be enterprise friendly (e.g., no push email, no syncing, no Exchange support, etc. etc.) and c) AT&T stinks. These first two points seem to coincide with Steve Jobs’ analysis of iPhone barriers to entry at yesterday’s WWDC keynote. Aside from those technical details, I didn’t see the iPhone as something that was going to revolutionize the mobile landscape, not yet anyway. In fact, I was quite the skeptic about user adoption, beyond my own, and I think I was right. I was also in love with my Blackberry Pearl, which totally seemed like a mini-revolution all on its own. I am, today, in love with my MacBook Pro, after being an extremely loyal Windows guy since MS-DOS (OK, MS-DOS isn’t Windows, but you get my point) and here and now I find myself ready to make another jump across the street and sell my Pearl (with it’s SureType), then stand in line on July 11th to get my paws on the new 3G iPhone.

Lots of people have asked us (CitySquares) to build a mobile app. One of our board members asked Bob and I this last week actually, at the TieCon East conference, after a panel on mobile. He turned to us and said, “So, when is CitySquares going to build a mobile app?” Bob and I looked at each other, and almost in sync we answered, “when we can free up some resources and when the mobile interface problem is solved.” Here and now I find myself ready to find an iPhone app developer to build one for CitySquares.

It’s my opinion that what we’re finally seeing is a real convergence, for real now. I remember back in the 90’s the buzz and hype (and the underlying cause of the bubble) was the convergence and voice and data. Everyone and their grandmother seemed to be dropping cable in the Earth’s crust, or talking about running voice over the same line you run data over, like a T-1. Wow! Imagine that. Data and voice, on the same pipe? Do you remember that? People were talking about digital voice lines, VoIP, video over ISDN. The Internet, on every computer! Some places were doing it, and they were nuts for it too, cuz it cost so much money. I remember very well!. Anyway, we’d been talking about it for so long that it seemed over-hyped. Then, the bubble burst, the shakeout occurred, and here we are today with Comcast (or insert cable co) digital voice, bundled with HDTV services, bundled with DVRs. Analog? What’s that?! I digress, as usual.

We’re totally there again, here and now. OK, maybe not to that degree, but this is just as exciting to me! We find our ideas of media being challenged every day. Be it YouTube, Last.fm, or the iPhone, it’s converging man! Mobile has clearly already converged with data, that’s nothing new, but now that resulting product is converging with the Internet. This is nothing new to those who’ve thought about it, but if you haven’t - think about it. And I don’t mean that Treo running PalmOS, or Windows Mobile with some WAP browser. I mean, the iPhone + Internet + 3G + social media + local and the revolution that combination is about to ignite. iPhone 1.0 was cool, but it was barely the tip of iceberg. In fact, it was just a glimpse. With the iPhone SDK, the new firmware, the new hardware, 3G capability, that sweet interface, the Internet, plus social media, plus local, we are at the dawn of a new era.

Afterall, social is dynamic, it’s transient, not static. Local is relative and it’s medium is mobile (it’s just not there yet). These concepts are often discussed at the conferences I attend, but the 3G iPhone makes this reality. With the price drop, and with Apple introducing this into 70 countries, I don’t think it will be an explosion however, but a slow and steady trickle that carves a wide canyon. I know, I know, mobile in other parts of the world is way more advanced than it is here in the US, I get it, but I think the convergence that we’re about to see hasn’t even begun, the revolution is just beginning, and it will be global. That’s for another blog entry.

I will be getting a new iPhone on July 11th. I will be switching to AT&T. I will be browsing web pages on my mobile device like never before. I will be watching video on it, and interacting socially through apps I install, among other apps, and geotagging my location and sending geotagged pics to the web. My wife will be joining me too. She’s finally upgrading from her ancient LG VX8100. She’ll be playing MonkeyBall on it, and she’ll be using Facebook to chomp zombies and update her friends, and she’ll be taking pictures and emailing them to her family. Afterall, if my wife wants an iPhone, it’s gotta be cool.

Check out what Walt Mossberg says about the 3G iPhone, already.

Check out what Engadget has to say, they got their hands on it.

Gadgetry, New Media and Web 2.0, Pop Culture apple, iphone, local, mobile, social

Ali made a delicious dinner the other night; lobster ravioli with her own sherry sauce. It was absolutely delicious. I guessed that she handmade the raviolis all by herself, kidding of course (right?). She bought them at Dave’s Fresh Pasta, down the street. At Dave’s you’ll find homemade and handmade pastas - very high quality, gourmet style pastas, sauces, and a lot more. It’s a real gem in the Davis Square neighborhood. Anyway, Ali mentioned how nice the person was, who waited on her. She asked for a loaf of bread, but they were out. He then told her that next time she can call ahead and tell them what she wanted, and they’d have it all ready for her. Well… now…. that, folks, that is good service. And that, you only get from your local merchant.

The kind of service you get at Dave’s Fresh Pasta, the kind of care and treatment you get at Massage Therapy Works, at State Street Barbers, at Porter Square Books, is only the kind of service you find where the ownership is local. You just don’t get that anywhere else.

When I see reviews on Citysquares.com from members of the community, of local businesses,and when I hear stories like Ali’s, or from anyone, I can’t help but feel a strong sense of pride and honor. I’m really quite proud to be doing what we’re doing, for the community, for local commerce, from the members of the community across all areas. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else and feeling so good about it.

I’ve learned so much from Citysquares already. No matter where my career takes me in the short term or long term, I will always make sure that I’m involved in a socially responsible business.

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I’m a loyal New York Times reader, both online but also their Sunday paper. It shows up on my doorstep every Sunday morning and I often look forward to sitting in the kitchen and reading the paper, while my wife makes our Sunday breakfast. Long after we’ve eaten I’m still sitting at the kitchen island sipping a mug of cooling coffee (freshly pressed) and reading the Times.

The NY Times had a notable little piece in their Sunday edition this weekend (12/31/06), titled Seeking to Cash In On the ‘Hyperlocal’. While Manly refers to “Hyperlocal” as all news things that are hyperlocal, I can’t help but smile knowing that the term is getting more mainstream attention. Lorne Manly refers to the Rob Curley breed of hyperlocal: news oriented hyperlocal content (whether user generated or editorial). This model of hyperlocal, as the article points out, is what Backfence is doing. Another example of this is what Mike Orren is doing at Pegasus News in Texas. All of these are hyperlocal news based sites. Rob Curley’s done a heck of job in some of his markets (notably, Naples and Bonita Daily News, and the Lawrence Journal before he went to the Washington Post), and in doing so helping to shape what has has become “hyperlocal.” I look forward to a fusion of hyperlocal journalism and local search in the coming months and years.

Local Search, New Media and Web 2.0 backfence, hyperlocal, local, Local Search, pegasus news, rob curley