Google Taps SpotMixer Tools for Online Video Ads

SpotMixer, for those who don’t know it, is a DIY video creation platform. I first wrote about the company and competitor Mixpo in March, 2008.

In January of this year Google announced a partnership with SpotMixer (a unit of One True Media), integrating the latter’s DIY ad creation tools and content into the TV Ads marketplace (SpotMixer is the only DIY platform Google has autorized so far). And just as Google TV Ads has expanded to online video sites and the Google Content Network, SpotMixer is now available on that side of the house to, so to speak.

In other words, SpotMixer DIY tools can be used to create online video ads or repurpose and edit existing TV assets. Here’s a succinct description of the deal from an advance copy of tomorrow’s press release:

Following Google TV Ads’ successful partnership with SpotMixer announced in January 2009, SpotMixer’s technology is now being integrated into another Google advertising offering. SpotMixer’s innovative DIY ad creation platform – the only one to be integrated into both Google TV Ads and the Google Content Network – automatically converts an advertiser’s existing AdWords text ad into a tailored video ad within the advertiser’s AdWords account. The solution dynamically changes templates and content to ensure that each video is different. Customers can further customize their ads by adding their own photos and video and incorporating a voiceover. The result is a professional-quality, high-performing video ad at a fraction of the cost of traditional video production.

Here are some example ads from SpotMixer:

SpotMixer came somewhat later to the online video ad market and competes with a range of providers: Jivox, Mixpo, Spotzer, Turn Here, Spot Runner, FourSpots and several others. But the site has distinguished itself through this Google relationship.

One of the striking things about SpotMixer that it uses templates to convert existing AdWords campaign text copy into a video ads automatically, although this capability is not entirely unique to SpotMixer. The marketer can then customize and change the ad if it/he/she wants to.

SpotMixer VP Kathleen Farley told me that on the Google TV Ads side about “95%” of advertisers using the SpotMixer platform did actually customize their campaigns with new images, audio and/or ad copy. In some cases they used audio from existing radio campaigns. This high rate of customization is interesting in the context of the ongoing “push vs. pull” debate around sales and self-service in the small business market. AdWords marketers are a motivated group, however, so I’m not entirely surprised that the numbers are this high.

Advertisers could simply create a single campaign for online and TV. But there are differences between the mediums that implicate audience attention, ad length and tolerance of ads (depending on the context). Accordingly, I asked Farley and CEO John Love about creative “best practices.” After all it’s one thing to simply create a video (the automated creative is a slide show with audio) and another thing to run an effective TV or online video campaign. They said that the templates were being regularly optimized to incorporate best practices and learnings (sorry) from campaigns in the market.

SpotMixer has also partnered with Google on an SMB video ad contest that runs through mid-October. It offers a $25k prize (credits toward national TV ads) for  the best video ad created with the SpotMixer tools.

Here’s a video explanation of the original SpotMixer-Google TV Ads deal and how the tools work:

Coupon Mania Continues, Give Me Shooger

LivingSocial (recast as a Facebook app) launches daily deal alerts focused on specific markets. The first market is NYC. According to the release:

“LivingSocial Deals” offers local merchants, such as today’s deal for 60% off with restaurant Brio, the opportunity to engage with LivingSocial’s active community of more than 60 million people. One offer per day is announced every morning through Facebook, Twitter, and email, and as soon as the sign-up quota for each offer is met, the coupons are distributed. Users have to ‘beat the clock,’ as the offer is only good until midnight of that day.

(emphasis added)

This is clever and should be quite successful. Online coupon redemption rates vary but range from roughly 10% to up to 30%, compared with <1% redemption for traditional “offline” coupons. This is chiefly an example of the push vs. pull nature of online compared with traditional coupons.

Meanwhile the NY Times offered an overview of mobile coupons last week that I’ve been meaning to comment on and link to. Here are the pieces of “hard” information in the article:

• In the first half of 2009, nearly 10 million digital coupons were redeemed, a 25 percent increase over the amount redeemed during the same period in 2008, according to Inmar, a coupon-processing company.
• About a third of the users who signed up for Cellfire say they have never used paper coupons, according to Cellfire’s chief executive, Brent Dusing.
• Cellfire says its redemption rate for mobile coupons is 15 to 20 percent. Paper coupons, by comparison, have redemption rates lower than 1 percent.

Smartphone users and coupons:

Source: AOL-Universal McCann, 2009 (n=1,800 US smartphone users)

According to this same AOL-sponsored study 25-34 year olds were the most interested in mobile coupons. And of those responding to mobile advertising, roughly 32%-35% responded to coupons or opt-in SMS alerts to receive future deals.

And finally, I spoke roughly a week ago to Matt Myers, CMO of couponer Shooger. The company has a terrific iPhone app and is seeking to fill it up with deals (call it a “beautiful shell”).

There’s a direct appeal to local merchants on the Shooger site, but the game is really about third party resellers. There’s more to the story than this but I’ll leave that for another time.

However, on the question of self-provisioning and coupons, I’ll say this: if a “Twitter of coupons” emerges that offers broad distribution and is very simple to use (a la Twitter), you’ll see self-service happen.

Burning Man, the iPhone and Technology

The Burning Man festival has always been associated with geeks and technology — or for the last decade at least. But it’s with some ambivalence that I read Brady Forest’s post last week “Burning Man Gets an API.” Brady says:

The annual tech-art festival in the Nevada desert, starts on Sunday. Normally the attendees leave their phones and laptop behind, but this year that may not be the case. As I ride from Seattle to Black Rock City, NV I am getting SMS from friends on the playa. In anticipation of wifi and possible data connections Foursquare has rolled out Black Rock City as a city (@sfslim is already the Mayor of The Man). If AT&T’s service doesn’t work then attendees may be able to take advantage of OpenBTS’s local SMS project. Most of the attendees aren’t there, but the tech is already making its presence known.

On one level: “cool”  . . .

But Burning Man (which I’ve been to only once a few years ago) is also about getting away from the mundane — pretty far away (as you know if you’ve been). While having SMS connectivity is potentially very helpful to people trying to meet or find each other on “the playa” (as the denizens call the expanse of desert there)  the creeping integration of familiar tools and Internet technology into the experience threatens to take away some of the “otherworldliness” of the event.

I think it’s fine to distribute information via the Internet from Burning Man in the “off season,” but posting Facebook updates or tweeting from the playa — “whoa, cool car”; “just saw another naked middle-aged guy” — seems to trivialize it in my mind. Technology dominates our lives and there should be places where it doesn’t encroach or have center stage.

For those who haven’t been to Burning Man but are curious — go. It’s one of the most interesting experiences I’ve had and very hard to describe in the abstract.

A Wikipedia for SMBs? It’s Already Here

In a guest post from late last week on VentureBeat, entrepreneur Mark Goldenson says the following:

Wikipedia has destroyed the paper encyclopedia without hiring one sales agent. Alexander Bell couldn’t have foreseen that people would spend millions of hours writing 8,000 words about the Undertaker for free. While Wikipedia is great for general information, it includes almost none of the business directory information that is more valuable. Yelp, YP.com, and CitySearch offer some basic details or user editing, but either focus on reviews or don’t have deep details.

What’s needed is a Wikipedia for small businesses. Provisionally called ShopStop, it would be a public wiki that lets anyone create a website about a business and add a wealth of information . . . (emphasis added)

In calling for a “Wikipedia for small businesses,” it appears that Goldenson hasn’t been paying close attention to the local space. There are already a number of versions of this in the market:

• Brownbook.net
• Bizwiki
• Yellowikis (which has been around now for years but not gotten lots of traction)

In addition Yahoo! Local and Google Maps have for some time allowed users to edit and enhance listings, so they would fall on this list as well for purposes of this conversation.

Goldenson proposes a startup “ShopStop” to realize his vision of a wiki-directory. He says, “Executed well, ShopStop could kill the yellow pages for good.” Beyond the fact that this statement is simplistic and inaccurate, Goldenson fails to address the central challenge with his model and answer the question: what incentive would consumers have to populate a wiki-directory?

In addition, the “brands” in the local space, Yelp, Citysearch, etc., would not be supplanted by a wiki-directory. Only over a several-year time frame might such a project gain sufficient momentum and exposure to be of value to consumers (via search chiefly). And what about the business model? Low cost structure and geotargeted ads from networks? Enhanced features/services for SMBs who claim their listings? That’s Brownbook. (Insert familiar discussion re SMBs and self-service here.)

Indeed, Brownbook has some good traction but it’s seen by many as an SEO vehicle. Bizwiki is new and Yellowikis has failed to really take off, at least in the West. Beyond the fact that he seems to be unaware of these efforts, Goldenson’s perspective makes logical sense from an abstract point of view. But in reality it’s a much more complicated and difficult proposition.

____

Update: I neglected to mention the recently launched WikiCity as well.

Twitter Can’t Stem the Fallout This Time

Whole Foods was built on the back of left-leaning consumers who not only liked the experience of shopping at the over-priced (but very posh) stores but also their community mindedness and seemingly progressive policies.

Whole Foods’ brand took a bit of a hit last year when CEO John Mackey was “outed” in early 2008 for more than 1,000 anonymous postings on Yahoo! Finance message boards that promoted Whole Foods and Mackey himself and “trashed” competitors or those who criticized his company. (See this post for more background on that scandal.)

But the brand is now really under pressure in the wake of a WSJ editorial that opposed the Obama health care initiative. Among other things in the piece, Mackey said:

While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system.

In response to these positions, which emerged as a shock to many Whole Foods shoppers, a Facebook boycott has formed and the Whole Foods brand had taken a fairly substantial hit this time.  Now Whole Foods investors are calling for Mackey’s removal:

The CtW Investment Group called on the Whole Foods Market board to remove CEO John Mackey as Chairman and to begin the process of naming a new CEO in a letter to Whole Foods’ lead independent director, Dr. John Elstrott, yesterday afternoon. Citing the risk to Whole Foods’ brand reputation caused by Mr. Mackey’s editorial opposing President Obama’s proposed healthcare reform, CtW urged the board to take immediate action to prevent continued damage in the face of a quickly-growing boycott by Whole Foods’ progressive customer base . . .

Events of the past week establish yet again that John Mackey’s lack of personal discipline makes him a liability for Whole Foods Market, Inc. Despite past indications that the board needed to exercise independent oversight of Mr. Mackey and supervise his external communications closely – most notably his postings on the Yahoo! Finance bulletin board, which led to an SEC inquiry – you and your fellow directors failed to take meaningful action to prevent Mr. Mackey’s uncompensated brand and reputational risk to our Company.

Certainly Mackey is entitled to his political opinion but given his controversial history and the clientele Whole Foods caters to, the fallout now happening was somewhat predictable. It’s either arrogance, naivete or pure stupidity on Mackey’s part to have not had some foresight bout this. Now his company is paying in diminished brand equity and potential lost sales.

TV vs. NP Smackdown: IB Local Index

Internet Broadcasting has come out with a June update to its “IB Local Index,” which focuses on the reach and popularity of TV and newspaper sites. Here’s what the company says regarding the leading sites in the top 50 US markets:

Newspaper sites dominate in the top markets. In each of the top 10 markets, a newspaper site garnered the most local visits.  Newspaper sites were #1 in 31 of the top 50 markets, overall.

Wide range in the margin between winners and runner ups. Top sites had, on average, more than twice as many local visits than the nearest competitor.  This margin between #1 and #2 sites ranged from as little as a 2% difference, to as much as a 20x gap.

Here’s the company’s table regarding the top “local media” sites in each of these markets:

If you want to see the full list go to the IB blog.

ServiceMagic iPhone App a Great Start

It’s a rare case when a mobile app improves upon a PC experience but in my view ServiceMagic has done just that. The home improvement site and marketing platform for contractors and other service businesses just launched an iPhone app this week.

At the center of the new app are images of home improvement projects and design jobs, drawn from the site but which are generally buried on the PC. Users can also upload images directly from their phones . . .

You can read the rest of this post at LMS.

StreetView Now Offers ‘AR’ on the PC Browser

I just wrote about augmented reality in the new Yelp iPhone app (or update rather) and augmented reality in general. I was about to write about Google putting business info windows onto StreetView and it occurred to me that this is the same kind of thing — a kind of “augmented reality” for the PC browser — except you’re not getting information about businesses immediately in front of you on the street.

However it mimics the AR experience in a certain way:

The next step for this, which would truly align it with AR, is to pop up or enable the info windows as I “walk down” or move around Street View:

I should be able (hopefully soon) to walk down this street in the Marais district of Paris and click on a storefront or hotel and get the window (avec deals?). You can’t currently do that. But the new functionality certainly points in this direction.

Augmented Reality 1.0 Is What We Have Now

People are getting very very worked up (hyperventilating, sweating, etc.) over the discovery of an “Easter Egg” in the update to the Yelp iPhone app that unlocks an augmented reality experience (see video here) called “monocle.” As you move the camera and pan around, you see Yelp reviews of nearby businesses. Part of the reason that people are so excited is that this is the iPhone and augmented reality is still so novel.

It’s noteworthy that Yelp, a Twitter-API app and a number of transportation-related apps in Europe have now brought this new experience to the iPhone. But this is “augmented reality 1.0.” More on that in a minute.

It’s worth pointing out that Android beat the iPhone with augmented reality, first Zagat’s NRU and then the Layar “reality browser,” which contains Yelp’s content among many other content sources from third party APIs and sites. But many more people will start to notice apps that appear on the iPhone because the audience is so much larger.

As I wrote at SEL a couple of weeks ago, augmented reality is a form of (mobile) search. It’s another way to input and access content on your mobile handset. However the reality about augmented reality today — hence the lamentable “1.0″ label — is that, as a practical matter, it’s not all that useful. That will change over time as developers figure out how best to integrate and employ it.

There are more mundane yet effective ways to get restaurant reviews and other types of content than augmented reality today. Using conventional search and browse tools on the Yelp iPhone app are going to be lots more efficient than scanning the landscape with the camera for reviews. The “nearby” button is going to get me to the same information more quickly and in a way that’s easier for me to digest, so to speak.

This is what I wrote about the Layar browser for Android when it was recently released:

The experience as it currently stands — while very cool — is cumbersome and not an immediate replacement for traditional search or apps, as ways to get content. For example, it’s easier and quicker to use apps from Yelp, AroundMe, Places Directory, Superpages or numerous others to discover restaurants or other business types and locations near me than it is to scan the immediate area with the camera on my handset using Layar. Beyond the visual field, I discovered that Layar also shows results and information (often from Google) from farther away than the immediate area in front of me . . .

I’m unlikely to use Layar to find something to do or someplace to eat later today or this evening, somewhere else. But if I’m right in front of a restaurant, I might use it to get reviews and prices, etc. Similarly I assume that it will extend to products (reviews, prices) and other objects and experiences in front of me. It’s much less useful when I’m not near the thing I’m considering or interested in.

So it’s new and impressive accordingly, but has limited utility compared to other tools and methods of finding information. Another noteworthy aspect of augmented reality is that its a search/discovery tool uniquely suited to mobile vs. an effort to squeeze the conventional search experience onto the mobile handset.

Now that augmented reality is truly here we should get some apps and experiences that are a good fit for the approach. On Layar, for example, you can get Wikipedia entries tied to GPS location. I can imagine something like that in a museum where one you obtain lots of background on a painting or work of art you were immediately in front of (although GPS wouldn’t get you that info; it would have to be triggered otherwise). But you get the idea.

There are use cases and scenarios that will emerge over time that will be very well suited to this new interface and search tool. Today what we have however is a kind of demo version of future experiences that will be truly useful and impressive.

Canpages Continues to Build Its ‘Street View’

Canpages is continuing to build out its street-level photography offering for the Canadian market. Last week the site acquired social directory publisher GigPark.

According to the release issued the next city for Canpages’ “Street Scene” photography will be Montreal:

Street Scene provides 360-degree street-level views of the city for people searching for local business Canpages.ca. The technology enables users to pinpoint their search results on a map as well as see high resolution images of the results in the context of the local environment. For example, users can take a virtual “drive” down a city street to find out whether a restaurant offers parking or to see what a particular storefront looks like. Street Scene views are currently available for local businesses searches conducted in Vancouver and Whistler, BC. Canpages recently wrapped up shooting in Toronto. These images, along with images collected of Montreal streets, are expected to become available on Street Scene in the fall of 2009.

I think there’s no question, notwithstanding some of the privacy issues, that users like this imagery. The question for incumbent YP publisher Yellow Pages Group is how to respond here:

• Build a similar product
• Use Google’s Street View on its site
• Use crowdscourcing (a la Everyscape) to offer street-level imagery

What would you do if you were at YPG:

• Compete head on?
• Dismiss this as as a costly novelty?
• Integrate the Google imagery?

Update: Courtesy of AhmedF, here’s an image from Canpages “Street Scene” (using MapJack):

MerchantCircle Becomes Traffic Source for Others

Whatever you want to say about MerchantCircle’s robo-calling (in the past according to the company) the company has become a dramatic success story in the local space. It generates millions and millions of page views monthly through SEO (via Google). According to a release out this morning, more than 20 million page views.

The point of that release however is to announce a new pay-per-action program leveraging that traffic and featuring third parties, which will be getting leads from MerchantCircle:

The PPA platform enables partners to leverage the MerchantCircle network and deliver highly targeted customer leads to their local business clients on a pay-for-performance basis. Initial partners include OpenTable, Citysearch, ServiceMagic, Yodle, NearbyNow, eLocalListing and others.

Is this a version of arbitrage? It could be argued both ways.

Regardless, what this means is that third parties who sell clicks/calls/leads are now getting traffic from MerchantCircle. This can be seen as part of a “traffic diversification” strategy being broadly pursued by players in the local space.

Spotzer Gets Nod for Video from YPG

Spotzer has become Yellow Pages Group’s video platform/provider of choice according to a press release out yesterday:

Under the agreement, Spotzer will film and produce live onsite shoot videos of YPG customers for YPG’s industry-leading website, http://www.yellowpages.ca. Spotzer, which maintains a network of videographers across Canada, will shoot and produce the videos at YPG customer locations.

Spotzer started as a kind of explicit imitation of SpotRunner for Europe but has evolved and now appears to be thriving with the capacity to produce custom video as well as offer pre-produced video, which was its original model.

Google Readying a CPA Markeplace for SMBs?

I wrote a post this morning at Search Engine Land on litigation between LendingTree.com and one of its partners. In the complaint it’s apparently revealed that the partner, Mortech, is planning to help Google launch a mortgage-quote service or marketplace next month.

It might be similar to an experiment that Google tried in the UK last year: Google Merchant Search. I wrote about that service when it appeared in May, 2008.

As I say over at SEL the focus on mortgages is probably something of a distraction. To the extent anything actually launches in the US it’s ultimately not likely to be about a specific vertical but rather a new lead-gen or marketplace model that might be more broadly applied across different segments:

The UK test was really about developing a model to deliver leads on a CPA or pay-per-call basis. In this case many were small business advertisers (mortgage brokers). Mortgages happened to be the content or category used in this test. One of the clues here is the name of the service: the broadly applicable “merchant search,” not “mortgage search.”

To the extent that Google is planning to introduce a similar service in the US, you can be sure it’s not about a single vertical but rather about testing a distinct marketplace or CPA model — with an eye toward smaller advertisers (though not exclusively).

Google has been searching (so to speak) for a way to simplify online advertising for SMBs so that more of them will self-serve. I’m not saying that this is that solution but a distinct lead-gen or PPCall marketplace (that might equally be used by larger entities) could be something that Google is considering to better serve segments of the SMB market.

In the screenshot below note in the left column “receive call.”

SMS Marketing Webinar Tomorrow

Tomorrow I’m doing a webinar with ChaCha and 4Info on SMS marketing at 1 pm ET. If you’re only thinking about mobile marketing yet only thinking “mobile apps” or the iPhone, think again.

SMS is the most flexible and offers the greatest reach of any mobile marketing platform. I’m particularly interested in the tie-ins between traditional media and SMS.

If you sign up and request it, you’ll also get a copy of my recent report “SMS Marketing: Direct Route to Consumer Engagement.”

It’s free. To register, go here. The slides and audio will also be available after the webcast tomorrow.

Zumbox: (Direct) Mail Replacement

I ran into some folks from Zumbox at Web 2.0 or another conference (it’s all a blur lately). It’s a pretty audacious idea: a digital mailbox associated with every US address. The idea is to tie the digital mailbox geographically, physically to offline locations rather than to email, which could be anywhere in the world.

The company just raised $8 million after a successful trial in a town in Illinois. Zumbox describes what it is seeking to create (or has created) as “a nationwide paperless postal system.” It literally aspires to replace conventional mail.

To work it needs massive adoption. This is perhaps the biggest “chicken and egg” challenge I’ve seen to date. It won’t have credibility unless it has widespread usage but it won’t have widespread usage unless or until it has credibility. Yet if the company succeeds or partly succeeds (I’m not sure what that means right now), the spoils are potentially huge:

• Fees from senders/mailers (less than USPS) but massive at scale
• Control over direct mail

How much is direct mail worth? By some estimates between $50 and $60 billion annually. Yes, but in electronic form direct mail would be easier to avoid. But targeting algorithms, demographic data and other tools would make it potentially more relevant. And in one version of this company’s future consumers specify the kinds of “offers” they want to receive. Rather than the 1% traditional direct mail response rates you start to see 5%, 10%, 20% or more hypothetically.

For marketers costs would be a fraction of what they are today — and it’s “green.” Everybody’s happy, right?

These guys are climbing Mt. Everest but I admire the ambition.

Dexs Lets SMBs Comment on Reviews

Joining other sites that allow business owners to comment on reviews, RHD/Dex announced the feature today:

Dex advertisers will be able to post comments by logging onto their DexKnows.com account and access the site’s secure Account Management System (AMS). They can click on the “Reviews” tab to view all ratings and reviews that are displayed on their DexKnows.com business profile, select the comments they would like to respond to and post responses directly from the AMS. Advertiser-generated responses will be added to their DexKnows.com business listing page for the public to see and can be edited or deleted by the advertiser at any time.

Beyond simply being fair, this is a good hook to get SMBs to sign up for accounts or claim their listings.

Canpages Buys GigPark with Big Plans

Canpages acquired competitor ZipLocal in June and just announced the acquisition of social directory GigPark as part of a more aggressive expansion into the broader North American market. I wrote about GigPark a couple of months after it launched last year:

GigPark is a Toronto-based startup that seeks to create a network of friends so you can tap their knowledge base about local-anything, but predominantly service providers . . . In the US there are dozens of competitors. In its home market, GigPark faces competition from ZipLocal, Torstar’s Toronto.com, iBegin and YellowPages.ca (not to mention the search engines) . . .

The problem right now is that there’s basically no there there, just an aggressive effort to get people to upload their contacts and to start posting about local businesses . . . If the site were widely adopted by my friends and their friends (or the parallel Facebook app) you’d have a potentially rich database of content. But the site hasn’t bought a commercial database (InfoUSA, Axciom, Localeze, iBegin Source) so that there’s at least some content to jump start that process. This is the chicken and egg problem taken to new levels.

According to an article appearing today in Canada.com:

Canpages, a private company based in Vancouver, plans to integrate the user recommendation functions from Gigpark.cominto Canpages.ca by the end of the year, creating Canada’s first hybrid local search-social networking site.

Not exactly. Google Maps features reviews (and the ability to write reviews) and Yelp.ca pretty  much fits the description above.

The article also says Canpages’ revenues are north of $100 million (Canadian?) and the site is profitable. The terms of the GigPark deal weren’t disclosed. The deal makes sense because it makes Canpages social, while GigPark really had no future (or a very long term future provided funding could hold out).

Canpages is currently a yellow pages lookalike site and the GigPark acquisition signals a move away from that approach. The Canada.com article quotes CEO Olivier Vincent:

“I think [the brand] Yellow Pages is a liability more than anything else. It’s associated with a print experience,” Mr. Vincent said. “In the past year we’ve got 70% of the traffic they do. David is almost as big as Goliath.”

Goliath is of course YPG in this case.

Kelsey: Online ‘Penetration’ Passes Print

While I was out the past few days the Kelsey Group put out new data from its online “Local Commerce Monitor” that said the following:

[P]enetration of digital and online media increased from 73% in August ’08 to 77% in ’09. Meanwhile, traditional media penetration lowered from 74% to 69%. (Penetration is defined as the percentage of SMBs using the given media, regardless of level of spend.)

In May, 2006 I asked “Will the Next Recession Drive Online Ads?”:

Assume we go into recession in the next couple years, my thesis here is that event will potentially accelerate the adoption of online marketing because of its relatively low cost compared with traditional media, its “accountability” and its perceived efficiency.

Of course there are now dozens of studies that confirm this has happened and that traditional media have suffered across the board.

Let’s come back now to the Kelsey data. This is a significant milestone to be sure. The Kelsey Group has done this survey over the past several years and the trend dimension is significant. However I would use some caution in generalizing to the entire US SMB population. Many articles will be tempted to do this.

The sample size was 302 SMBs. In fact there is no “representative sample” of small businesses. In an online survey I conducted a year ago (8/08, n=1084) among US SMBs (via LMS/Opus Research) 53.8% on average said they had a website (we didn’t define “website,” so it could have meant to them any online presence). When asked about “online marketing” they said the following:

Admittedly these data are now a year old. I’m not suggesting they contradict the Kelsey findings; I’m saying that people should use caution in generalizing too broadly from the Kelsey data. One much always be careful in doing this when discussing the “small business market” as a monolith.

The other interesting bit that came out in the Kelsey press release is this:

According to the study, SMBs decreased spending on advertising and promotion by 23.5 percent, from $2,734 (reported in August 2008) to $2,092 (reported in August 2009). As a percentage of total advertising for the SMBs surveyed, digital/online has increased from 22 percent to 36.8 percent over the past year. In spite of the overall decrease in spending on advertising and promotion over the past 12 months, on average, SMBs increased spending on Web sites and profile pages by 26.8 percent, from $608 in 2008 to $769 in 2009.

There are two “takeaways” here for me:

• Overall “ad” spending is going down
• Spending is going into non-advertising areas

On the first point, we’ll have to see what happens after the recession ends. On the second — this is something I’ve discussed a number of times before — we’re seeing SMBs spend money on things that don’t count as “advertising” (e.g., sites, SEO) although they do constitute “marketing” expenditures. The overall $2,092 spend is off from the roughly $3,500 to $4,500 pre-recession average print yellow pages spend (which includes national advertiser spending).

Stepping back, the Kelsey data are no doubt accurately reflective of larger directional trends in the market and are symbolically and psychologically significant — akin to when consumer use of the Internet for local information surpassed print yellow pages.

However it’s important to point out that these findings still don’t change the fact that most SMBs remain confused and ill-equipped to manage their own online marketing.

Out for the Next Couple Days

I’ll be out through Monday and back Monday evening. I’m not going to be blogging. Lots of stuff I didn’t get to this week — specifically:

• The Center’d iPhone app (have a post 3/4 done) as well as a few other things . . .
• NearbyNow’s Seventeen Fashion Finder iPhone app is now #1 in the Lifestyle category in the iTunes store (free apps).
• Digital OOH companies Danoo and Ideacast relaunch as RMG.

Satisfaction with Newspaper Sites Declines

Yesterday the annual e-business component of the American Consumer Satisfaction Index was released. It included consumer satisfaction ratings for search engines and newspaper sites, among other types of online entities. I wrote up the search component of the report at SEL.

According to the report most newspaper sites have suffered a decline in satisfaction:

Only USAToday gained among the top sites presented here. The report doesn’t really have a satisfying explanation for the decline in satisfaction. The overall usability of the sites, and not just the content, is likely a factor in these ratings. 

Though not released in the report, it would’ve been interesting to see how Yahoo! News and Google News performed in terms of consumer satisfaction.