What about Yellow Pages As an iBook?

I got into some trouble for suggesting that Superpages develop an iPhone app that looked like the print directory, in which you could turn pages as you do with the novels in the iPhone app Classics. 

The iPhone screen is really too small to make that effective as anything more than a novelty experience. But the iPad is a different story.

What if you took, for example, AT&T’s Real Pages Live and put it on the iPad? It would enable consumers to “let their fingers do the walking” as they do in print but bring all the benefits of digital to the experience — as the web tries to do today with mixed success. 

Imagine all these display ads with a video component that would play when touched. Imagine website links that open a new window within the directory . . . and so on.

As I tried to argue the other day, the device, somewhat ironically, offers the greatest opportunity for traditional media to express itself in digital form. It’s a device that can best reproduce the experience of viewing/reading/consuming the traditional product: better than the web and better than smartphones. 

If you had millions of iPads in homes this would be a pretty interesting opportunity for YP publishers, in addition to their other digital and mobile efforts.

About SMX Local Ranking Factors

My personal apology to speakers not selected for the SMX local ranking factors panel at SMX West. Demand was huge, as it now always is. There were 15 pitches from very qualified speakers and a few more that didn’t get formally submitted but came to me in email. All together there were probably about 20 people trying to get on that panel.

There were four slots, which I stretched to five. I read the pitches carefully multiple times and tried to put together a group of people whose presentations would cover the range of issues and would complement each other. Many of the pitches make similar points and assert that they’ll accomplish similar goals.

It was extremely difficult to make choices, emphasis on the word “extremely.” That was compounded to some degree all the personal appeals to me in email. I try not to play favorites or put people on panels because I know them or like them. Most of the people who weren’t selected I like and respect very much (that’s not to imply that I don’t respect the others). The SMX show and “culture” also carry certain expectations that I have to take into account as well.

The local panels at SMX are few and in demand. I also had about 15 pitches for Search & Display, making that panel extremely difficult to put together as well. I only received three or four personal appeals there

The process is difficult and frustrating to those who aren’t selected. I’m very clear on this. I received several emails expressing that frustration after the fact.

For those who didn’t get selected one way to boost your chances is to pitch panel ideas and not simply wait for panels to be announced. Another way is to discuss very specifically what tactics you’ll be able to convey and what concrete information you’ll present. Specific is good; general/vague is not as good.

I’m going to recommend more local content or a local track so that there are more slots in the future.

Again, my apologies if you weren’t selected.

RetailMeNot December Coupon Data

Below are data from the latest monthly coupons report from RetailMeNot for December, 2009. You can download the pdf file here. 

One interesting observation is that with the single exception of Amazon, all the top “online” coupons pertain to brands that have physical stores as well.

Those interested in Internet2Go’s free webinar on mobile coupons (February 3 at 1 ET/10 Pacific) should register. The webcast features me, ValPak and Shooger.

Citysearch in Massive Local ‘Hub’ Effort

A long time ago, literally about three years ago, I spoke to someone at Citysearch about the concept of a local ad exchange — a marketplace where merchant-advertisers could get distribution and where publishers could get more local ads to better monetize their content/pages. I and others have also been talking about an “AdSense for local” for some time. I also wrote about how local publishers (e.g., Yellowpages) are seeking ways to get qualified local clicks/leads from places other than Google.

Citysearch, according to a story appearing in TechCrunch, has created a marketplace of sorts called CityGrid. It may, as TechCrunch asserts, be partly a response to competitive pressures in the local destination game (although for ongoing success of the syndication model CS has to continue to generate/acquire UGC). But it’s part of a larger and longer-term strategy by Citysearch to become central player in local online advertising. For a long time Citysearch has positioned itself as a gateway for local business to the broader Internet. This is increasingly how yellow pages publishers (and their competitors) have been repositioning.

The challenge for many of these publishers, now that SEO is becoming more problematic at the local level, is how to get good quality but inexpensive traffic/distribution for their advertisers.

This system offers that opportunity. Everyone in one way or another is working on a “network,” which includes Google (out of necessity) but is not limited to Google. It’s not unlike diversifying a financial portfolio away from a single stock.

CEO Jay Herratti tells TechCrunch that there are over 100 partners signed up to date. This makes sense for everyone in the system. Content and local ads are syndicated (via an API) to third parties all over the place online and in mobile. Some of the partners identified include Local.com, Bing, Yellowpages.com and others. Small developers or publishers can use the system to gain additional content and/or ads rather than try selling SMB advertisers directly. This is FourSquare’s challenge for example, as it is equally the challenge of most other local startups.

Others who’ve created local marketplaces or “exchanges” include ReachLocal and V-Enable (but for mobile only). There are others beyond this thinking about syndicating their content and ads to the broader marketplace. Citysearch has created something here that represents one version of the future of local online advertising.

Here are some other recent posts about Citysearch:

• Citysearch Becomes a ‘Twitter Client’
• Yelp vs. Citysearch: Who’s Winning?
• IAC Wants You to Build Sidewalk.com
• ___

The press release came out a short while ago:

Over the past 24 months, CityGrid has secured distribution agreements with leading publishers and resellers and built a performance ad engine and technical infrastructure to connect their consumers and advertisers. Internet publishers including Bing, MerchantCircle and others are integrating Citysearch content – including editorial reviews, user reviews, social media content, merchant videos, photos and special promotional offers and functionality – into their own branded listings. These pages are then monetized through advertisers from Citysearch and IYP partners.  

Yet More Random iPad Thoughts

Are you sick of the iPad coverage already? Here are a few more random thoughts about the device:

We’re likely to see the greatest sales at the low end ($499) — the WiFi but non 3G version of the device. WiFi does location but won’t have a GPS chip like the 3G version.

Most people who buy the device will be affluent consumers who already have smartphones. They’re unlikely to use it instead of a smartphone. It will be used in a complementary way. It may “cannibalize” some smartphone usage here and there.

Aside from business travelers, most of the usage is likely to be at home, around the house, in my view. So in that sense it may not be primarily a “mobile advertising platform” in the sense of an “on the go” device.

The device, somewhat ironically, offers the greatest opportunity for traditional media to express itself in digital form. It’s a device that can best reproduce the experience of viewing/reading/consuming the traditional product: better than the web and better than smartphones. But it offers all the “benefits” of those devices in terms of interactivity and ad targeting.

It’s too early to predict the use cases fully but it will be interesting to see them develop.

In terms of sales there will be a slow build and then its momentum will gain as people see them and hold them. There will be lots of “lookie-loos” in the Apple store fondling these device for months before people start to buy. That’s where Apple’s retail locations really shine. If people read about — even see pictures — of the device without actually touching it they’re less inclined to buy. But holding it and seeing the screen will make people want one.

The enduring difference between Apple hardware and the rest is that you’re not compelled to touch most other devices. They’re utilitarian and not much more. Apple devices compel you to walk over and touch them. That may sound “sick” or “creepy,” but great industrial design and the corresponding compulsion to touch Apple products is part of their “magic.”

Tapping the Growing Local-Social Opportunity

Everyone in one way or another is thinking about how to “work” social media: advertisers, publishers and consumers (to a degree). Along those lines, I wrote a high-level “why you need to be involved in social media” article for the Yodle blog recently:

The numbers are compelling. US teens spend roughly 25% of all their online time on social networks according to a new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation. And among social networks, as most people know, Facebook is dominant. The site has 350 million users worldwide and more than 130 million in the US. 

One day in the very near future Facebook is likely to supplant Yahoo one of the top two Internet destinations, the other being Google. US Internet users spend just over six hours a month on the site. And roughly half of all Facebook users visit the site daily or multiple times a day. 

There are also more than 70 million Facebook users who regularly access the site on a mobile device as well. 

Twitter has also seen tremendous growth and adoption over the past year. While it’s far behind Facebook in terms of overall numbers there are almost 20 million Twitter users in the US and about 50 million globally (per Nielsen and comScore). Every day there are nearly 28 million “tweets” around the world. 

Read more . . . 

Star Ratings in Ads: Check This Out

Somebody sent me this screenshot this afternoon. I couldn’t reproduce it or find a similar one myself:

Google is trying lots of things to make text ads richer and more interesting to users. But this is something I haven’t seen before.

Consumers Will Punish You for Bad Data

MediaPost, TechCrunch and others have already written about Localeze’s renewal and expansion of its deal with Microsoft:

Bing will use Localeze’s premium business content, including more than 500,000 business-verified and managed listings, which have been enhanced directly by local businesses.  In addition to its rigorous basic name/address/phone number validation and governance processes, Localeze will provide additional business details including hours of operation, products and services offered, credit cards accepted and more on Bing’s local business profiles. Local search results on Bing utilizing Localeze content will now be attributed to Localeze.

Localeze for some time has been repositioning from data provider (competing with Acxiom and infogroup) to “business listings management” for local businesses and franchises. Of the 14 million listings in the Localeze database to be provided to Microsoft, which like Google and others gets data from multiple sources, 500K of the Localeze listings are verified and enhanced by local businesses themselves. In addition, Localeze provides data updates to its 85 partners on a weekly basis.

All of this effort is toward greater accuracy and richer data at the local level. Localeze will get some additional branding and visibility out of this, Microsoft will get some improved content but consumers may not immediately see or notice anything different.

Consumers tend to notice when something is wrong or off or incorrect rather than when it’s correct. They expect accuracy. That’s the paradox here: if your data are great then people may not give you credit for it; if they’re “crappy” they’ll notice and you’ll suffer.

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Speaking of bad data, check out this bad phone number I found on Google. I looked it up on mobile and tapped to call (w/o really looking at the number):

The area code, 610, is Pennsylvania; the pharmacy I was looking for is in Oakland, CA. I have to get a prescription filled, it’s ironic that this happened right on the heels of me writing this post about data accuracy.

A voice search on the Bing iPhone app did bring up the correct phone number:

Google Debuts Click to Call for Mobile

Today Google is formally launching functionality that enables a “clickable local phone number” to appear in mobile ads.  In other words a phone number appears as part of the ad copy and consumer-users can simply tap the number to initiate a call (see image below). It’s a call for the price of a click on mobile handsets.

Not available on PC AdWords campaigns, it’s only available on “high-end” mobile handsets with full HTML browsers. We wrote about this initially when an email went out to AdWords advertisers notifying them that Google was introducing click to call in mobile ads.

Earlier today I was able to speak at some length with Paul Feng, Google’s Group Product Manager for Mobile Ads. He explained that the functionality is easily activated; it’s really part of AdWords local extensions.

The rest of this post is at SEL.

The iPad is ‘Revolutionary’

While lots of analysts (see Forrester) and others complaining that the iPad doesn’t have this or that feature (e.g., multi-tasking, flash, etc.) and while people try to get their heads around how to think about the device — is it a netbook replacement or a big iPod Touch? — I would argue that it is in fact a revolutionary product that shows the way to the next generation of mobile computing.

It may however take up to a year or two to start to see that.

I’m not going to deny that version 1 is incomplete. But as with the iPhone, Apple will likely correct some of these things with software updates and the next hardware release (version 2). I, of course, could be wrong; the iPad could be another MacBook Air, a product with intense but limited appeal that sells moderately but does not become mainstream. The same is true for Apple TV, a product that should be better and doing better than it is.

I have argued that tablets and eBook readers are “frivolous” devices, unnecessary gizmos that are more fun than actually useful for most people. And that may equally be true here: I have a smartphone and a laptop, why do I need this?

But the larger screen, broad utility as a media player, and multi-function capability (in the kitchen, on the couch, in bed at night) makes this potentially very useful, as well as fun. People will need to hold and “use” it before they warm up to it. I have not held it in my hand; those who have remark about how fast it is. The speed of this device portends a much faster iPhone “4G.”

As a side note I was disappointed that the iPhone didn’t lose its AT&T exclusivity yesterday and surprised that for now the iPad 3G only works with AT&T’s network.

Other tablets have come before and failed, but this device will either succeed itself (I suspect so) or pave the way for a new class of larger-screen, internet connected devices. Consider how undernourished the Nokia N-900 seems by comparison to the iPad.

The keyboard is a potentially awkward aspect of this (because of the curved back, it won’t lie flat). Expect Nuance, Vlingo, maybe Tellme and Google voice search to compensate. The fact that apps work on it turns the device into a phone (though not a total mobile phone substitute because of its size).

It’s an eReader, a media player, a laptop substitute in most cases, an Internet device (with an unlimited data plan for $30 per month sans contract). Eventually people are going to recognize the value here and the larger screen will be appealing to consumers.

Somewhat ironically I would expect this to be a hit in the enterprise (not Apple’s area of strength usually). Developers will be able to build useful enterprise-centric apps (think medical, education, small biz). Its integrated hardware/software is going to make it more appealing than most competitive tablets, such as those using the Android OS or, for example, the HP Tablet announced by Microsoft at CES.

We saw Apple’s competitors take about two years to catch up to the iPhone (arguably still nothing holistically has). With that history in mind, we may see a range of devices based on Android try to more or less copy this device but adding in things like flash support to improve upon it.

Will it boot Kindle? No. Kindle will survive as a lower-cost single function device. Apps may make it more interesting over time, but Kindle can’t compete with this device outside of the eReader context. Kindle DX, however, is effectively dead.

The iPad will take a little time for people to get used to, but I predict they will and that Apple will likely have another hit on its hands.

Who disagrees?

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There had been lots of hope that this device would generate revenues for traditional media. Because it’s an Internet device people will be able to get to the free web versions of publications (unless they throw up paywalls). It will then be incumbent on these publishers to build what amount to “big apps” for the iPad and related devices. (The NY Times demo’d such an app at the keynote yesterday.)

These specialized versions of publications will need to offer value-added content or information and will need to have terrific UI and design features. This way people will buy them/subscribe to them; if they offer an experience that’s clearly superior to the Web. If not, the money won’t come.

Follow Up on Yelp’s $100 Million

I had a chance to talk to Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppleman for a few minutes after the announcement of the big funding from Elevation Partners. He and I talked about a range of topics but chiefly how they would use the funds.

Stoppleman said that the funds would be used in part for geographic expansion, with a focus on Europe, but other markets such as Asia potentially; although it’s not clear where right now. He said he would have liked to see Yelp grow outside the US faster but the recession slowed things down.

He also said that more cities in the US would be added; there are now 35 cities in the US with a Yelp community manager on the ground.

Some employees will be able to sell their shares, which will be welcome after more than five years of Yelp’s existence.

Mobile will be a key and continuing area of focus (and we discussed local-mobile games and “check-ins,” etc.). Stoppelman said that Yelp is doing its own spin on a fairly well-established mobile behavior: notifying friends of where you are. He also pointed to how this and some of the other recently announced iPhone app functionality are being integrated into Yelp.com.

He further explained that the cash would enable Yelp to confidently hire and operate largely independently of the business cycle — or at least avoid some of the cash hoarding that happens during downtowns.

Stoppelman also told me that Yelp would hire an unspecified number of engineers but about “200 sales people” — in addition to the almost 200 they have today. This is probably the biggest “news” here beyond the funding. At the end of that hiring process, however long it may take Yelp would have roughly 400 telephone sales people.

We spoke about the prospects for an IPO, but the conversation was very general there. It’s clear however that’s within the realm of possibility at some point.

Yelp Gets $100M from Elevation

Most of you have probably already seen this news: Yelp Receives Investment From Elevation Partners:

Yelp, the community-led local search site, today announced that private equity firm Elevation Partners has agreed to make a $25 million investment in Yelp through the purchase of Series E preferred stock. Elevation Partners will also seek to increase its total investment in Yelp to $100 million through a planned purchase of shares from vested employees and other eligible shareholders . . .

Yelp plans to use the additional funding to deepen its market leadership position throughout the US, accelerate growth in Canada and throughout Western Europe, and continue the development of innovative mobile applications.

This is 2X what TechCrunch originally reported as a rumor a week or so ago. Some vested employees will make money without the company having to go public.

Yelp’s ongoing challenge comes in selling ads and in acquiring more SMB customers; it has built a very successful brand on the consumer side. But it has a 200-person strong telephone sales operation that it will probably enhance further with some of these funds.

Not much more to say right now, but I will write more after I speak with the company.

Yahoo! CEO: 200% CTR Increase on Local News

On the Yahoo! Q4 earnings call yesterday, here’s what CEO Carol Bartz had to say about local:

We also have a 200% click through increase in the local part of the news. So that is really important especially as we focus on local . . .

So what is ahead for us this year? We are done looking inward. We are looking outward at the incredible opportunities ahead and we are focused on the following areas; Great experiences for our consumers including more social, mobile and video features and improved local content.

Here’s what she said about mobile:

Mobile is generating a lot of buzz right now so I want to spend a few minutes talking about our strategy. Users clearly expect to have access to the same kind of services they use on the PC but designed for their mobile phones and they want to interact with brands they know and trust. Our strategy is to grow and monetize the Yahoo! audience on mobile.

To do this we are focused on building great experiences that our users love like our mobile homepage, mail, messenger, finance, Flickr and fantasy sports. Today people in 187 countries use our mobile internet services and we have been developing these experiences across thousands of handsets including high end devices like the iPhone, Blackberry and soon Android.

Mobile monetization is in the early stages for everyone right now but it is growing quickly for us. We are having the mobile advertising discussion with our biggest clients every day. In fact we recently signed one of the largest mobile ad buys ever with a major auto manufacturer.

Partners continue to be an important part of our mobile strategy. We are a trusted partner in this space and work with over 100 OEMs and carriers to help distribute our products. We are looking to partner with the right players and ecosystems who can help us reach the largest number of engaged users.

There haven’t been many announcements from Yahoo in either local or mobile of late. Indeed, they’ve largely ceded their early mobile leadership to Google (or at least visibility and buzz). Yahoo can and should make some aggressive moves in both of these areas this year.

Related: What Will Yahoo! Buy in Local This Year?

AT&T Tries Building Some Buzz

AT&T has the concept right: build a next-generation local site that will appeal to segments of users who no longer use yellow pages off or online. That site, which aims to bring community and recommendations into the mix is called Buzz.com. There will also be corresponding mobile apps and a mobile website.

Forbes offers a discussion of the site and comments from AT&T Interactive CEO David Krantz, which provide some clues about its design and functionality:

• A user looking for a reliable moving company in Manhattan could simply poll his or her friends on the site. But since a more focused search will likely yield more useful recommendations, buzz.com will also be able to suggest experts for that particular topic based on user “favorites” and comments.
• “[AT&T] is trying to leverage social graphs that already exist, so people can import them and build on them” . . . users will be able to invite groups of friends from their e-mail accounts or Facebook profiles and link their buzz.com activity to those sites rather than replicating their social-networking networks on buzz.com.
• On buzz.com, users won’t be writing full-fledged reviews. They can choose to “favorite” a business or not and write brief comments, but there isn’t a place for airing grievances.
• It also creates a place where advertisers are happy to reward loyal customers. Though the site doesn’t currently have this function, AT&T is betting that advertisers will offer discounts or other special offers to buzz.com members.

This sounds very much like AlikeList with some Aardvark, Twitter and Amazon thrown in. More broadly, however, this type of thinking is very much the next “iteration” of the local directory online. The concepts and ideas aren’t unique to AT&T. But there’s a difference between a list of features on a whiteboard and a winning product.

Execution is everything.

The $100 million question is whether AT&T is going to be able to deliver something competitive and compelling to the target consumer audience. I’m interested and eager to see what they unveil.

As the article points out Buzz.com, unlike a true startup, will have immediate monetization, given AT&T’s advertiser base and sales assets. But AT&T can and should also probably be actively out there buying other local sites to aggregate and further diversify traffic sources.

Newsday Readers Don’t Pay, They Go Away

Many of you have by now read the NY Observer story about Newsday, which famously put up a paywall for online content late last year. After a little over three months at it, only 35 people have reportedly decided to pay the $5 per week that Newsday is asking:

That astoundingly low figure was revealed in a newsroom-wide meeting last week by publisher Terry Jimenez when a reporter asked how many people had signed up for the site. Mr. Jimenez didn’t know the number off the top of his head, so he asked a deputy sitting near him. He replied 35.

The article goes on to qualify this shocking number a bit by saying that print Newsday subscribers get online access for “free” and that a subscription to local cable provider Optimum Cable (owned by Newsday’s parent) also provides free online Newsday access. So one might look at the picture a little differently in that larger context.

What we might infer from this example is that online paywalls are better used as a print retention tool or as part of a larger product bundle (if that’s an option). The online only subscriber acquisition is clearly a failure.

(See also: Play Paywall!, the new web game sweeping the newspaper industry.)

This Newsday episode is widely being seen as a cautionary tale or harbinger of doom for the NY Times in its effort to go forward with a tiered pricing model in 2011.

I was speaking about all this this earlier tonight with a friend who was a journalist and is still an editor and writer. He said that unlike the NY Times or WSJ Newsday doesn’t have the same high-quality content. However very few other papers in the US do either.

There’s also much discussion on this “tablet eve” of whether Apple’s new device will make people more inclined to pay for content and thus boost the coffers of traditional media. In some contexts it may, iTunes is a nearly “frictionless” payment system that makes it very easy to buy. But that by itself, and/or a shiny new device, won’t solve traditional media’s problems.

However, it will likely accelerate the necessary movement of traditional media into more earnest efforts toward multi-platform distribution that includes online, mobile and, now, tablets.

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Related: Only 2.4% of print newspaper subscribers are reportedly paying for online news access where paywalls have gone up:

Graphic from Alan D. Mutter

Twitter Local Trends Formally Launches

I wrote about it earlier and some quick thoughts about how it might evolve, but this evening Twitter formally announced Twitter local trends:

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. Last week we began to slowly roll out a new feature called Local Trends to expose what people are talking about on the state and city level, and today we’ve fully launched so everyone can use it.

This can evolve into a helpful discovery tool for Twitter users; and there’s some real, potential SEO value here too.

YPG Buys Restaurant Vertical

Canada’s Yellow Pages Group added to its “portfolio” of sites by buying restaurant directory Restaurantica. The site operates in the US, Canada and, curiously, Barbados.

If the benefits of this acquisition for YPG aren’t obvious, here they are:

• Restaurants are a high usage, low revenue category for print publishers.
• They’re a very high usage category online and in mobile; the site already has an iPhone app.
• The reviews content collected here can also be “distributed” on YPG’s YP site as well as its city guide (if desired)
• This gives sales reps something specifically to sell to restaurant owners (which can include video)

In an ideal world, YP publishers would think of themselves as “local holding companies” and would make a bunch of acquisitions like this that could address high value verticals and could be developed into stand alone brands.

Publishers need to continue to enhance and improve their YP “flagship” sites but also move beyond them with homegrown alternatives that address different use cases and demographic segments, as well as acquisitions. AT&T Interactive’s forthcoming Buzz.com is a potential example of the former. Restaurantica is an example, obviously, of the latter.

What I want to know is: Where is the local site targeted toward moms?  Right now Center’d is probably the closest version of that.

Everybody Wants the iPad?

Previously I posted some third party data on demand for the forthcoming Apple tablet. For example, ChangeWave found that 18% of just over 3K US consumers surveyed said they were somewhat or very likely to purchase the device. Independently Retrevo found that $700 was the top price point for most people interested in the device.

Now SRG has published that larger numbers (n=1,200 US consumers) of people are interested, with roughly two-thirds of survey respondents expressing interest and 21% saying they’re very interested:

Nearly two-in-three U.S. consumers (63%) expressed interest in an Apple tablet, with 21% expressing strong interest, above the initial level of consumer interest SRG found for iPhone around the time of its release.

Here’s a nice graphic put together by SRG profiling those “very interested” (click to enlarge):

Men and women appear to be equally interested and 82% of very interested prospects are under 50. “This age profile is significantly older than the early iPod buyers as well as early iPhone adopters,” says SRG.

Price will be a big factor in how successful the device is out of the gate. Now discredited rumors were swirling earlier today that a German retailer had tweeted the price would be €499 (subsidized), €899 (unlocked) and priced in the US between $500-$600 and $1,000 accordingly.

The cheapest Macbook is $999. It would be a mistake for Apple to offer the unlocked version of the tablet at that price point. The 64GB iPod Touch is $399 so we know the iPad will fall between those numbers somewhere.

If Apple were really going to be smart about pricing it would offer the unlocked tablet at $700 and the subsidized version at $400.

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Related: The NY Times has an extensive article about the tablet-hopes and dreams of traditional media/publishers and whether consumers will pay for content on the device as they do on the iPhone. Android users are far less willing to pay for apps, partly because the experience isn’t as easy.

As I’ve posted about repeatedly people express general unwillingness to pay for content in surveys. However, I suspect that if Apple provides a great device that offers a great experience people will pay. We have only 24 more hours to see what shows up.

Looking for Deals: Newspapers Still Reign

Harris Interactive recently found that when it comes to looking for deals and coupons most people are still looking in newspapers and magazines — or believe these are the best places to find them. However, there are discrepancies when the data are segmented by age  and education.

Younger and more educated users tend to seek deals from online more frequently (click to enlarge):

Mobile isn’t on here but it’s growing in importance as a offer distribution channel. We’ll be talking about that with ValPak and Shooger on February 3 in a free webinar.

FourSquare and Geo-Games: The Future of Local?

Andrew Shotland asks a provocative question at SEL that I’ve been thinking about literally for the past few weeks: Is Foursquare The Future Of Local Search?

There are two answers: Generally no — but for some people partly yes.

Location-based mobile games and related promotions are here to stay (and they’re very interesting). However, they’re unlikely to be regular “use cases” for most of the population.

Just as 10-20% of people write the reviews that we all rely upon to make buying decisions, only a small, youthful group (which still could be large in absolute terms) will engage with FourSquare and GoWalla in any sustained way.

The rest of us mostly won’t. As these services offer deals and coupons for spending money at their advertisers’ businesses, a slightly broader audience might get involved to save some money. But playing these games is really not about saving money it’s about your peer group and ego. If the people surrounded you are involved with Gowalla and FourSquare so might you become involved. And then you’ll want to rank among the leaders.

Most people over 35 simply won’t participate. I could be quite wrong, as I was initially about Twitter.

People using location based mobile services want content and information about the best places to go, things to do and so on. But people “of a certain age” (with kids, etc.) are generally not going to compete to be the mayor of the coffeehouse or burger joint. Om Malik may be an exception in this case.

FourSquare’s founder Dennis Crowley has been working on mobile location-based services for years (he founded Dodgeball). He has a hit on his hands with FourSquare, but it’s not going to be the kind of “utility” that Google or Yelp is. It is likely to be bought by a larger company. And it has the potential to steal some of Yelp’s “buzz” or “cool,” which is why Yelp added a couple of FourSquare’s features recently (and improved them in some ways).

What FourSquare and others in this category illustrate is the way that there is opportunity for mobile networks and startups to capture the imagination and gain usage vs. incumbents on the PC side. It also shows that local services on mobile devices are likely to diverge in potentially important ways from those on the PC.

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Related: FourSquare in Canadian newspaper partnership. (This is model for the site going forward.)