EggZack Promises ‘Post Once’ Marketing

Last week a new SMB marketing platform launched: EggZack. The concept is familiar, publish once gain exposure/distribution across the Internet.

Universal Business Listing and vFlyer are examples of the same concept executed in distinct ways. Indeed, all the SMB marketing channels are doing a version of this “network” model now.

For its part EggZack promises distribution to a wide range of outlets:

Pricing is very inexpensive: $39 or $69 per month. There are also analytics. The question is: does it work?

For EggZack the issue is SMB advertiser acquisition (as well as larger entities copying the functionality). The company faces the same challenges all players in this segment do: building awareness and credibility among SMB advertisers.

Correcting the Google Real Estate Story

Enough people who were at the Inman Real Estate Connect show have come forward or made comments now that this needs to be clarified: “Google to Scoop Up Real Estate Sites.” I wasn’t there and was writing based on vicarious information.

Here was the quote, from Google’s Sam Sebastian, as it was reported: 

 “We’re actively looking to acquire one to two small real estate companies a month.”

Apparently that’s a misquote. Rather, he said something more like this:  “We’re actively looking to acquire one to two companies a month.”

In the context of a real estate conference and discussion about the Google-Trulia acquisition rumor it’s easy to see how this could be taken as a statement that Google will be acquiring real estate companies specifically. 

Here’s what Google CEO Eric Schmidt said during the Q3 earnings call about acquisitions:

The way we think about acquisitions is we have historically done an acquisition, perhaps one a month or so. And those are typically small and they are typically complete an offering, they are typically technology intensive, they’re not very expensive in the scheme of things and they bring some specific technology.

Sebastian may have been repeating this “generic” comment about Google’s policy and attitude toward acquisitions in general rather than commenting on real estate acquisitions in particular. 

Yet I would still bet that Google is going to do some real estate acquisitions because it’s a local-vertical that’s very lucrative and important to consumers.

Mobile Coupons Webinar on Feb. 3

Coupons are very hot and the mobile coupon segment is heating up too. There are already 120 apps in the iPhone app store that respond to the query “coupons.” My Internet2Go program is doing a free mobile coupons webinar on Februrary 3 at 1 Eastern/10 Pacific. Everyone in the local segment needs to understand and have a position on coupons and offers.

Here’s the session description:

Digital coupons are very hot right now, and mobile will be an increasingly important distribution channel for local offers and deals. In fact it’s one of the few types of advertising that mobile consumers welcome in large numbers.

Though not yet mainstream, “mobile coupons” is an already crowded arena. Execution, content, and quality matter in this highly competitive segment. This webcast will provide an overview of the landscape as well as concrete data and case studies on the performance of coupons in a mobile environment.

Our first confirmed speaker is Shooger, which is doing a range of really interesting things in mobile (app, SMS) and soon online. 

The session is free. You can register here. 

Every 13th SERP on Google Shows a Map

Mike Blumenthal showed me a Google blog post I’d missed. Among other data from Google it said, “Proportion of Google result pages that show a map in search results: 1 in 13.” If you do the simple math, that’s just over 7% of pages, but it’s hundreds of millions every month out of about 9.7 billion search queries coming through Google in the US in December. 

This is a striking number but it’s important to note that it doesn’t define the entire universe of “local search” on Google. In the past comScore has said about 12% of search queries are local. But the company uses what I would describe as a conservative methodology to calculate this number. In particular it doesn’t capture general search queries without a geographic modifier (e.g., “dentist”), for which Google is now often showing a map and local results. 

My belief and argument is that “local intent” searches should be counted as those that result in an offline transaction or must be fulfilled offline. That’s hard to measure of course. But it would encompass all or the overwhelming majority of real estate, restaurant, events/entertainment and services type searches at the outset.

I would also argue that because 96.3% of US retail is offline, that more than 90% of product related queries are ultimately local. They may not be “inherently” local because one can buy most goods online. But product research typically results in an offline transaction and so these searches should be considered local or implicate local at least.

As the inventory database proliferates online and in mobile this consumer behavior will become increasingly transparent. Smartphone user behavior again confirms that consumers are looking for places to buy things offline, in the real world (click to enlarge chart):

Source: Compete, Inc., Q3 2009

Once again it doesn’t matter what percentage of search queries are local as an abstract principle, the vast majority of consumer spending is offline. The Internet (and mobile) are instrumental in that consumer shopping and research process. The Internet is a marketing platform that influences offline consumer buying.

That’s the bigger picture that we need to focus on.

Google to Scoop Up Real Estate Sites

Google is obviously very focused on local broadly but also some key verticals within the segment. One of those is real estate.

There were a number of sources recently that asserted Google was interested in buying Trulia. (Maybe it still will.) 

However at the Inman Real Estate Connect show in New York, Google’s Sam Sebastian reportedly said the following: “We’re actively looking to acquire one to two small real estate companies a month.”

Here are the top US real estate sites according to Hitwise:

On this list are many sites that Google can’t buy because they’re not independent. For example, Rent.com is eBay, ServiceMagic is IAC and so on.

My guess is that Google will buy sites that offer rich functionality, have established relationships with MLS services, are already established marketing platforms for brokers/agents and/or have relatively comprehensive hooks into rental listings. Roost.com, Redfin and HotPads (not on the list above) could well be candidates. I’m gonna bet money that Roost is one that’s acquired fairly soon. 

There might also be an acquisition or two specifically in the mobile space around real estate.

Yelp’s iPhone App Challenges FourSquare

Yelp originally got into mobile in a kind of “back door” way a couple years ago, with Palm building the first Yelp mobile app in Q3 2006. Since that time mobile has become more and more strategic for Yelp, with each successive app release offering richer functionality, including augmented reality.

The rise of local-mobile “game” FourSquare and to a lesser degree Gowalla has threatened to steal some of the buzz and “cool factor” that is part of Yelp’s public image and appeal for younger users. Neither of these sites has many users compared to Yelp and their “nature” doesn’t yet make them mainstream enough to be a true threat to Yelp, which is a much more utilitarian site and app. (Local-mobile “check ins” or friend finding don’t originate with FourSquare, BrightKite, Socialight and others had this earlier.) But Yelp isn’t taking chances . . .

The rest of this post is at Internet2Go.

ComScore: AOL the Top Ad Network

AOL has long owned the greatest ad network reach online. But people forget that because they treat AOL as though it’s “over.” But the recent comScore report (which is essentially monthly) on the top US ad networks reminds us that AOL is still formidable in the display ad segment:

These networks are where 99% of the roughly $7.5B in annual online display ad revenue is concentrated. There may also be other revenues in here, not formally counted by the IAB in the display category.

Frank, Dean and SEMMY

Matt McGee/David Mihm’s SEMMY award nominations are out. Here’s the local search category:

These are mostly practical/tactical pieces about SEO, though my “If I Were a Yellow Pages Publisher” rant made it in there . . . Lots of great pieces in all the categories.

Mike Blumenthal also posted my look back at 2009 on his blog: An Explosion of Interest in “Local” in 2009

What Will Yahoo! Buy in Local This Year?

Yahoo! CEO Bartz said that 2010 will be a year of acquisitions for the company. And she emphasized local in a discussion with Bloomberg/BusinessWeek:

Bartz, previously CEO of Autodesk, says she’s interested in ways to bolster Yahoo’s local content. “Local is extemely important,” she says in response to a question about whether Yahoo might try to buy Yelp, which lets users post reviews of nearby businesses. “People do some outrageous percentage of their commercial spending five miles from their home.”

The immediate question is: Will Yahoo! make a run at Yelp? It would make sense but the price might be too rich for Yahoo! at this point. Yahoo! Local used to be the leading local destination but it has suffered from several years of neglect. Yahoo! Maps was also the category leader and innovator several years ago. That would be an area where an acquisition would make sense.

The article also says that Bartz wants to buy users:

Bartz is interested in purchases that bring Yahoo more users, “whether it’s a place like Mexico, a place like Brazil,” she says. In 2009 Yahoo bought Arabic Web site Maktoob.com and, with a partner, Australian travel site totaltravel.com.

Historically Yahoo! has bought properties only to see them languish or shut them down in many cases. Recently Yahoo! outsourced most of it shopping engine to PriceGrabber. Absent that move I would have argued that Milo or Krillion would have been a good buy in shopping (tied to local).

There were rumors that the company was looking to sell Yahoo! Small Business. If that’s so the company probably wouldn’t want to buy a company like Yodle (or Clickable  or Kenshoo), which would otherwise make sense if it were pushing more aggressively into the SMB segment.

Mobile is an area where Yahoo! needs to make some successful moves in 2010. That might mean an ad network or “exchange” or a consumer property (Loopt?). It could also mean technology, such as voice search vendor Vlingo, which Yahoo! has invested in.

A service like Aardvark could also be an interesting crossover PC-mobile acquisition that would complement Yahoo! Answers.

What are the other potential acquisitions that Yahoo might make in local (or social, verticals, mobile)? What do you think?

Local.com Launches Events Site

I can’t tell if this is totally new, but it appears to be: Local.com has launched an events site:

This provides a new dimension to the service and new ad inventory. I haven’t spoken to Local.com so I don’t know if there’s a partnership behind this or these data are being crawled.  (Update: commenter below says this is Eventful data.)

Google Optimizes Suggestions for Location

As Google Engineering VP Vic Gundotra demo’d at the Google Search Evolution event late last year Google is now optimizing suggestions for mobile search based on the phone’s most recent location. As the Google Mobile Blog points out:

Google will offer suggestions based on the phone’s current or last location, making the suggestions more relevant.

For example, when users in the Boston metro area begin typing “Muse”, suggestions such as “museum of science boston” and “museum of fine arts boston” are provided because people near Boston frequently look for these very popular museums. On the other hand, users in San Francisco who begin their query with “Muse” will see suggestions for museums in the San Francisco area. By using the device’s current or most recent location, Google is able to offer even better, more useful suggestions than ever before.

This will work on Android handsets and the iPhone. It’s not going to be obvious to users because they’ll only see what they see; they won’t have the benefit of this side-by-side comparison. But it effectively reduces the need to key in characters and queries.

Top Web Brands Today . . . Tomorrow?

Here’s Nielsen’s list of top Web brands in the US market for this past December. This is about reach:

Will this list be very different a year from now? Will Facebook be #1 or #2? Will Twitter be on the list; will Fox be off? What about AOL, will that have fallen farther?

Google Adding ‘Events’ to Place Pages

Mike Blumenthal sent me a link to his blog that reflects Google’s apparent effort to add time sensitive “events” (here broadly construed to include sales) to a local business’ Place Page:

The page above is the example Mike uses; I looked for others but couldn’t find them. Mike focuses on the lack of visibility of coupons on Place Pages as a potential deterrent for local businesses to use them to announce offers or deals in this way. Yes, that’s certainly an issue.

I would add to that the challenge of getting these SMBs to serve up this content. Google does need to increase the visibility and prominence of these deals or discounts but it also should make them easy to create.

To that end it might think about incorporating Twitter in one or more of several ways, as Citysearch has done. Better yet Google should think about buying or creating the capability to update once (from Google LBC) and push them out to Facebook and Twitter.

___

Google just posted about this:

Holding a special event today? Want to post a coupon for 5-7pm tonight? Have a new product in stock? You can now get the word out by posting to your Place Page directly from your Local Business Center dashboard. Once you’ve logged in and are on your business’ dashboard, post an update and it will go live on your Place Page in just a few minutes.

Here’s my more recent and more complete post at SEL about this.

Harris Poll: 77% Won’t Pay for News

Survey after survey shows that roughly 80% of US consumers will not pay for online news content. The latest AdWeek/Harris Poll (2,136 US adults surveyed December 14 – 16, 2009) confirm this but also show that newspapers have larger demographic problems as well:

Less than one quarter of those aged 18-34 (23%) say they read a newspaper almost every day while 17% in this age group say they never read a daily newspaper.

Here’s newspaper readership frequency broken down by age segment:

The highest frequency readership of “newspapers” (print and online) comes from the older segments. I suspect if the question were worded somewhast differently the distribution might be different. For example if it were “how often do you read news online?” frequency would go up for younger users because they’re getting news but maybe not from “newspaper” sites.

The poll found that 23% of respondents would pay for access to news, with most of those willing to pay between $1 and $10 per month:

These data are broadly consistent with past studies that show roughly 80% of users don’t want to pay for online access to news. However there is an outlier survey from the Boston Consulting Group that found 48% of users would pay for access to news online and/or on mobile devices.

Surveys must all be taken with a grain of salt, however. There’s often a distinction between what people say they want or do and what they actually do in practice. But successive survey data are pretty consistent on this question of willingness to pay so we can expect the behavior to mirror attitudes in this case.

The question is, would that 23% in this survey, paying $10 per month, generate enough revenue? In addition, full pay walls will compromise ad revenues so no publication that relies on ad revenue could go to a subscription only approach.

___

Related: AP, Yahoo Near Deal on Content Use

Taking a step toward mapping the future of online news, the Associated Press and Yahoo Inc. are closing in on a deal that would impose tighter restrictions and potentially a higher price tag on AP stories distributed on Yahoo’s news site, people familiar with the matter said . . .

Some Internet portals could be reluctant to sign on to a system that gives publishers extensive information and control over content. They might also decide that for all its news-gathering clout, the AP is not so indispensable that portals need to agree to more restrictions to carry its material . . .

But newspaper publishers hope that won’t be the case. In leading the way in these negotiations, the AP “could provide an opportunity for other newspapers and newspaper companies to ride that coattail and cut a similar deal with the aggregators,” said Jim Moroney, publisher of the Dallas Morning News.

Zillow Planning 2011 IPO

Zillow raised a great deal of money from investors, almost $100 million. That all but precludes an acquisition. Hence the coming IPO. From BusinessWeek:

Zillow Inc., the second-largest U.S. real-estate listing site by users, plans to go public in 2011 and will begin courting investors next month to boost its valuation, Chief Operating Officer Spencer Rascoff said.

Zillow’s challenge is that real-estate sites like Move Inc.’s Realtor.com, the No. 1, have low valuations, Rascoff said in an interview. Zillow, based in Seattle, plans a series of presentations to persuade investors it should be priced like leaders in other Web markets, including health-care publisher WebMD Health Corp. and restaurant site OpenTable Inc., he said.

Zillow has 5.2 million monthly visitors, second to Move.com, according to the article. Mobile is also an increasingly important part of Zillow’s strategy.

But wait . . . this piece from TechFlash casts some doubt on the “immediacy” of any such IPO plan.

RHD Nearing Bankruptcy Exit

The court has now cleared the way for R.H. Donnelley Corp to exit bankruptcy. The company entered bankruptcy last May. The reorganization allows it to get rid of just over $6 billion in debt.

According to Reuters, “the Cary, North Carolina, company will emerge from bankruptcy later this month with $125 million of cash and $3.4 billion in debt.”

Among other assets RHD owns DexKnows.com and Business.com.

Superpages’ parent SuperMedia (formerly Idearc) also just came out of bankruptcy.

No More Censorship: Google’s China Turnaround

Google has said, after an attempted and potentially government sponsored hack into dissidents’ GMail accounts, that it will no longer comply with government censorship guidelines in China. Danny Sullivan has an extensive write-up at SEL.

There’s also a Google Blog post explaining:

In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident–albeit a significant one–was something quite different.

First, this attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses–including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors–have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities.

Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. 

Here’s the key paragraph:

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

Bravo Google!

This act of fortitude and integrity deserves a standing ovation. It also should be a model for other US companies doing business in China. 

Stepping back, it also changes the narrative about Google instantly.  It transforms Google from the “unstoppable, monopolistic juggernaut,” the “steamrolling giant” back into the “different kind of company” that people fell in love with years ago. 

Let me be clear: I don’t think that Google has done this for any other reasons than it’s stating. Should it “hold,” this is a move that people will cheer and celebrate for some time.

‘Hyper-Local’ Sites Need HL Ad Nets

Even though I was one of the original users of the term “hyper-local” I’m now an opponent of the phase. But those sites that are focused on communities and neighborhoods need monetization that does a better job for them than AdSense. One approach is Cox-owned Adify, which allows the creation of custom or vertical ad networks. Adify is the back-end and infrastructure behind SLOAN: Sacramento Local Online Ad Network and other similar networks. According to the press release put out last month:

Developed in conjunction with Adify, a vertical ad network platform, SLOAN is currently creating agreements with several local publishers. To date it includes The Sacramento Press, The Rancho Cordova Post, Gold River Online, Elk Grove Online, SacMix, The Sac Rag, Sacramento365.com, Myfolsom.com and The Tomato Pages Network and is growing.

While SLOAN will provide support and a new revenue channel to independent, online publishers, each online publisher will have total control over its ad campaigns. Accepting or opting out of ads is completely at the discretion of each individual publisher and websites will remain autonomous. In addition, readers will not see any changes in the content or the in-depth coverage and focus their communities receive from the publisher. SLOAN was also designed so advertisers can take advantage of SLOAN’s reach and targeted audiences.

This is a model that can and should be replicated by other collections of local sites.

Mark Potts reminds me that GrowthSpur is out there building local ad networks too. 

NYT Turns Local Blog Over to J Students

The NY Times said that it’s turning over control of one of its local blogs, covering Brooklyn, to journalism students from CUNY:

The New York Times is turning over day-to-day control of a blog covering parts of Brooklyn to the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism, in what could be a model for expanding hyper-local coverage to many communities at minimal cost.

While The Times has assigned reporters and editors to its two community blogs, dubbed The Local, most of their content already comes from outside contributors, including readers who submit articles, tips, comments, video and other material. Now, the daily responsibility for operating the blog covering Fort Greene and Clinton Hill will rest not with Times journalists, but with professors and students at the CUNY program.

The other Local blog, for Maplewood, Millburn and South Orange, will continue to be operated by Times personnel.

As the post indicates, this would seem to be a model that other publications could emulate fairly easily. The statement about “minimal cost” above suggests that contributors are not paid at all or paid nominal amounts.

Google Patent Points toward Ads in Street View

I wrote about a range of ways that Google may be considering placing place ads on Maps and in Street View last week. Now RWW focuses on a patent application in which Google suggests it may replace billboards and movie poster images in Street View with new ads:

In this patent, Google describes // how it plans to identify buildings, posters, signs and billboards in these images and give advertisers the ability to replace these images with more up-to-date ads. In addition, Google also seems to plan an advertising auction for unclaimed properties.

In Google’s example, the software could identify the marquis and individual window posters on a theater property and replace them with new information. Through this, a theater could promote a new play in Street View, even if the actual Street View image is completely out of date.

The RWW post also raises the legal question of what happens when a Clear Channel outdoor ad (e.g., for Subway) is replaced in Street View with one for McDonald’s? This is a question that hasn’t been addressed by courts. But if Google were ever to implement such a system it would likely result in a legal challenge.