Bing has added yet more data to its “map apps,” including Foursquare (previously announced), Oodle classifieds and a “World Tour” app.
These apps add an interesting and useful layer to Bing Maps. They represent a version of augmented reality and offer a range of broader use cases for maps. Google has had a more basic version of this for some time but not as successfully executed.
There’s lots of messy and inconsistent location data out there (see, e.g., the graphic below). Now 1020 Placecast is seeking to clean it up. Today the company announced a free tool, “Match API,” which it is calling a “Rosetta Stone” for location data:
Placecast . . . today announced that they are opening up their Match API for free to the location-based ecosystem. Using this free tool enables location content providers and location-based application developers to refer to a location in any number of ways, and validate that those references resolve to one true location on the planet. Placecast’s Match API is aimed at resolving the time consuming and complex problem of correcting location data that creates little inherent value, so that LBS companies can focus on improving their services and attracting marketing spend.
Location-based companies such as WCities, Socialight, Urban Mapping, and Buzzd have expressed interest in the capability and have begun testing the open web services API. Like a Rosetta Stone for location data, these services can use Placecast’s Match API to translate between different reference systems and correctly identify a location, regardless of the ID system.
The value of this is self-evident. But in the context of other location-related developments (e.g., the launch of SimpleGEO) it shows how LBS and local more broadly are really picking up steam online and in mobile.
Placecast is one of five panelists in my session at Where 2.0 tomorrow: Monetizing Location and LBS: How Do We Get There from Here? It should be a great discussion featuring:
Don Weigel (deCarta), Blair Swedeen (1020 Placecast), Bardia Dejban(Citysearch.com), Surojit Chatterjee (Google), Dan Gilmartin (WHERE)
With the formal launch today of SimpleGeo, and another similar announcement coming from Placecast, it’s clear (as I previously said) that location and related data will be appended to most user-generated content — and most digital content generally speaking.
In conjunction with the Where 2.0 conference today, SimpleGeo has formally launched and announced formal products, as well as numerous partners:
Built with developers in mind, SimpleGeo eliminates the excessive time and money spent to build and scale location infrastructure. For the first time, easy-to-use technology and tools will allow customers to have location-based services operational in minutes. SimpleGeo provides client libraries and SDKs that enable app developers to get up and running quickly on the platform. The SimpleGeo iPhone SDK makes it easy to build an augmented reality interface in dramatically less time.
At launch, the company already has more than 4,000 developers utilizing the SimpleGeo platform for new and existing applications, including major innovators such as Bump Technologies and ngmoco. More than 1,000 additional developers are awaiting the product’s formal launch. The company is introducing two major products today:
- The scalable, cloud-based SimpleGeo Storage Engine is a pay-as-you-go system that allows users to store location data and perform geospatial and temporal queries efficiently.
- The SimpleGeo Marketplace allows developers to discover a wealth of geodata from numerous sources, all normalized and available in one location. The SimpleGeo Marketplace creates a new economy for geodata providers, putting them directly in touch with developers that want to use their data. Currently there are billions of points of geodata in the market that customers can access, and it continues to grow. Data is accessed through a per-use or monthly subscription, or a limited free version.
Twitter previously acquired MixerLabs and Facebook is widely expected to launch a location platform or capability at its F8 developer event coming up later in April. Google has been providing location data to third parties and Yahoo, which was one of the first out of the gate with location for third parties (FireEagle), has regrettably let its service languish. Then there’s Skyhook, now Placecast, UrbanMapping and Maponics — all providing varying types of location data.
Location will be seamlessly integrated into most content in one way or another going forward and it will be deeply embedded in the fabric of mobile.
This renewal of the distribution relationship between SuperMedia and Local.com would be a very ordinary occurrence, normally. However against the backdrop of the closing down of the Google AdWords Reseller program it takes on larger significance. First the press release:
Under the new agreement, SuperMedia’s performance and subscription advertisers will receive preferred placement on www.local.com. The expanded agreement also includes distribution of enhanced ads and content from Superpages.com advertisers, including ratings and reviews, links to local business profile pages and videos. The expanded agreement is expected to increase the monetization of Local.com search traffic by providing an increased number of Superpages.com’s advertiser listings in response to search requests on Local.com and its distribution network. Revenue is generated when consumers connect with advertisers by clicking on their listing or calling their businesses.
Deals like this become more important for local publishers as they step up efforts to diversify traffic sources. That effort has been going on for some time of course and places those networks such as CityGrid, V-Enable (in mobile) and Where (in mobile) in a position to benefit. The perhaps temporary ending of the Google program also creates uncertainty in the local ecosystem, which had been under strain but generally stable for the past couple of years.
Google remains a critical traffic source, however once certified resellers don’t have the same privileged access and tools — at least for the time being.
I spent some time on the phone yesterday with yet another of the involved parties who gave me more interesting opinion and perspective. It was almost entirely off the record so I can’t reproduce the discussion here. However I can say that this individual speculated that a new version of the reseller program, when or if it re-emerges, will likely require much greater “transparency” among the resellers and will probably not allow them to simply bundle Google in with other sources of traffic. Again, this is pure speculation, capital P.
Previously another person opined that this change reflected the “maturation” of the local ecosystem and market and put an upbeat spin on the development. Others, however, are not quite as sanguine.
I’ve now heard from more than one source that the AdWords reseller program largely operated “under the radar” at Google, which I find surprising, given that Sheryl Sandberg (now Facebook COO) was one of the speakers at the initial Google Local Markets Symposium, which focused on the program. Nonetheless, apparently very high level Google execs recently “discovered” that resellers were marking up clicks (sometimes 100% or more) and were upset by that. Whether that had anything to do with the decision to interrupt or terminate the program is unclear — but probably.
Companies like Yodle, as a representative example, are getting roughly 50% of their traffic, depending on the advertiser category, from Google but moving increasingly to build a wide range of sources as part of a “network.” Automated display ad creation platforms (PaperG), video (Jivox, Mixpo, TurnHere, etc.) and mobile become increasingly important in this diversification effort — traditional media too.
There may be benefits and unintended consequences here. Local publishers will be pushed into developing new properties and focusing on their brands. That might make some of them stronger over the long term. Google, for its part, could find itself with more spam on its hands as some local publishers and sales channels try an push SEO more aggressively. (Let’s be clear: I’m not equating SEO and spam, but some SEO efforts do turn out to be spam-like; think press-releases.)
We’ll see. Like the advent of the reseller program and strategy behind it, a few years ago, this moment represents a new phase in the evolution of the local market, which is increasingly diverse, dynamic — and challenging — for all involved.
There are many who believe that IAB ad unit standardization has killed online ad creative and contributed to the challenges that display ads face. That stagnation led the Online Publishers Assn, together with a group of publishers, to introduce new, larger ad units that were intended to be more creatively engaging. Mobile, the iPad and perhaps Apple’s rumored “iAds” will open open up new creative opportunities and outlets for digital display and rich media advertising.
In the meantime, Internet Broadcasting launched a new retractable “hover” ad unit that exists at the bottom of the browser and remains above the fold as the user scrolls.
The question is: do these non-traditional ad units really boost the fortunes of online display and “work” or are they simply gimmicky?
Not that it wasn’t already dominant, but Canada’s Yellow Pages Group (YPG) has bought its most successful/threatening remaining directory publishing rival, Canpages, in a $225 million transaction that includes US assets.
According to the press release out this morning:
Yellow Media Inc. (“YPG”) announced today that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Canadian Phone Directories Holdings Inc. (“Canpages”) from an investor group led by private equity firm HM Capital Partners for a purchase price consideration of approximately $225M. Canpages is a local search and directories publisher in Canada . . .
Headquartered in Vancouver, Canpages publishes 84 directories for a total circulation of approximately 8 million copies. The company’s website, Canpages.ca, attracts more than 3.5 million unique visitors each month. Canpages generates annualized revenues of $110M with an online contribution of approximately 23%. The Company employs about 700 people in Canada of which more than 450 are sales consultants . . .
In addition to the Canpages acquisition, YPG announced the contribution of its U.S. directory operations, YPG Directories, LLC, publisher of Your Community Phone Book (“YCB”), to Ziplocal, LP. YCB is the publisher of independent directories in selected Mid-Atlantic and Southeast American markets and was acquired from Volt Information Sciences, Inc. in September 2008. Ziplocal is a leader in providing an innovative source of information for the businesses and communities it serves. The company operates ziplocal.com, and once the two entities merge, Ziplocal will reach over 300 markets across the United States.
There are essentially two transactions: the acquisition of Canpages and the transfer of YPG US operations to Ziplocal, an online local search provider that had previously been acquired by Canpages. Previously Canpages announced a partnership with Utah-based Phone Directories Company (PDC). The latter was contributing its US online operations to Ziplocal. I would imagine that will still be in place, but may set the stage for another YPG acquisition.
One person described this transaction to me in email in this way: “This would be the equivalent of pulling AT&T, SuperMedia and DexOne together” in the US.
As the quote implies, YPG will be the dominant local media company in Canada. It will compete against a few smaller players in the directory industry and independent channels such as ReachLocal for local advertisers. There are also some newspaper publishers that may decide to make a bigger push into “local search.”
On the consumer side, it will compete with Yelp, Citysearch, Google and some newspaper owned city sites like Torstar’s Toronto.com. Foursquare is also in Canada and has a deal with daily newspaper Metro.
YPG is the supplier of local data to Google Maps in Canada.
The US local market is much more competitive than in Canada and Ziplocal is a minor player. But he US represents a growth opportunity for YPG.
This is just the latest in a series of transactions for YPG, which include the acquisition of sites like Restaurantica and several shopping-related destinations such as RedFlagDeals. The company now has a broad portfolio of local digital assets beyond its flagship yellow pages directory site.
Having stalled in the US, eBay renames and rebrands Kijiji as “eBay Classifieds“:
Arguably eBay should have done this from the start but I suppose the thought was that the company needed an entirely new brand. Outside the US eBay operates multiple classifieds sites, some of which it acquired. Kijiji launched in the US in July 2007, sewing the seeds of discord with Craigslist that turned into litigation.
The new eBay Classifieds is “family friendly” (read: no Craigslist escorts and “casual encounters”) and has a “trusted brand.” One question is whether that brand will renew the site’s momentum.
This is a follow up to my earlier post on the rumor that Google was shuttering its AdWords reseller program.
I got an email this morning from someone, who asked not to be identified, and who said that Google confirmed the local AdWords reseller program in its current form is being shut down. The individual added that Google said the program may be reconstituted at some point in the future, although the timing of that was uncertain.
It thus does appear that this program, which was developed as a scalable way for Google to indirectly bring more local-SMBs into paid search and as a way for local publishers and media companies to bolster their online ad offerings, will be coming to an end.
I’ll be reaching out to Google for more information and potential confirmation. However, in response to the earlier rumors, Google issued the following statement:
“The Google AdWords Authorized Reseller Program is still active. We remain committed to building relationships with third party partners that enable small and medium-sized businesses to realize the benefits of cost-efficient, targeted and measurable online advertising solutions like AdWords.“
This is all double hearsay, as they say in the law, but the source is highly credible.
___
Update: From another source I just was told that the program in its current form will end in a couple of days at the end of March. Existing resellers will lose free API access at that time, which is potentially significant. (Publishers will still have access, they’ll just have to pay now.)
This same source said there was discussion that a new version of the program would be introduced at some point later this year.
Overall, this is a potentially significant development for the local market. For some players it will represent an inconvenience and for others it could have a more serious adverse impact. It will likely motivate further “diversification” of traffic sources among local publishers and sales channels.
Update 2: Here’s a more upbeat perspective from another party involved:
Google previously provided higher levels of support (and in some cases incentives) to local resellers and has decided that local resellers should be treated like other agencies where they have and account manager and pay for API access, since the local channel has matured.
I view this as a sign of success for local that the channel does not need extra care and feeding but can stand on its own. The churn issue is not a channel issue – Google has high churn for smbs who use adwords directly.
WebVisible put out a terrific report on Q4 2009 trends regarding SMBs and SEM (following up on its Q3 report); it’s got GREAT data. I haven’t had a free moment to digest it until now.
Here are some verbatim highlights:
Here are a few of the charts that visually illustrate many of the above points (click to enlarge):
The two biggest conclusions here are that SEM spending grew dramatically as did video year-over-year.
The Google AdWords reseller program has been a significant part of the local SEM landscape, enabling publishers, verticals and independent sales channels to gain credibility pitching SEM programs and packages to the local market. Here’s the current list of resellers. It includes AT&T, AdReady, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Citysearch, Clickable, Comcast, Hearst Newspapers, Network Solutions, Orange Soda, ReachLocal, Dex One, SuperMedia, YPG, Yellowbook and Yodle, among others.
There has always been a certain tension between Google and some of its partners over margins and the percentage of advertiser spend going to buying media. Some of the partners seek “print-like margins,” while Google sees much smaller margins as being appropriate (agency like margins).
In the past couple of weeks there has been a rumor that the program is being shut down by Google:
Asked about this Google issued the following statement:
“The Google AdWords Authorized Reseller Program is still active. We remain committed to building relationships with third party partners that enable small and medium-sized businesses to realize the benefits of cost-efficient, targeted and measurable online advertising solutions like AdWords.“
Earlier this year there was a rumor that Google was compelling, as a condition of certification, reseller partners to disclose to advertisers the percentage of the advertiser spend that was actually going to media vs. margin. Assuming this is accurate, it seems to be a response to the churn problem where some partners pocket 40% – 50% of the ad spend, for example, leaving not enough money to really deliver for the local advertiser — resulting in frustration and churn.
If Google were to shutter the program it would not be the end of local SEM by any means. Resellers get a suite of services from Google:
However SEM buying could still be done in much the same way it is today. What would be lost is the “credibility” that comes with the certified reseller status. Again, Google has said the program is operating and that it remains committed to it.
What do you know or have you heard?
___
Update: Someone wrote me privately and said that there were significant benefits to being a reseller . . . having to do with API account creation and related benefits. Here’s what he said:
The two repercussions of losing reseller status for large Adwords resellers would be the following:
1) Having to pay to use Google’s API. Currently resellers enjoy free API transactions. At high volumes those costs are significant.
2) Not being able to create accounts through the Adwords API. Here again, only resellers enjoy the benefit of being able to create a new Adwords account through the API, and when you’re talking about large volumes, forcing a reseller to create that many accounts by hand removes economies of scale
One of the comments responding to my earlier Yelp piece, about the company’s efforts to do a better job explaining its algorithm, said the following:
Unfortunately, you didn’t put the link to the NYT article which shows readers’ “comments”. There are now 64 comments from businesses all over the country. 95% of which say they were extorted, and cite specifics.
That prompted me to go and take a look at the comments, responding to the NY Times article Q&A with Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman. I typically never pay attention to comments on a news story. I wasn’t trying to hide anything; I simply didn’t think to look for them.
While the quote above sees conclusive evidence of extortion, I do not see that. I see confusion, frustration and resentment among some business owners. There are comments in support of Yelp and how it empowers the consumer. But I’ve selected a few critical comments to illustrate some of the frustration and confusion:
There’s an irony here: many of the “reviews” of Yelp appended to the NYT article are from anonymous readers. Nonetheless, what the comments above and others in response to the article show is that Yelp has an aggressive sales force. That is overlaid on top of SMB perceptions that reviews are manipulated according to whether a business is an advertiser. Indeed, reviews and review placement is “manipulated” to a limited degree. Here are the ways:
The practices above are not uncommon or unique to Yelp. As one example, Google on its Place Pages shows “nearby places you might like,” which includes competitive businesses.
But when you add all this to the fact that Yelp’s algorithm removes positive reviews in circumstances where the reviewers are suspect (i.e., they don’t have a track record on Yelp) you get a kind of perfect storm of frustration and confusion among some SMBs. That is now being expressed in these lawsuits in the form of “extortion” accusations.
I can see how the aggressiveness of sales people and these other factors fuel a perception of “extortion.” However I believe the litigation will ultimately be unsuccessful as a legal matter.
The larger and more significant problem is the potential damage to Yelp’s reputation among SMBs and would-be advertisers who see many of their negative “suspicions” confirmed by the lawsuits. That’s the real challenge the site now faces.
As a general rule mobile users are more engaged than PC users. When smartphone apps started proliferating 24 months ago it was also clear that mobile users would be an increasing source of reviews that could be used across platforms.
At CTIA this week my Internet2Go colleague Pete Headrick and I had a very interesting OTR (“off the record”) conversation with Pete Schwab of SuperMedia. In several ways he confirmed the higher level of engagement of mobile users vs. the PC.
One of those data points that he’s letting me share is the fact that Superpages’ mobile users constitute approximately 4% of the total audience but they’re generating 32% of the reviews according to Schwab.
You could argue that’s a mirror of online trends, where a minority of the audience contributes most of the reviews anyway. However I think it’s a clear indication of the higher level of engagement of the mobile audience.
Here’s what my Google Calendar looked like a few minutes ago (iPod Touch):
A couple of days ago Google suffered from a bug that caused some people to see selected pages in Chinese or Spanish. Presumably this is the same thing, although it hasn’t affected my online calendar.
Let me just say up front that this post is based on the experience of a single restaurant owner and should be taken in that context. However I was quite surprised, yesterday, to hear the individual’s experience with Groupon, after I brought up the group-buying phenomenon. I’ll paraphrase what I was told by the owner.
This particular restaurant, located in the middle of the country, had just opened and needed customers. It also had gone over its construction budget and was short of “marketing” dollars. So it turned to Groupon. Initial promotion suggestions from the restaurant were reportedly rejected by Groupon as being insufficiently aggressive. The final, accepted, promotion was very aggressive, such that the owners feared there might be no margin on these Groupon customers.
I was told that while businesses can specify a minimum threshold of customers, required to honor the offer, they cannot specify a maximum or cap the number of respondents. This created fear that there would be 1,000 takers of this particular deal. It turned out that there were just under 500, according to the restaurant owner.
One one level this is a great result: 500 new customers potentially to spread the word and become repeat business. This was the owner’s precise objective.
I asked if he had tracked these new customers and determined how many repeated. The owner said no. I also asked whether they “got the list,” the email addresses of those taking advantage of the offer. He told me that Groupon wouldn’t give him the list, which I found literally shocking.
The restaurant owner’s experience ultimately turned out fine and the promotion “worked” in terms of getting people in the door. But he also speculated and talked about the experience of smaller service businesses such as hair salons or dentists, which must service customers in a serial manner.
He said that his wife had, as a consumer, taken advantage of one of the Groupon offers in connection with a salon. She called and couldn’t get an appointment until many weeks later — the demand was so great. If there are 300 customers who take advantage and make appointments right away that may suck up an SMB’s time for weeks. Imagine weeks of work with very thin margins.
The restaurant owner complained that “there are things Groupon doesn’t tell you.” He said the restaurant’s website got hit with tons of traffic and their phone was ringing off the hook. “You basically have to become a call center,” he said, after the deal hits. “Most small businesses aren’t prepared for something like this.”
But he did appreciate that Groupon offered “pure performance marketing” as opposed to clicks and even calls, which were more speculative. He obviously didn’t like some of the Groupon policies (i.e., not divulging emails, lack of a cap) and the lack of education or information to prepare for the experience.
Assuming that this story is accurate it seems to me that the “group buying” model as presently constituted is unsustainable. Consumers love these deals but SMBs are going to become increasingly ambivalent about them. They “work” in that they get people in the door in a very direct way. But unless that initial foot traffic is smartly leveraged and there are repeat visitors or great word of mouth the value of that initial frenzy is minimal and debatable.
As more Groupon-like sites seek to gain consumer attention there will be an effort to get deeper and deeper discounts from businesses. As an initial matter that may work, but over time this may backfire and undermine the ability of these sites to get businesses to participate. It’s also largely a one-shot deal. The restaurant owner I spoke to probably wouldn’t go back to Groupon because of the limited margins.
Platforms like Perry Evans’ new Closely represent a similar model but enable the SMB to control the flow of promotions and set their terms.
Pages Jaunes, in France, has acquired Austrian-based people search engine 123People.
The article I link to repeats speculation that the acquisition price was between 10 and 15 million Euros ($13 to $20 million).
This is part of a larger emerging trend of yellow pages publishers acquiring third party sites or launching non-YP branded sites. As I’ve tried to argue in the past, YP publishers should now thing of themselves as “local holding companies,” with a range of brands and properties to address different audiences and use cases.
In the wake of the class action lawsuit(s) and some of the related negative press surrounding Yelp, the company is making a bigger push to explain itself to the public and presumably SMBs. Evidence comes in the form of a video, which was posted on the Yelp blog last week, explaining how the company’s review filter works (though the video is much broader).
And yesterday a very high profile Q&A appeared in the NY Times with Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman. The Q&A jumps right into main class action and the legitimacy of its claims:
Q. Class-action lawsuits have been filed that accuse your company of extortion. Do you extort people?
A. Absolutely not. The way Yelp works is very counterintuitive to a lot of folks, which is the source of the problem. In 2005, we created a review filter. It’s automated and algorithmic and screens out certain reviews that it just doesn’t know enough about. When a consumer encounters a business’s page, the reviews they’re seeing aren’t necessarily every review that’s been written about the business. It’s a selection of those reviews. It ensures that the consumer sees generally useful, trustworthy information that gives them a good idea of what to expect when they patronize that business.
____
Related: Q&A interview of Luther Lowe, Yelp Business Outreach Manager
One of the chronic issues and disappointments for many SMB marketers and their SEOs around location targeting and local search on Google Maps was Google’s lack of a solution for businesses that traveled to customers or home-based businesses that didn’t want to publicly reveal their addresses. Google has repeatedly said in the past that it was working on a solution.
Now Google is testing the ability to identify and define geographic service areas in the LBC.
Matt McGee has some nice coverage at SEL.
Today a new SMB-facing reputation management and SEO tool, called Chatmeter, entered the market. It joins Marchex and AmIVisible in the effort to help SMBs (or those that work with them) discover problems with their data and manage their content and online presence. The company was founded last year by former V-Enable executive Colin Holmes.
Localeze is also in this category but with a very different service.
Holmes will offer a free and a premium version directly to the market but also will be seeking to enlist sales channel partners that have direct hooks into the small business market.
The following is a screen from a client/customer dashboard. It shows inconsistency in the listings data, identifies where SMBs profiles are incomplete and tries to put all that in the context of competitive sites and how they compare across categories. The system assigns numerical scores to social media mentions, reviews and references.
I didn’t see a demo or have a chance to actively use the system, but I did get a lengthy briefing from Holmes last week.
Based on my review of the material and discussion with Holmes it looks like there’s valuable information and useful tools here. The question is how to make the information accessible to SMBs in a simple way, as well as make it more and more actionable.
Think that yellow pages is dead? You’ll have to modify that assessment argues new survey data from the Yellow Pages Association and two research partners (Burke, comScore). Announced as a new “Local Media Tracking Study,” the findings of this new survey assert that print and Internet yellow pages combine to produce the greatest audience reach of any medium for consumers seeking local business information.
The survey findings also argue that yellow pages are recognized as the most trustworthy and accurate source of local information by respondents. Almost 70% (67%) said “print or Internet Yellow Pages are the source they trust most for finding local business information, compared to 33 percent for search engines. ” Regarding data and listings accuracy, “print and Internet Yellow Pages similarly scored highest with 68 percent, followed by search engines with 32 percent.”
The survey data are based on a combination of Internet (80%) and telephone (20%) surveys with 8,062 US consumers in 2009. Here’s the top-line set of results, verbatim from the press release:
More findings:
When I was shown this data, I was skeptical and asked for more in the form of age and geographic segmentation. Search engine usage in the data skews younger, while print and IYP usage is concentrated among somewhat older users. Here are the largest categories of usage of print YP, IYP and search according to the Burke findings (click to enlarge):
Source: YPA/Burke
Compare relatively consistent data from comScore (July, 2009) examining age segmentation and usage of different local media/sources:
I think that we can say a few things about all this:
The market is complex and seemingly getting more so all the time for both SMBs and consumers, especially with the advent of mobile. If you’re a marketer, it really pays to know your audience and customers and where they might be looking for your services.
SuperMedia, which operates Superpages, Switchboard and LocalSearch.com has rolled out a new more relevant algorithm for Switchboard.com:
This is part of a larger effort to make all its sites more consumer friendly, although the new alog results haven’t been implemented on the Superpages “flagship” destination.
SuperMedia and the other major US YP publishers are now engaged in an effort to update, upgrade and in a couple of cases reinvent themselves as the market changes for both consumers and advertisers. The new YPG brand campaign is consistent with that larger shift.
Separately SuperMedia announced that it was extending its SuperGuarantee program into mobile:
Mobile consumers now have an end-to-end experience where they can sign up for the SuperGuarantee, find qualified businesses, register service appointments, and, in the event the job is not done right, file a claim to have SuperMedia step in and help make it right.
The SuperGuarantee® program is a national consumer guarantee initiative designed to lower the risk of hiring contractors, plumbers, auto body repair shops and thousands of other service-based businesses. If a consumer is not satisfied with the service provided by a participating SuperGuarantee business, SuperMedia will work to resolve any issues or, if unable to resolve the issue SuperMedia will reimburse the consumer up to $500 of the cost of labor for the service.
Previously SuperMedia CEO Scott Klein credited the SuperGuarantee program with improving retention/possession and usage of the print directory.
Other mobile app tweaks and improvements include:
- Add Photos: Did your food taste as good as it looked? Take a snap shot before you chow down and upload it when you rate your experience.
- Find Movies Fast: Search by movie or theater and see show times, read reviews, watch trailers or browse movie posters.
- Get Directions: Get step-by-step interactive driving directions with an option to have multiple stops on the way to your destination.
- Locate Local WiFi Hotspots: Find free and pay-for-use WiFi hotspots near you.
- See your local five-day forecast with current conditions, conduct a reverse lookup of people or businesses and access your My Superpages account to easily see your previous searches.
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