Brownbook the Tortoise in Directories Race?

I spoke to Brownbook earlier today and it’s a fascinating site started by the people who used to run Scoot in the UK. Everything is pretty much right there on the surface: a user-edited directory, a simple business model (claim your listing for $10 annually and some other services) and global ambitions.

Yellowikis failed at a similar project, though Brownbook is much more user-friendly. I see the effort as a something of a philosophical mix between Craigslist and Wikipedia. And like both of those it could be spectacularly successful — if it can last long enough.

The company has taken some seed funding but is seeking to avoid taking any big rounds. The question is how long will it take to get traction at scale? My sense — based on nothing other than inutition — is that it could take four or five years. But if the company can do so the value it might create would be signficant.

The site is all about getting sufficient content and coverage in enough places to drive usage and, in turn, greater SMB advertiser adoption. If it can gain the participation and content it will rise in search results, more people will discover the site (as they did Wikipedia) and that, in turn, will generate more participation — and so on.

The international dimension of the site allows it to diversify revenue sources beyond saturated markets that offer a dozen competitors in horizontal-local.

The interesting thing here for me is that there’s no special competitive advantage that the site has, other than its audacity. Brownbook also flies in the face of conventional wisdom, notwithstanding some comparable products in market now in terms of open editing (Yahoo Local and Google both now allow it). But despite the absence of any “secret sauce” or other novelty, one can see it almost inevitably succeeding if it can simply last.

Brownbook Launches in US Market

The UK-based wiki-like community edited directory Brownbook.net has launched in the US. The site’s ambitions are global, however.

The site will take some time to build “critical mass” in terms of listings and certainly reviews content. But it offers quite an SEO opportunity and is ultimately angling for Wikipedia like status in search results. (Spam may become an issue as it become more visible.)

Here’s my short original post on the site.

Resource: Local-20

Michael Bauer, who was a longtime part of Local Matters, has launched a site called Local-20. It’s a catalog of information and sites in different categories with Bauer’s commentary. The site is international in scope and provides lots of valuable information. Bauer has told me it’s a work in progress.

StreetView in Paris

Go ahead, sing it.

Google Blogoscoped posted yesterday about Google’s StreetView coming to the Tour de France route:

This is just the first release of imagery. But Google is collecting photos for all the major capitals of Europe and elsewhere. StreetView will eventually be a great tool for tourism and travel as more imagery is released. It already is for Europeans coming to the US.

Newspapers: Irish Times and Ireland.com

It certainly helps if you own a killer domain like “Ireland.com.” UK based local search aficionado Dylan Fuller alerted me to the new Ireland.com, which is owned and operated by newspaper The Irish Times. Ireland.com used to be the Irish Times’ site, which it has now moved here.

The Times operates Ireland.com as a portal for all-things-Ireland. And it represents something of a model for newspapers that can branch out and diversify to offer other content and capabilities on secondary sites. In the case of Ireland.com, this is an additional distribution outlet for newspaper content and ads. It’s also going to be able to attract advertisers that might not advertise in the newspaper or on the newspaper site.

Over time, given the probable ranking of this site (domain + content), it’s likely to drive much more traffic that the newspaper site itself:

New Media Vet Joins Yell

First Briggs Ferguson took over the helm at Superpages. Now Mark Canon, formerly of AutoByTel and AOL, is joining Yell as head of new media in the UK. Canon, who was also one of the founders of Switchboard (now owned by Idearc), is very smart and is a strong choice for Yell.

These are “new media” guys moving into traditional media companies. Yesterday Google hired an executive from Bell Canada to be its CFO (”old media” to “new media”) — cross pollination, one might say.

According to the Yell press release, Cannon “joins Yell on July 9 and will take direct responsibility for the UK’s new media teams covering strategy, product and service development, and technology across internet, voice and mobile channels.”

Yell has been suffering stock declines in the same way its American counterparts have, as investors react to recessionary pressures. But they’re also nervous about the long-term outlook for the industry.

I’m sure Canon will bring some fresh perspective and energy to the newly created role. Yell is privileged in a way that American directory publishers are not because it owns the yellow pages brand. However, with increasing competition from “2.0″ style sites in the UK (TrustedPlaces, Welovelocal, TouchLocal, etc.), that’s not the asset it once was.

But Yell has also been more proactive about expanding its online content than other publishers and it has moved more aggressively into mobile than other directory publishers (this is true in Europe more generally).

Yell Launches Facebook Application

This was announced last week but I didn’t get to it: Yell has developed a Facebook application called Socialiser. It joins Superpages and Citysearch in the category of local publishers reaching out for Facebook exposure. There are now 691 applications in the “food and drink” category at Facebook.

The Socialiser app from Yell is a kind of “Evite meets local search” tool, allowing users to find restaurants and other venues and then invite friends to join them. It appears quite functional.

Yell advertisers will get more in-depth exposure in the app than non-advertisers, but all the activity happens within Facebook. The application only works for Yell coverage areas. In my opinion, the company would do well to either duplicate this for its Yellowbook subsidiary or combine the applications so that it offers US-UK coverage.

A mobile component (send to mobile) would be welcome as well.

Multiplied Media in Deal with T-Info

Multiplied Media has announced a deal with Deutsche Telekom (DeTeMedien) in Germany to distribute local search content there on its Poynt IM and mobile platform. This is the company’s first EU deal and similar to deals in the US (e.g., with Idearc/Superpages). It’s a new distribution channel (IM) for the content on T-Info’s local search site: Suchen.de.

I love the slogan: Die Lokale Suchmaschine fur Duestchland (the local search engine for Germany).

Google Adds Video to LBC

Mike Blumenthal and David Rodecker both posted yesterday that Google is now allowing business owners to upload video to their profile pages directly via the Google Local Business Center. (This is apparently live in Europe as well, according to one set of comments I saw on Mike Blumenthal’s blog.)

Once you make it through the preceding screens (address, hours/payments, etc.), business owners are prompted to upload photos and/or videos (from YouTube, up to five), which means they have to be loaded into YouTube first:

Once those videos are in YouTube and the Local Business Center, they’ll be fodder for discovery in Universal Search on Google.com in search results.

Welovelocal Sells Majority Stake to Radio Firm

The UK’s welovelocal, part of a trio of similar, Yelp-like social directories — the others being TouchLocal and TrustedPlaces — has informed me that it just sold a majority stake to GCap Media plc, the UKs largest commercial radio producer.

From the release:

welovelocal.com is a social local search website that helps people find the best businesses in their area by reading reviews and recommendations from people they can trust. The site officially launched nationwide in December 2007.

GCap are the largest commercial radio network in the UK with over forty radio stations including Capital 95.8, XFM and Classic FM.

GCap will combine welovelocal.com’s highly engaged online audience with its own network of local radio brands to enhance the broadband strategy announced by Chief Executive Fru Hazlitt in February 2008.

Certainly welovelocal will benefit from the new parent’s promotional assets.

That brings me to Yell. I believe it’s inevitable that the UK yellow pages publisher will buy one of these sites. It’s a segmentation play to some degree to attract younger audiences, but it also prevents them from eating into Yell’s traffic and usage over time.

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Here’s an interview about the transaction with welovelocal’s co-founder Max Jennings.

UK’s Trusted Places Quietly Enters US

UK based site Trusted Places has entered the US market without any fanfare. This was being contemplated for some time but I just stumbled upon it through Google Maps.

This represents another potential competitor in the market, more like Yelp than YellowPages.com, for all to contend with.

Here’s my previous discussion of Trusted Places.

Yell Creates Contextual Network

The UK’s Yell announced the launch of a contextual ad network called “netReach.”

It’s a smart effort to extend the reach of Yell’s directory. It’s a variation on Yell’s affiliate program, which went live in April, 2007.

Facebook Fatigue: You Betcha!

TechCrunch posts about traffic dips at Facebook in the US (based on comScore data). And much was written earlier about similar declines in the UK. The declines are not big, and could be seasonal, but also potentially suggestive of growth leveling off.

My big issue with Facebook is that it’s not useful. I mean that in a very specific way. Aside from one or two apps, or sometimes one-to-many communication, there’s not a lot that is accomplished via Facebook. This is why I had expected Facebook to add Microsoft Live Search (so that one could search the Web from Facebook). That has yet to happen.

Compare Facebook “utility” to that of a search engine. One uses the latter to accomplish practical tasks multiple times a day. By comparison Facebook is still about novelty and entertainment in most cases.

And the novelty of comparing myself to all my friends, taking snarky quizzes, remembering how rock stars died and so on has gotten old.

Watch Election Returns or Google Maps

Super Tuesday Google Maps with Twitter: Just watch this for about five minutes; it’s kind of amazing. And it’s global:

Amazingly some of the posts are responding to one another.

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Marchex’s Matt McGee has a detailed post (using Hitwise data) about the growth of Google Maps.

Internet Trumps Print Directories in Britain

Several consumer surveys of late that have shown, while print directories are still used widely, the Internet has emerged as the leading resource for local information among a cross-section of US consumers. UK-based local “social directory” site welovelocal has put out results from a survey it commissioned that offers similar findings among people in Britain.

The survey involved just over 1,900 adults and was conducted by research firm YouGov earlier this month:

Thinking specifically about the last 6 months, which one of the following have you used the most to find local businesses / services?

• The Internet – 51%
• Printed Business Directories – 24%
• Recommendations from friends/ family – 14%
• 118 Telephone Services (directory assistance) – 2%
• Other source – 2%
• Don’t know/ can’t remember – 2%
• NA - I have not needed to look up local businesses/ services in the last 6 months – 6%

Which ONE of the following do you trust the MOST when trying to find local businesses/ services?

• Word of mouth – 67%
• An advertisement – 5%
• Neither – 4%
• Both equally – 19%
• Don’t know – 4%

Have you used a printed business directory (e.g. Yellow Pages Thomson Local etc) to look up a local business or service (e.g. plumber, restaurant, florist, estate agent, shop, etc) in the last 6 months?

• Yes, I have – 65%
• No, I haven’t – 32%
• Don’t know/ can’t remember

Which ONE of the following statements best applies to you?

• I would PREFER to receive printed business directories at home – 58%
• I would PREFER NOT to receive printed business directories at home – 35%
• Don’t know – 7%

What these data in the aggregate say to me is that print directories are still widely used and valued but the Internet now has become the more commonly used resource. In addition, the trust/word of mouth data confirm many similar studies in the US. The findings favoring the Internet become somewhat more pronounced when looking at the responses of younger users.

The full survey can be accessed here.

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Relatively new social directory touchlocal seeks broader visibility. It joins TrustedPlaces, welovelocal and a couple of others in trying to give Yell a Web 2.0 run for its money. Ultimately Yell probably needs to acquire one of these companies.

BrownBook: Wiki Yellow Pages

I just discovered UK-based Brown Book, which is pursuing a Wiki-like approach to building a directory (with reviews). Yellowikis was the first in this category, though both Yahoo! and Google allow users to edit listings as well.

There are a range of “Web 2.0″ directories in the UK, including TouchLocal and TrustedPlaces, among a few others. I would expect UK yellow pages publisher Yell to move more in this direction or to acquire one of these companies eventually.

FTC Clears Google-DoubleClick Deal

Ending many weeks of speculation and sure to be a disappointment to privacy groups, the US FTC has cleared the way for Google to acquire DoubleClick for $3.1 billion. The European Commission now has to clear the deal or it won’t go through. The EU regulatory body has until April 2, 2008 to make its decision. The Europeans are tougher on these sorts of deals but the FTC approval will put some pressure on the Europeans to bless the acquisition.

While privacy groups on both sides of the Atlantic have vigorously opposed the deal, privacy is not a legally relevant consideration in the antitrust analysis. As the FTC correctly points out:

Although interested parties have raised concerns about the proposed acquisition’s impact on consumer privacy, the Commission observed that such issues are “not unique to Google and DoubleClick,” and “extend to the entire online advertising marketplace.” The Commissioners further wrote that “as the sole purpose of federal antitrust review of mergers and acquisitions is to identify and remedy transactions that harm competition,” the FTC lacks the legal authority to block the transaction on grounds, or require conditions to this transaction, that do not relate to antitrust. Adding, however, that it takes consumer privacy issues very seriously, the Commission cross-referenced its release of a set of proposed behavioral marketing principles that were also announced today.

The European Commission said it will hold hearings on the privacy dimensions of the deal, however. I would guess that the Europeans will force Google to take some concrete measures on privacy as a condition of approving the deal, if it is to be approved.

Guest Post: Google Should Power the Local Web

The following is a guest post from Daniel Bower, who is part of welovelocal.com, a local search site for the UK. It is presented verbatim without editing and represents his opinion and perspective exclusively:

Only in the last few months did the UK get introduced to the wonder that is the Google Maps GeoCoder; send Google the name of a location and it will suggest you a co-ordinate in return. It sounds like a relatively simple exchange but it’s remarkably useful and a great time saver. This got me thinking about Google’s long term play within the local space, and whether its goal shouldn’t be to create a local portal, but instead to power the local web.

The first point worth discussing is whether or not you believe the zenith of local search is a portal, be it by Yahoo!, Google, or a startup with its own twist. For me, it’s definitely not. Portal sites can in no way reflect diversity of local communities, the range of cultures, languages, and needs and thus the user experience is often lacking: reviews feel unappreciated, and discussions can feel hollow. In the time I have spent working with community sites in London the common theme among the most active has been shared offline experiences, where the Internet is an extension of their real world lives that allows neighbours, friends and family to carry on their conversations in remote locations. These sites are typically small, community led, and either extend, or help forge a common identity among members.

Google can’t operate on such a micro level, but what it can, and in many ways already is doing, is power these smaller local sites, providing search technology, mapping, and some point in the future both business data, and an advertising platform.

It’s not secret that Google is amassing its own business directory; its business referral program is evidence of that. Google is also collecting straight from the source via its Local Business Centre, and being Google, there is always the possibility that it could acquire one or two of the more tech savvy data collectors as well. What if Google’s next step were to open this directory to the public, directly via its current Maps API and allow any website to republish it?

Using Google a local site could now deploy a fully functioning business lookup feature, complete with world class search engine and mapping functionality, ready for any small community to build upon it with all the usual user generated trimmings. Of course, what Google also provides is the sponsored ads, essentially a more sophisticated version of AdSense that’s highly relevant, geo targeted, and built specifically for the SME market. A small business owner could then market directly to a web site of its choosing, much like traditional brands can do so using the content network, targeted to a specific area, and a specific set of keywords. What is more the publisher gets a unique method a monetising their site, an area that any startup working within the local space will tell you is a particularly long uphill struggle. Freeing up the business data would also spur on the sort of creativity that Google looks to encourage via its iGoogle platform and the new Maplets feature, not to mention the potential for local data mashups.

Google’s local offering needs to look to the company’s roots, and this move would be firmly inline with some of its core ambitions, to further organise the sea of data and to continue to provide highly relevant ads. By abandoning its current centralised local strategy in favour such a decentralised model, it could firm up its position in the space for some time to come.

Yell Debuts More ‘Web 2.0′ Design, Features

Yell, which seems to be doing redesigns and feature upgrades every couple months, has redesigned its home page, upgraded maps and directions and added personalization features (i.e., MyYell). It has also added the now-ubiquitous tag cloud:

I don’t favor the “three box” approach, however.

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Update: I was informed by Yell that the “MyYell” functionality won’t be live until February 2008.

EU Review of Google-DoubleClick Acquisition

This is not a surprise, given the difference in the way that the US and Europeans dealt with the anti-trust case against Microsoft. The company essentially “got off” in the US, while the Europeans were much more aggressive and harder on the company. So too with review of the Google-DoubleClick acquisition.

I anticipated that the Europeans would bring more scrutiny to the deal. I would be surprised, however, if they prevented it or required major concessions from Google. We’ll see.