Oodle Integrates Twitter Distribution (and Search)

Oodle has integrated Twitter distribution into its network. According to the Oodle Blog:

Now you can post your listing on Oodle and automatically share it with friends on Twitter (as well as your friends on Facebook and MySpace). Listings are tweeted into your Twitter stream where your followers see it immediately.

Users can also follow or search for Oodle listings on Twitter.

I spoke with Oodle CEO Craig Donato yesterday briefly. He told me the Facebook integration was going well and that traffic was growing. He said Oodle’s social media integrations, including Twitter, are about trying to “enable conversations” around listings. Donato means lots of things by that, including sharing, investigation of listings and those associated with them, among other things.

Oodle has built a pretty massive network of publishers and “powered by” sites including Wal-Mart, Facebook, MySpace, AOL and many others.

Others are using Twitter as a distribution vehicle or traffic driver as well, including MerchantCircle (for coupons and deals), Scoot in the UK and a range of others. Soon it will be mandatory to have some kind of “Twitter strategy.”

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But wait there’s more: Oodle’s success will likely not hurt Craigslist. I characterized the Oodle-Facebook integration as the first bona fide Craigslist challenger. But CL is the 18th most popular site on the US Internet with somewhere around 40 million uniques. It now appears to be the “Google of classifieds” in the sense that its market position seems unassailable.

MobileBeat Is Next Week

The MobileBeat 2009 conference is next Thursday (7/16) in San Francisco at the Parc 55 Hotel. It’s 12 hours of mobile goodness. But you say mobile doesn’t apply to you?

At a time when 1 out of every 7 minutes spent with media is already on a mobile device, everyone has to take mobile seriously as a platform.

It’s going to be a terrific event with a great lineup of speakers. They include folks from Google, Palm, Yahoo Mobile, Motorola, Nokia, and Microsoft. There’s also a startup competition at the end of the event, which should be pretty interesting. In the Lo-Mo segment, I just spoke to startup Aloqa this morning. They’ll be there. The complete agenda is here.

For a discount you can sign up here and enter the code “mb09opusre.” It’s equal to the early-bird rate ($450).

Google Hosting SF ‘Celebration’ for SMBs

Matt McGee posts at SEL about an event Google organized for SMBs in San Francisco to introduce them to the local business center and AdWords.  I’m guessing it’s a trial for other, similar events around the country. It’s being held next week, on July 15.

The copy for the announcement reads:

Google will host San Francisco business owners at City Hall for an afternoon of celebration and educational opportunity . . .

Google employees will be on hand to help you learn how to make the most of Google’s free business solutions and AdWords online advertising program, and we’ll distribute coupons for free AdWords advertising.

Google has tried many such SMB instructional events, from Google U (back in 2002) to ongoing “success seminars” (AdWords training sessions) still going on at various locations. These, and other efforts, such as the Google Online Marketing Challenge, are part of Google’s outreach to the SMB market.

Matt then goes on in the rest of his post to discuss complaints from existing SMB customers and advertisers about Google’s uneven customer service. His headline is Google Pitches New Small Business Customers, Ignores Existing Ones.

‘Look and Feel’ Makes a Comeback

RH Donnelley and Innovectra announced a deal for Dexpages, a searchable, clickable “look and feel” online version of the print directory. It can be downloaded or browsed online:

Each directory maintains the look of a print directory on a computer screen, and contains all of the information found in print versions, including local business and white pages listings, community information, and more. In addition, Dex Pages enables keyword search and displays hotlinks to email and website addresses, making it easy for consumers to contact businesses directly or discover more information on the business with a single click.

Currently available in the 14 states where R.H. Donnelley publishes directories for Qwest, Dex Pages will expand by the end of the year to include areas featuring the EMBARQ(R) Yellow Pages brought to you by Dex and AT&T Real Yellow Pages published by Dex. Once this is complete all directories published by R.H. Donnelley will be available on Dex Pages. Each virtual directory will be hosted by Innovectra using its ActivDirectory software.

Other publishers such as Idearc are doing this too. Look and feel lost out to search (search style presentation) in the early part of this decade but is now apparently making a comeback. Appealing to a segment of the audience that has moved online but still likes the familiar print layout and display ads. So publishers have “diversified” with print, online print look and feel, IYP/search, mobile apps/Web as sources of traffic for their advertisers.

What do you think about look and feel. Like it? Hate it?

Google Offers B2C Directions Widget

Google has announced a widget that easily integrates driving directions on websites:

This simple gadget allows webmasters to add customized Google Maps directions to their business locations. With the directions gadget, you no longer need to type and update multiple sets of text directions. Let’s face it: customers are only looking for directions from their specific location.

The gadget allows you to pre-fill the “To” field with one or multiple addresses. Customers are then able to print their directions with a single click. And if they would prefer not to drive, the gadget also provides walking and public transit directions.

Here’s Stanford University’s integration:

In the B2B store locator world, Where2GetIt, MapQuest and Microsoft (Virtual Earth) are the significant competitors. This is Google’s entry, which should prove popular.

Consolidation in the Place-Based Media Segment

Digital out of home has been a growing media segment. It’s interesting to me also because it’s “place-based,” meaning the screens where you see the media and advertising are in particular locations, although in most instances the ads and content are only nominally local. Yesterday two of the more visible players in the category, Danoo and IdeaCast, announced they were combining:

Danoo, a leading digital location-based media network with interactive video screens in popular retail locations, has acquired IdeaCast, the leading provider of advertising in the rapidly expanding captive television category. This combination creates one of the largest and most advanced media platforms in the location-based media space. As part of the transaction, National CineMedia, LLC (NCM), operator of the largest digital cinema network in North America for cinema advertising, alternative entertainment and events, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), a leading venture capital firm with a rich history of building entrepreneurial investments into successful enterprises, will each hold a minority interest in the new company. The assets acquired by Danoo had been previously acquired by NCM from the original IdeaCast entity. The new Danoo corporate entity will continue to operate and sell advertising across its digital media networks under the Danoo and IdeaCast brands.

Danoo and IdeaCast have exclusive contracts to present content and advertising in thousands of high traffic and extended dwell time venues, including top-tier health clubs, airport newsstands, seatback TVs on JetBlue, Frontier and Continental Airlines, and a dense concentration of coffeehouses, upscale delis and cafes in the top U.S. media markets. The arrangement unites the best location-based media opportunities with leading technology, such as transparent ad insertion, IP-based geo-targeting, mobile interactivity, digital content distribution and dynamic content localization. The new entity provides advertisers and marketers an unprecedented platform to reach the elusive upscale mobile professional underserved by traditional media such as television.

This combination will give the new company much more leverage and clout with advertisers, as well as reach with consumers (it’s all about reach). Existing local sales channels haven’t really tapped into Digital OOH as a distribution medium to date. RippleTV offered (I don’t know if it still does) a unique self-service ad capability.

One of the more recent developments in the space, Danoo (in its earlier incarnation) added mobile marketing as an extension of what it was doing. This mobile-traditional media (although Digital OOH isn’t really traditional) combination is going to be more and more prevalent.

Google ‘Real Estate’ Not New

There was a great deal of coverage yesterday about Google adding new capabilities to enable users to search for properties on Google Maps. Matt McGee wrote it up on SEL and Om Malik offers something of a cautionary note on GigaOM.

This was triggered by the launch of real-estate search on Maps in Australia. While the capability may be new in OZ, real-estate search on Google Maps (or Google.com itself) and the use of Google Base to upload listings have been around for at least a couple of years — at least. See, for example:

• Google Promoting Real Estate Search, Base
• Google Adds RE Search Option to Maps

Matt correctly points out: “What you’re seeing is an updated and more comprehensive version of the real estate listings that Google Maps has shown before, along with a new search tool.” Google’s LatLong Blog explains:

Previously, you had to specify “real estate” from the search options menu, but now we’re making it easier to find available listings

You’ll notice that we’ve made some other enhancements that will improve your real estate searching experience. We’ve added lots of markers that will show not only the ten most relevant listings with pins on the map, but also show a small circle on every other listing in that area using the search results layer, so you can get a really good idea of the distribution of properties for sale. You can click on each marker and each small circle to get more detailed information about the property.

This feature means you can now conduct a real estate search around a specific neighborhood, or see at a glance all the properties close to a BART stop. You can also pan the map to another area entirely to see listings there if you decide that another part of town is more your speed.

This is a set of refinements of existing capabilities that have been present for at least two years. Nobody should be surprised or not expect Google to try and refine its user experience. (Street View has always been a great real estate search tool and is incorporated into Trulia for that reason.)

Just as with behavior in the Travel category, people are going to rely on more than a single site for information about real estate. Google’s refinements and improvements may help move it up the list and improve its “curb appeal,” but it’s not going to dominate online real estate. And Google is never going to devote the attention to a single vertical that a dedicated site like Trulia or Zillow would. With a couple of possible exceptions Google always looks for scalable “horizontal-vertical” approaches.

Here’s Hitwise data on the traffic hierarchy in the real estate category:

The Local Copy Made Me Click

I was reading a story on Yahoo! about the “Codex Sinaiticus,” the oldest version of the Christian Bible and how that’s being brought online. At the top of the page was a geo-targeted display ad for the Alameda County Fair. I live in Alameda County and was probably targeted by IP address in this case.

I was otherwise unaware that it was going on and wasn’t looking for things to do. In other words I very definitely wasn’t in “search mode.” This was pure awareness building.

However the fact that this was a local event by itself made me click on the ad. On the site there are a bunch of social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) tools that they’re using to promote the event and build email lists. And while I won’t follow the fair on Twitter, if I were somebody else (who didn’t cover this stuff for a living) I might.

Beyond the interesting fact that the county fair is using all the requisite online social tools to promote itself, the initial display ad was effective in getting me to the site.

The Online Publishers’ Association recently produced research that shows the value of display advertising for brands and other awareness marketers is not in the click but in subsequent user behavior. However the purely local nature of this ad caught my eye and got me to take action.

While there has been considerable use of (IP-based) geotargeting in online display, the fact that this had locally relevant ad copy and messaging was a critical piece of this ad in capturing my attention. Geotargeting without local messaging is not going to be as effective.

TrustedPlaces’ CEO on LocalPeople

I had a quick call with CEO and Co-Founder of TrustedPlaces Sokratis Papafloratos about his role in the LocalPeople deal. TrustedPlaces is providing the business directory and self-service advertising capability to LocalPeople.

He told me the partnership was a significant milestone for the company and that it provided a big financial boost and new stability so that TrustedPlaces could focus more on product development and technology rather than ad sales.

The company had been trying to sell ads to local businesses without a formal sales force. It has been also relying on AdSense. By contrast the Daily Mail has a huge local sales force to sell ads to local businesses and can distribute those ads through its network of sites and now on LocalPeople. While Yell has had many challengers on the consumer side, the sales force behind LocalPeople may emerge as the first viable competitor on the ad sales side.

Papafloratos said that this partnership model would be one that TrustedPlaces would pursue with others potentially. However he also said that the TrustedPlaces site would continue to exist. He told me that Yelp, Qype and TrustedPlaces were engaged in a kind of three-way race in their category. Of course he cited Google, Yell and various newspaper publishers as also significant competitors in the broader local segment.

LocalPeople an Interesting Hybrid Local Concept

London-based social directory TrustedPlaces has teamed up with Associated Northcliffe Digital (owned by newspaper and classifieds publisher Daily Mail) to create LocalPeople. The site is an interesting hybrid; it mixes a local newspaper model with a directory site (with reviews) and social features including Twitter-like Q&A and individual profiles.

According to the press release the LocalPeople sites, which are conceived of as a network will target smaller cities and towns:

This week the first phase has gone live with the launch of the initial twenty-three local community websites in the South-West of England, these cover areas with between 10,000 and 50,000 inhabitants that typically do not have a dedicated local online proposition today. The sites are designed to encourage the local community to interact with each other, report on what’s important in their specific neighbourhood. A further twenty plus sites are due to launch in the South-West of England throughout the summer of 2009.

The social features, including Twitter-like comments stream, are front and center, making this different than a conventional local news or directory site:

The local news and dynamic Twitter-like/Q&A element will keep people coming back to the site throughout the day potentially — creating  much greater usage frequency than a comparable directory site. I kept suggesting that Yell buy TrustedPlaces, but now that ship has probably sailed.

For more background on LocalPeople see PaidContent.

Yelp Adds Sharing on Facebook and Twitter

Yelp is adding a capability that allows users to easily and automatically share their reviews on Facebook and Twitter. How far we’ve come since Facebook’s Beacon caused such an uproar for doing essentially the same thing.

You sign in, check boxes and viola . . . your reviews are posted to news feeds on Facebook and your Twitter profile. Here are some screens provided by Yelp illustrating the process and product:

And on Twitter:

As evidenced by the above, Facebook and Twitter have become increasingly important distribution and marketing platforms for publishers and businesses.

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Related: Facebook Connect Is A Huge Success — By The Numbers:

• Registration: sites that use Facebook Connect as an alternate to account registration have seen a 30-200% increase in registration on their sites.
• Engagement: sites with Facebook Connect see a 15-100% increase in reviews and other user generated content
• Traffic: For each story published in Facebook, we see roughly 3 clicks back to the site.  Nearly half the stories in the Stream get clicked on. This creates opportunities for the site to encourage more user actions – knowing that each one may result in 3 new visits to their site. With other models like search, there’s nothing you can do to increase user traffic besides optimizing for keywords.

Zillow Prospering in Time of Downturn

The real-estate market hasn’t really stabilized yet . . . yet Zillow is seeing growth and high levels of usage. According to data I received:

• 44 percent year-over-year growth in page views in the first half of 2009.
• 35 percent more for-sale listings on the site in the first half of 2009 versus a year earlier, as the result of more listings feed partnerships with brokerages and Multiple Listings Services. In total, 3.6 million listings are posted on Zillow today.
• More than 535,000 people have downloaded the Zillow iPhone App since its launch in late April, more than any other real estate-related app.
• Consumers submitted 265,000 loan requests on Zillow Mortgage Marketplace in the first six months of 2009. Lenders responded with 3.5 million custom loan quotes during this same period.

And:

The Zillow Directory of real estate professionals now lists nearly 200,000 real estate agents, and more than 12,000 lenders who have created a profile and are active on the site. In fact, 25 percent of Zillow’s monthly traffic – or 2.1 million unique visitors in June – self-identified as a real estate professional.

This latter bit suggests to me that when SMBs/realtors see a clear benefit they will self-provision listings and profiles. This also speaks to the success of Zillow’s Q&A community.

SEL on ‘Local Organic Domination’

Brands, verticals and SMB aggregators can play in the SEM space but it’s often difficult for individual small businesses to be competitive in local search ads. The place where most SMBs will play is in the organic results.

Palore’s Hanan Lifshitz has written up a kind of case study for a New Orleans Chiropractor — who just happens to be a client of Will Scott and Search Influence — in a piece for Search Engine Land. It’s a good example of how optimization can be dramatically effective for a local business. It’s also great promotion for Will.

There’s no advertising here per se (although there is a different local advertiser at the top), but the doctor mentioned in the article pays Will a fee for his services. This is what I’m talking about when I argue that in many cases some of the traditional advertising dollars that may have been spent in yellow pages or local magazines (in the case of a Chiropractor) may simply “disappear” — going into new sites, SEO/marketing fees or internal headcount to manage programs on Facebook and Twitter, etc. For Will’s client there’s no ad buy here but there are certainly marketing fees being spent.

MapQuest Adds July 4th Locator Icon to Map

In time for the 4th of July holiday, MapQuest has added a July 4th events locator icon to the map:

This apparently isn’t available as a place widget on MapQuest’s iPhone app, which is currently the 25th most popular free iPhone app.

Location on Firefox 3.5 Part Deux

Here’s what it looks like at the top of Firefox 3.5 when it asks for your location:

It says (site name) wants to know your location. learn more and then “tell them” or “don’t tell them” and “remember for this site.”

There’s a kind of double-opt in going on here. I enable the site or the browser to geolocate me and then I authorize the sharing of that location information with the publisher.

The actual experience on the new 3.5 version of FF is better than Geode.

Firefox 3.5 Bakes in Location

I’ve written a number of times over the past year about what’s likely to happen once location is an integral part of the browser experience: customizable sites, better ad targeting, use of demographic data based on neighborhood for online ad targeting and so on.

This week Firefox 3.5 comes out with location as an integral part of the experience. Users must opt-in and affirmatively share location, but its a huge step forward. Chrome and Opera offer something similar. And Safari includes location in its iPhone version.

Firefox is using Skyhook’s technology to ascertain user location. It had previously enabled this feature in a plug-in called “Geode.” Across the board the user experience (around location opt-in) is still a little clunky on these browsers but it’s here and will become more streamlined over time. This is a big big deal.

Borrell: Local Online Spending May Be Up

From a blog post by Gordon Borrell:

[W]e may have been far too conservative earlier this year when we projected that local online advertising would grow 8% in 2009. At the end of the first quarter, the increase looked closer to 11% . . .

Phenomenal as it may seem, we’re getting data indicating triple-digit growth for some companies selling interactive advertising. These are definitely the “get it” companies that have hired dedicated sales forces and are plowing ahead with the products advertisers are buying. We aren’t, however, seeing triple-digit growth from companies that continue to labor under the delusion that “convergence sales” is a viable strategy.

Right now we’re pegging local online advertising at $14.03 billion, up from our estimate of $13.3 billion issued back in January.

This may indicate something of an “inflection point” motivated by the recession in part. But it would also appear to be driven by competition among local media companies and independent sales channels. Any comments Gordon?

Another Local Biz on Twitter: Local Burger

Thanks to Will Scott and via Duct Tape Marketing . . . another local business using Twitter: Local Burger.

There’s a lot more going on here than just deals and discounts. It has posts about local farmers markets, food safety and politics. This is local eating as a political statement. Nice promotion for the place. And you know — because it’s in Kansas — that there’s going to be TV coverage of this Twitter presence, all but ensuring that the place will be packed for some time to come (assuming of course that the burgers are good).

MojoPages Goes White Label

Per TC, MojoPages has raised additional money ($5M) and is transitioning its focus to its white label business, competing chiefly with Local.com’s Local Connect white label offering (formerly PremierGuide) and to a lesser degree Localeze. There are other newspaper-focused players in the segment but MojoPages will immediately be Local.com’s biggest competitor among newspaper and TV sites looking for a “turnkey” local solution.

Here are a couple pages from MojoPages’ Chicago.com integration:

Local.com Takes $10M Line of Credit

The company’s press release says:

The facility will primarily be used for expansion of the company via potential acquisitions, and to fund strategic growth initiatives.

This made me think that there are probably some M&A opportunities in local but it seems like nothing’s going on. I’m sure there are some “fire sale” prices out there.

Scott Wolfgang of Hearst said well over a year ago (maybe a couple) that he was concerned that the natural buyers of startups in local were the YP publishers and newspapers, both of which were in financial distress and probably couldn’t make the acquisitions that they otherwise might like to.

What do you think? If you were sitting on a pile of money ($10M may not be enough), who would you buy and why in the local segment?