Test Drive the New Dex

RHD Donnelley has tapped the Business.com team — Business.com was acquired for $350 million last summer — to redesign DexKnows, its IYP destination, from the “ground up.” I got an hour-long tour of the site yesterday. It’s a work in progress but they’re looking for usage and feedback.

Here’s the current site:

Here’s the new site:

There’s a ton of work that’s gone into the “back end” to deliver more relevant results and more precise search capabilities.

In addition results are available by metro area, city and neighborhood.

The site also differentiates between businesses that you visit and those that come to you in terms of scoping the relevant geographic areas and presenting results. For example, the following search result for “plumber, Denver” illustrates the presentation of a service area rather than a physical location:

Google Maps and StreetView have been incorporated as well:

The site is presenting the print display ads  where they exist.

And on a number of these profiles there are also video ads. I was shown one in the demo but couldn’t locate any this evening. Dex reps said that they were considering giving video away to businesses because the value that it offers to consumers. They would then pay for distribution potentially — although such final decisions had yet to be made there. Dex was the first of the IYPs to add video but didn’t really push it for users or SMB advertisers. This is what I was alluding to in my earlier post about downward price pressure on video ad revenues.

On each profile page there’s an “update info” link, which Dex hopes will prompt more businesses to correct and/or enhance their information (I believe it likely will). Only those individuals who have a documented connection to the business are allowed to edit/expand profiles, however. The company is thinking also about a LinkedIn style “completeness” prompt (second graphic below):

Overall there are some nice features here and more sophistication about the user experience. But there is clearly room for improvement. Take a spin and react. They’re looking for the feedback.

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