Local Search - Searching For Main Street -
Forbes.com: "The next fierce battlefield for Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft is local search. About $100 billion is spent per year on local advertising, with about $15 billion spent on yellow pages advertising. Of the 4 billion monthly online searches, roughly 1.1 billion involve local search...The key finding was that customers tend to rely on word of mouth when choosing a local merchant.
The result was Judy's Book, which is a site that includes local business listings for all 50 states. Users can write reviews and share them with friends--as well as even create private Web pages. Other cool features include newsletter and e-mail forwarding.
"The problem with search is that it is too mathematical," said Sack. "Basically, marketers find ways to game the system. As with us, we make search based on those who you trust, your friends. We call this 'social search.'"
The ethos of the firm is collaboration. And this even extends to its technology; that is, the company wants to provide best-of-breed solutions for its community. For example, it recently agreed to license Google's (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) mapping technology. "Our programmers couldn't wait to get their hands on the API," said Sack.
Apparently, things are working very well. When I talked to them, they said the surge in traffic was putting a strain on their servers.
It is still the early innings for local search. There are sure to be many more surprises in this race. And, that's already been the case for both Insider Pages and Judy's Notebook. For example, on Insider Pages, the most popular category is hairstylists. "It should be no surprise, I guess. In LA, your hair is a very important asset.""
posted by Jen @ 10:36 AM
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