ILM East in Boston March 21-23 is shaping up to be one of the most substantive conferences we’ve ever put together. Leaders have been confirmed from most of the major companies in local. Just added is Google’s Ben Wood, who…
I think this whole social local thing is starting to catch on. This week we announced our upcoming webinar on Social Local Media and we’ve already got hundreds of sign-ups. The big news in my opinion was Google’s upgrade to its social search product, which may be a small step on the search giant’s way to competing with Facebook. And speaking of Facebook, we also surfaced some interesting examples of Facebook Pages from players like LivingSocial to the extremely sociable Ms. Britney Spears. Jed broke down adoption of social mediaa by industry and Peter the K. got all gooey about a local chocolatier’s Groupon promotion for Valentine’s Day.
Here’s what else we uncovered this week in socialsphere:
How Travel Sites Integrate Social Tools
Social media fans could find interesting tools in travel sites that integrate social network features, but Roger Yu doesn’t believe these sites are ready to replace guidebooks and planning tools. Reviewing the sites, he rambles off annoyances and benefits that could act as supplements to traditional books that help travelers find local restaurants or hotels.
I recently had the chance to talk to NYC-based mobile ad network Mojiva. Like many mobile ad networks, it started as a technology vendor that build up a critical mass of clients to form a publisher network. Quattro did similar,…
Google announced today that it has upgraded Google Social Search to now include social data from Twitter, Flickr and Quora. In the past you may not have even noticed social results as they typically showed up at the bottom of the SERP. Now they are going to be blended throughout the SERPs as you can see below:
About a year and half ago, I posited on SearchEngineLand that it was inevitable that Local Social Search would be the default search paradigm for local queries. We’re still not there yet, but it’s only a matter of time. I recall having a discussion at the time with a search engineer at Google who claimed this would be an impractical technical challenge for the search giant (never thought I’d hear that from a Googler). But with the continuing improvement of Google Social Search along with the pressure GOOG is feeling to compete with Facebook on the social front, I have a feeling we are going to be seeing a lot more local-social stuff coming out of the Plex. For those of you pondering the implications, here’s an excerpt from my old post that I think is still relevant:
…there is a large opportunity for businesses to increase awareness in their community by simply networking with other businesses via social media like Twitter. But now with the advent of Google social search, the simple act of following or being followed has a ripple effect that could yield dramatic benefits.
Here’s a pseudo-real-world example:
Listened to the replay of Yell Group's Q3 earnings call yesterday, which was my first opportunity to hear the company's new CEO, Michael Pocock, in action. Pocock joined Yell in November, eventually replacing longtime CEO John Condron, who retired. He…
Thus far, 2011 is revealing some notable announced transactions that could be signs of renewed interest in buying radio and television stations. The BIA/Kelsey monthly transactions report, which details the number of stations sold and their value, shows a marked…
I recently had the chance to talk to GENWI (pronounced Gen-Y), one of the emerging batch of companies building tools to create and manage mobile apps accross platforms. It's an opportune time for this, given both heavy adoption of mobile…
I was checking out various local search players' Facebook pages and I thought it would be helpful to compare some of these pages with some non-local brands' FB pages: How can you not like Britney? I like the graphic but…
Local sales leaders are now jumping into the deal-a-day phenomenon. Yesterday, Citysearch said it would push deals hard to its thousands of advertisers. Today, ReachLocal announced that it was buying DealOn Media. Specific terms weren't disclosed, but ReachLocal is valuing…
I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Graham Clarke, CEO of Dealicio, an offshoot of 53 Technology. Dealicio is a white-label platform enabling local media companies to launch, manage and advertise daily deals. Dealicio recognized the power of…
We've been starting to see the signs of recovery for the past few months. Companies that have been cutting costs and back office expenses are now realizing they need to get the sales end of their businesses moving again. Throughout…
Citysearch is getting into the deals space, offering a mix of curated daily deals, coupons and other offers from providers such as Groupon, The Dealmap, Restaurant.com as well as from its own base of thousands of advertisers. CityGrid advertisers may…
Jer’s Gourmet Chocolates of Solana Beach has the world’s best pretzel chocolate balls, and Jer, a former IBM EVP, can be found all over North County San Diego hawking his handmade creations and talking chocolate. I’ve seen him at Costco…
The French directory publisher PagesJaunes has joined the growing list of global Yellow Pages companies that are building or buying their way into the deal-a-day space. PagesJaunes has acquired the French group buying site top-deals.fr, and has rebranded the product…
The economy is showing signs of strength outside of the weak employment gains. Consumers are spending and advertisers are taking notice. To attract these new purchases, advertisers are spending more in many different local media. And given that the outlook…
Our first official week of Social Local blogging is just about under our belt. So let's wrap it up with some of the more interesting posts we came across: First on the blog I started out the week with my…
By now, you've probably heard the big but unsurprising news that Nokia has partnered with Microsoft to power its smartphones. I say unsurprising because of Nokia's slipping market share, need to get over Symbian (and MeeGo), recent "burning platform" memo, and…
In the realm of mobile analyst geekdom, Christmas comes every time Mary Meeker shows up somewhere with her now infamous data dumps (last one here). The latest was today's presentation to Google's ThinkMobile conference -- one of her first appearances…
Google just launched Google Weddings. While it's possible this is just a 20 percent timer side-project, it's also possible this is a component of a Social/Local strategy. I am sure my fellow BIA/Kelsey-ites will be weighing in on this, but some…
Last week we wrote about Foursquare's new trial to promote a nationwide venue for its users to check in to. What better way to get it going than Suber Bowl XLV? Now the fix is in: Besides a few overwhelmed…