evans ink

We’ve grown up to view online business reviews and recommendations as something that gets accumulated into organized sources of browsable content. TripAdvisor and Yelp represent two highly successful cases-in-point of the power of critical mass to reviews.

The dominating model of shopping behavior goes something like this…

search > initial select > search again for opinion to test your decision > transact

As noted in Search Engine Watch, “the search continues because search engines aren’t the consumer’s most trusted source of advice”. As we all know, we’re spending more and more time socially connected.  This creates a new whole stepping off point for shopping behavior. In theory, the potential exists to invert the experience and infuse trust and recommendations into the front end of shopping.

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I was pleased and excited to see this week’s launch of Public Earth’s website.  Not just because it’s the home of a small cadre of friends that I knew would build something very interesting, but because I believe in the fundamental premise underlying Public Earth.

The Twitter synopsis of Public Earth sums it up nicely.

We’re the Wiki For Places, dedicated to delivering interesting, unique, and up-to-date place information in a personalized way.

after world domination

The scale of product investment and advancement commitment from Google and Microsoft in mapping these past five years has been truly impressive.  These brands deservedly unseated MapQuest’s sleepy position by moving the ball forward on user experience, on multi-dimensional content, and on developer tools.

Fact is though, we’re still at the utilitarian consumption stage in geo-experience, and the very thing that creates their current world domination could well be what weighs down their forward progress.  The “Anchor Tenants” of the consumer geo universe, perhaps. [for fun: Google = Walmart, MapQuest = Kmart, and Microsoft so wants to be Target].

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It feels like everywhere I turn there is yet another media company paying writers to crank out search engine friendly content, in thinly veiled attempts to please the google bots.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the years looking into the content gaps in converting local to an informed and useful shopping experience. The quest for deeper local content is on the order of a holy grail epic challenge.

The standard by which most publishers currently seem to be approaching their content strategy is “whatever the google bot rewards”.

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Local Matters announced some exciting news today.  It’s a go-live announcement for a partnership with the largest MLS company in the US market, MRIS.

It’s exciting for several reasons.  It certainly shows off our local search platform to be a flexible and engaging web application platform for vertical local search, which is a trend I strongly believe in.  Check out HomesDatabase.com.  More importantly, it begins to plot a course towards a critical new trend in online real estate – the movement towards richer true local marketplaces for agents and consumers.

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Over on Greg Sterling’s blog, industry vet Marty Himmelstein provides a nicely articulated perspective on the implications of the lack of effective business content in Local Search.  Even more interesting is the comment conversation that the blog post triggers.  A worthwhile read, all the way through the comments.  The role and merits of SEO are challenged and defended by some of the more astute local SEO practitioners.

An excerpt of my comments are copied below, to hopefully whet your appetite.  Join the conversation on Greg’s site, it’s a quality debate.

…In particular, I think you capture the essence of why web search is struggling with relevance models for local content, and why user-based content forms the most practical proxy for link logic in Local.

I would add that, IMHO, the task of Local Search, particularly for service based businesses, is to winnow down to a short list. I believe it is fundamentally impractical to collect sufficient decision-making content to go from a short-list to a definitive selection. To me, this is where a new generation of conversational and contextual technologies kick in. The consumer wil invariably – as you point out – do their ultimate selection on a range of personal factors. Scheduling convenience and negotiated pricing may be capable of being automated, but not by “the masses” for a very long time. Consumers may also be aided by video tools, in assessing whether they want a specific service person into their house, but again, this is an exception not the rule.

The final mile of Local Search, where a short list converts into a selection/transaction remains one of the most interesting unsolved problems.

Finally, I’d add that one other dimension of local search – wherein consumers purchase patterns are driven by special offers – is another fascinating unsolved piece of the puzzle.  Google’s current lame foray into coupon aggregation and display is not even close to addressing the opportunity….

image credit: motherjones.com

Somehow, the time feels right for some fresh/absurd, Hail Mary thinking when it comes to evolution in the troubled Local Media landscape.

When I look at the problems infecting two major sectors of local media  – newspapers and yellow pages – an idea springs to mind.  Try it on…

Slam them together into one integrated local media business.  Collapse redundant distribution and operations, re-align and trim the sales forces. Infuse the newspaper’s strength with promotion and retail into the scalable SEM/search infrastructure of the YP channel.  Construct a true local consumer portal and promotion channel that has local search and promotion embedded throughout.  Trim out the low-value display ad junk and create real local shopping applications that generate leads and solve consumer problems.

In the off-chance that you’re still reading, perhaps I can explain my thinking a bit more.

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