The big money in local looks to be in mobile, if ILM:10 panelists Kara Nortman, senior VP of publishing, CityGrid Media, and Dev Khare, VP, Venrock, have it right.
Nortman said that mobile is consuming most of CityGrid’s attention right now. And the company’s attention has even helped increase valuations in this space. Khare told ILM:10 attendees that Venrock has been funding mobile start-ups for 10 to 12 years. But Khare said there’s an open opportunity yet to be addressed in local mobile. Only mobile can address the unmet need to offer real-time feedback to consumers whereby both pricing and reviews are provided at the point of purchase.
CityGrid’s strategy in local is to provide platform services that tie together a network of sites rather than trying to leverage single sites. Nortman says the goal is to be all things to all people. CityGrid adds value by managing the underlying data sets, aggregating content, adding budget and pushing out to publishers.
Venrock places its investment bets in five categories: (1) positioning data (e.g., maps); (2) data aggregation including traffic, weather; (3) platforms; (4) applications; and (5) monetization (e.g., white-label service providers).
The ability to develop local inventory that converts into sales well is the holy grail. An enormous amount of effort and money is spent by companies seeking to recruit new customers, but they represent only 55 percent of the mix. Companies should be paying more attention to customer retention as part of their strategy to drive sales.
Rick Ducey is the managing director for BIA/Kelsey. He is an expert in digital media innovations, competitive strategies, new product development and new business models, including digital ecosystem collaboration strategies.
Ducey oversees the firm's consulting, research and advisory services areas. He is also the program director for BIA/Kelsey's Video Local Media advisory service. This program provides coverage and analysis of how online, mobile and broadcast video technologies, competition, shifting consumer demographics and media usage trends are driving changes in the media ecosystem and SMBs and other advertisers can be successful in the new environment. Ducey assists clients with their business planning and revenue models, strategic research, market assessment, and designing and implementing digital strategies. He is also a cofounder of SpectraRep, one of BIA�s companies, which sells a patent-pending IP-based alerting system that he co-invented.
Prior to joining BIA in 2000, Ducey was senior vice president of NAB's Research and Information Group. In this position, he was in charge of the association�s new technology assessment, audience and policy research, strategic planning and information systems, including all Internet operations, and he also developed publications and seminars.
Before joining NAB in 1983, Ducey was a faculty member in the Department of Telecommunication at Michigan State University where he taught and did research in the areas of emerging telecommunication technologies and strategic market research. He also served on the graduate management faculties of George Mason University and George Washington University in telecommunications management and the University of Maryland, where he taught strategic market management and research methodologies. Ducey was selected as the Spring 2011 Shapiro Fellow at George Washington University where he teaches entrepreneurship in new media. He has published a number of research articles and papers in these areas and serves on editorial boards of leading scholarly journals in the communications field. He has also worked at radio stations WSOQ-AM/WEZG-FM and Upstate Cablevision in North Syracuse, New York.
Ducey received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University, M.S. from Syracuse University and B.A. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
