Verticals that can engage certain demographics on a socio/geo basis and drive loyalty and conversion are the basis of our Marketplaces research program. A new one that has caught our eye is WineTwits from HappyHours.com founder Steve Gilberg. Three years…
Facing up to the reality of a real estate market in which many houses for sale end up becoming “shadow” rentals, Zillow has added rental listings and information to its real estate services. At the same time, Zillow is attaching…
This has been the year for new sites that combine service directories and social features such as ratings and reviews. Earlier this year, we saw sites such as RedBeacon, HelpHive and others launch. Depending on definitions, earlier entrants include Citysearch,…
New York Magazine, whose online effort is run by longtime MSNBC.com exec Michael Silberman, has emerged as one of the most ambitious city magazine efforts on the Web, competing directly against city guides and other local services. Yesterday, the site,…
Special thanks to the 60 speakers and 515 attendees who made the ILM:09 conference such a great learning and socializing experience. Among the 85 conferences produced by John and Pam Kelsey and their team (including myself), we think it might…
Money is tight in the VC community for local startups, with the dollar outlay down by 30-40 percent, and money raised just a third of what was raised in 2008, per research by Canaan Partners. There is also expected to be a sharp consolidation among sites that have received funding. But three top VCs speaking on the “Money Panel” at ILM:09 cited excellent opportunities in specific sectors of the local ecosystem, including retail, promotions, video and content aggregation.
The challenge is meeting a VC’s standard for advertiser and user volume – always a problem with heavily fragmented local services. Comcast Interactive Capital’s Michael Yang noted that he can’t seriously consider anything with less than one million unique visitors per month. Barring that, “We’re more apt to sit back and see if you can break through the ceiling,” said Yang, who formerly ran marketplaces for Yahoo. Still, Comcast is studying the market closely, especially “commerce and marketplace solutions, as opposed to pure directory plays.”
Patricia Nakache of Trinity Ventures echoed Yang’s interest in commerce and marketplace plays. She noted that most of the attention in local has previously been on Yellow Pages-oriented considered purchase. “What online hasn’t cracked yet is the impulse purchase,” which she calls “the new frontier.”
Citing as a prime example Groupon, a collective coupon site that just received $32 million in funding, Nakache said lessons from retail sites are soon going to be widely applied to local promotions and local advertising. She also sees opportunities in verticals and classifieds. The broad appeal of broad sites such as Craigslist will be complemented by verticals such as Care.com in the healthcare field. “There is an opportunity for a more curated experience,” she said.
Canaan Partners’ Warren Lee also looked for opportunities with verticals, especially in retail. “In the same way that ad networks evolved and became more vertical, we’re seeing similar things on the retail side. Broad sites like eBay will give way (or verticalize themselves) to more narrowly tailored sites, “especially as people become more capable of merchandizing things online,” and boost their “sophistication in marketing and attracting consumers.”
Lee says it all comes down to scaling audiences and expenses. He finds aggregated content especially compelling for this reason. Sites such as Associated Content, Demand Media and Examiner.com, for instance, have really brought out the long tail thanks to the “power of search.” Associated Content’s articles from 2005 made more money in 2008 than they did when they were first written, he noted.”It is a sustainable, highly scaleable model.”
Outside.in, the blogger and hyperlocal news site aggregator, has scored $7 million in a new round of financing that includes CNN -- a relationship that will involve a content tie and that echoes MSNBC.com's outright acquisition last summer of Everyblock.…
Citysearch today became the first SMB site to integrate Twitter functionality into its claimed SMB profiles. The move complements earlier efforts to integrate the SMB profiles with Facebook and consumer social media options. Citysearch SVP of publishing Kara Nortman tells…
More than 73 hyperlocalites showed up at USC’s Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism last Friday Dec. 4 to discuss not only hyperlocal journalism but sustainable hyperlocal commerce as well. The meeting, “Entrepreneurship and the Community Web," was convened by…
The Huffington Post has branched out into local editions, and has just launched its fourth site: Los Angeles. Prior rollouts have occurred in Chicago, New York and Denver. Former ABC TV Correspondent Senior Editor Willow Bay is running the LA…
Small businesses often buy online advertising or e-mail campaigns and then don’t know what else to do to capitalize on the effort. Maximizing online advertising for SMBs is the new orientation of Portland, Maine-based Local Thunder, a four-year-old services company…
Facebook has ended the classification of its members into regional networks (i.e., "Peter Krasilovsky, San Diego"). It cited the practice as being invasive to people’s privacy and obsolete besides, given its behind-the-scene geotargeting and demo-targeting capabilities. In an open letter…
Technobabble is out with its annual ranking of analyst blogs. Given our off-center focus on local media, local services and mobile, we don't always fit in this world of high-tech bloggers. But we are really pleased to be cited as…
Does it make any sense to build a national chain of city sites by hiring local editors, one by one? The answer is a resolute “no,” according to Examiner.com CEO Rick Blair, who said he’d been there and done that…
Newspapers haven't done too well with local search, despite efforts to leverage their potential mix of human editors and algorithms. But Boston.com made more of an effort than many others, launching a local search/directory effort in 2006. As chronicled by…
Seven Philadelphia CBS-TV and radio stations have combined their news resources to create a new Digital Out of Home (DOOH) News Network utilizing 39 CBS Always On “Digital Newsstands.” The Newsstands include HDTVs and a 24 hour news ticker. The…
Local.com has reorganized around three business units: “Owned & Operated,” “Sales & Advertiser Services,” and “Network.” The latter unit will consist of more than 700 regional media sites, formerly associated with PremierGuide and its successor, and the new Local Distribution…
Small businesses that buy search spent $1,658 on average in Q3 2009, a figure that was up 91 percent from 3Q 2008, according to a new report issued by WebVisible, a company that manages online marketing campaigns for SMBs. Thirty-three…
The ILM:09 conference Dec. 9-11 in L.A. is now just around the corner. We’ve handpicked 60 cutting-edge speakers, and we think we are onto something that is really important. I can tell you that signups have been great, too. Recent…
National Public Radio has been recently getting more aggressive in promoting sponsorship packages in advertising industry trades. Indeed, NPR has positioned itself as an advertising alternative to other news outlets -- positioning that hyperlocal sites such as Sacramento Press are…
