By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
SmartData Collective
  • Analytics
    AnalyticsShow More
    data analytics in sports industry
    Here’s How Data Analytics In Sports Is Changing The Game
    6 Min Read
    data analytics on nursing career
    Advances in Data Analytics Are Rapidly Transforming Nursing
    8 Min Read
    data analytics reveals the benefits of MBA
    Data Analytics Technology Proves Benefits of an MBA
    9 Min Read
    data-driven image seo
    Data Analytics Helps Marketers Substantially Boost Image SEO
    8 Min Read
    construction analytics
    5 Benefits of Analytics to Manage Commercial Construction
    5 Min Read
  • Big Data
  • BI
  • Exclusive
  • IT
  • Marketing
  • Software
Search
© 2008-23 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: Hyper-local
Share
Notification Show More
Latest News
data analytics in sports industry
Here’s How Data Analytics In Sports Is Changing The Game
Big Data
data analytics on nursing career
Advances in Data Analytics Are Rapidly Transforming Nursing
Analytics
data analytics reveals the benefits of MBA
Data Analytics Technology Proves Benefits of an MBA
Analytics
anti-spoofing tips
Anti-Spoofing is Crucial for Data-Driven Businesses
Security
ai in software development
3 AI-Based Strategies to Develop Software in Uncertain Times
Software
Aa
SmartData Collective
Aa
Search
  • About
  • Help
  • Privacy
Follow US
© 2008-23 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
SmartData Collective > Uncategorized > Hyper-local
Uncategorized

Hyper-local

mfauscette
Last updated: 2010/01/11 at 2:46 AM
mfauscette
6 Min Read
SHARE

201001101212.jpg The recent rumors around Google acquiring Yelp (which of course have subsequently fallen through) and my recent use of several location based apps like FourSquare and EveryBlock caused me to start thinking about the emerging re-focus on local business. I think that several technologies have finally matured enough to have a real impact for local businesses to effectively reach potential customers in new and compelling ways. Local businesses, or as we like to refer to them, the “long tail”, are plentiful, diverse and difficult to reach. SW companies intuitively know that there’s money in that long tail, but few have successfully managed to extract any of it. I’m specifically talking about the “small” in the small and medium business market. Certainly Microsoft, Sage, Intuit and others have managed to build solid businesses in the medium business space. And I guess Intuit’s QuickBooks product line is the standard in small bookkeeping. Where it gets sticky (and frankly, where the most opportunity lies) is in helping local businesses attract and keep customers…

More Read

google ai technology

Understanding Google’s AI SERP Algorithms is Key to Successful SEO Strategies

10 Tips on Getting More Out of Google Analytics
Google Uses Machine Learning To Combat Low Quality Link Spam
BigQuery Service: Next Big Thing Unveiled By Google on Big Data
5 Key Takeaways for Businesses from Google I/O 2015

201001101212.jpg The recent rumors around Google acquiring Yelp (which of course have subsequently fallen through) and my recent use of several location based apps like FourSquare and EveryBlock caused me to start thinking about the emerging re-focus on local business. I think that several technologies have finally matured enough to have a real impact for local businesses to effectively reach potential customers in new and compelling ways. Local businesses, or as we like to refer to them, the “long tail”, are plentiful, diverse and difficult to reach. SW companies intuitively know that there’s money in that long tail, but few have successfully managed to extract any of it. I’m specifically talking about the “small” in the small and medium business market. Certainly Microsoft, Sage, Intuit and others have managed to build solid businesses in the medium business space. And I guess Intuit’s QuickBooks product line is the standard in small bookkeeping. Where it gets sticky (and frankly, where the most opportunity lies) is in helping local businesses attract and keep customers. Google would love to come up with a way to reach these businesses and get them into the fold. So far, at least from an Internet perspective, Yelp is the only company that has made any progress to speak of (and obviously the reason Google was interested in acquiring Yelp).

Yelp’s approach is interesting as it combines community with crowdsourcing and user generated content to gain influence which it can then leverage to sell ads. The real asset then is the legions of loyal reviewers that regularly generate content on the site. Those reviewers vie for prestige and recognition in the community and the ones that are successful get to attend “exclusive” Yelp events in addition to the recognition of the community. To monetize the site Yelp has put local account reps in place to sell ads. There’s quite a bit of “pounding the pavement” in the model but it is proving effective.

What did people do before Yelp, used the Yellow Pages I guess. At least the Yellow Pages were the last successful business model for reaching and engaging these small, local businesses. There were some attempts to translate the Yellow Pages to the online world, most notably Yahoo and even AT&T but thankfully they really haven’t gained much influence. I suppose there are still people and communities of people that use the print or online yellow pages but it seems like its going the same way as print media. Anyway, where is this all going? Several trends, I think, will start impacting hyper-local this year, mobile, context aware apps (most notably location awareness), and the social web. Yelp leverages social web of course and does have a mobile app that’s location aware already. I wonder though, will apps like FourSquare, with its ability to serve up location specific offers and specials, start to erode some of Yelp’s local clout? The game portion of FourSquare (and Gowalla as well) does seem to be drawing more people into participating and if the momentum continues could offer local businesses a very targeted way to reach prospective customers.

There are other approaches that could help reach into hyper-local that combine context awareness with augmented reality and even user generated content. Apps like Wikitude and cyclopedia, for example could make a run at local advertising and embed them into their AR features. GraffitiGeo could also be a contender in this space, as it adds in user generated location specific “notes” or Graffiti and crowdsourcing votes for or against local businesses. And EveryBlock, which is owned by MSNBC, is another interesting play in the hyper-local online news and information aggregation space. Currently EveryBlock ha Google Ads on the site, but you have to think that they could garner some share if the site continues to attract new users. And what about google, will they make their own play to try and capture some of the new hyper-local ad revenue?

TAGGED: google, yelp
mfauscette January 11, 2010
Share this Article
Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn
Share

Follow us on Facebook

Latest News

data analytics in sports industry
Here’s How Data Analytics In Sports Is Changing The Game
Big Data
data analytics on nursing career
Advances in Data Analytics Are Rapidly Transforming Nursing
Analytics
data analytics reveals the benefits of MBA
Data Analytics Technology Proves Benefits of an MBA
Analytics
anti-spoofing tips
Anti-Spoofing is Crucial for Data-Driven Businesses
Security

Stay Connected

1.2k Followers Like
33.7k Followers Follow
222 Followers Pin

You Might also Like

google ai technology
Exclusive

Understanding Google’s AI SERP Algorithms is Key to Successful SEO Strategies

9 Min Read
google analytics guideline
Analytics

10 Tips on Getting More Out of Google Analytics

6 Min Read
combat low quality link spam
Big DataExclusiveMachine Learning

Google Uses Machine Learning To Combat Low Quality Link Spam

6 Min Read
bigquery
Big DataCloud ComputingData Management

BigQuery Service: Next Big Thing Unveiled By Google on Big Data

6 Min Read

SmartData Collective is one of the largest & trusted community covering technical content about Big Data, BI, Cloud, Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, IoT & more.

ai in ecommerce
Artificial Intelligence for eCommerce: A Closer Look
Artificial Intelligence
AI and chatbots
Chatbots and SEO: How Can Chatbots Improve Your SEO Ranking?
Artificial Intelligence Chatbots Exclusive

Quick Link

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Follow US

© 2008-23 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.

Removed from reading list

Undo
Go to mobile version
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Lost your password?