Adoption of Online Marketing Services
Local businesses: the adoption of online marketing services; http://eicker.at/2d Chart: http://eicker.at/2e (via @SocialTimes)
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Gerrit Eicker
Google Self-promotion
WSJ: Google increasingly is promoting some of its own content over that of rival websites; http://eicker.at/GoogleSelfPromotion
Gerrit Eicker
Would Media Prefer a Less Open Internet? Yes.
Diller on Google-Verizon proposal: Does not preserve net neutrality, full stop, or anything like it; http://j.mp/cJNRyh
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Gerrit Eicker
NYT: “Most media companies have stayed mute on the subject, but in an interview this week, the media mogul Barry Diller called the proposal a sham. … Mr. Diller asserted that the Google-Verizon proposal ‘doesn’t preserve net neutrality, full stop, or anything like it.’ Asked if other media executives were staying quiet because they stand to gain from a less open Internet, he said simply, ‘Yes.’“
Gerrit Eicker
Google is Going Yelp
TechCrunch: Google and Yelp are in advanced acquisition negotiations, confirmed by multiple sources; http://j.mp/8I905J
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Gerrit Eicker
TC: “Google and Yelp are in advanced acquisition negotiations, we’ve confirmed from multiple sources. And while the deal isn’t done, we’ve heard that it’s very likely to close. The price is supposedly at least $500 million. … Google is building out their own directory of local businesses with its Place Pages, which can be accessed via Google Maps and local search. … Yelp, of course, already has all of this data, along with a growing and active audience of consumers who are used to finding (and rating) businesses on Yelp. … Expect lots of deals to be announced by them over the next three months.”
VB: “For several months, Google has been rolling out enhancements to its Google Maps offering, including aggregated reviews from TripAdvisor, Citysearch and other sources. Most recently, Google Maps began integrating more comprehensive business profiles with its Google Favorite Places initiative, and announced in early December that it was distributing 100,000 window decals to popular businesses with a QR code that links back to a Google Maps listing. Seen at the time as a threat to Yelp, which also distributes stickers to local businesses, the strategy now appears to be the first step towards an attempt to assimilate Yelp’s user base and market share.”
SEL: “In some ways this would be as dramatic or more dramatic than the recent AdMob acquisition announcement. Google is increasingly serious about the local market – from both a content and advertiser/small business perspective (extending into mobile). Yelp helps fill in several gaps for Google on both sides. – If this does happen it will reverberate through the entire ‘local ecosystem’ for many months to come. No, it would be an earthquake.”
Sterling: “Buying Yelp would be a different sort of acquisition for Google – a major one – because it’s not really a technology platform so much as a local brand, community and sales channel.”
Jarvis: “Yelp + GoogleMaps + StreetView + PlacePages + GOOG411 + Google Goggles + Android + AdSense = Google synchronicity“
Gerrit Eicker
MySpace Local vs. Yelp
MySpace and Citysearch joined to start MySpace Local, a clear challenge to Yelp; http://tr.im/i2Pv
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Gerrit Eicker
TC: “Don’t be fooled – the reason for all this local content is to create premium ad space. Businesses will be able to use MySpace’s self service MyAds product to promote these pages. And more importantly, they can place an ad when someone is looking at the competitors or other local businesses. Expect national brands to advertise as well – Coors and Outback Steakhouse are initial sponsors of the site.”
Mashable: “MySpace’s seems easier to monetize on the surface (and the program already has a number of sponsors, including Outback), since all of the action happens on its site. But Facebook is all about data, and by knowing which sites you use outside of its walls, they can serve up more relevant advertising in the long-term. Both approaches represent a challenge to sites like Yelp that are essentially standalone.”
Gerrit Eicker
Citysearch
http://Citysearch.com starts relaunching, adds Facebook Connect and more user interaction; http://is.gd/854V
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Gerrit Eicker
RWW: “The new version of Citysearch puts more emphasis on the social experience by highlighting reviews from your Facebook friends while browsing through reviews. Besides making the sign-in easier for new users, Citysearch now also allows you to publish your updates on the service to your Facebook profile. On the service itself, setting up a profile has now become easier, though you can’t really do too much with these profiles besides adding your profile picture.”
Gerrit Eicker
Decider
http://Decider.com is The Onion‘s competitive answer on Citysearch; http://is.gd/1XcR
WSJ: “The Internet giant is displaying links to its own services – such as local-business information or its Google Health service – above the links to other, non-Google content found by its search engine. … Critics include executives at travel site TripAdvisor.com, health site WebMD.com and local-business reviews sites Yelp.com and Citysearch.com, among others. … The EU received a complaint from a shopping-search site that claimed it and other similar sites saw their traffic drop after Google began promoting its own Product Search service above conventional search results. … The issue isn’t entirely new. The company for several years has used prominent links to services such as Google Finance and Google Maps to boost their popularity, with varying results.”
Google: “When someone searches for a place on Google, we still provide the usual web results linking to great sites; we simply organize those results around places to make it much faster to find what you’re looking for. For example, earlier this year we introduced Place Search to help people make more informed decisions about where to go. Place pages organize results around a particular place to help users find great sources of photos, reviews and essential facts. This makes it much easier to see and compare places and find great sites with local information.”
SEL: “The question of Google’s right to refer traffic to its own sites is once again in the center of policy debate. The European Commission is looking at this issue as part of its larger anti-trust investigation against Google. It’s also a question at the heart of the federal regulatory review of the ITA acquisition. … What are or should be Google’s ‘obligations’ to third party publishers? This is the central question it seems to me. – These are all very difficult issues and become extremely problematic at the level of execution. If regulators start intervening in Google’s ability to control its algorithm and its own SERP it sets a bad precedent and compromises Google’s ability to innovate and maybe even compete over time. … It has also been held by courts that the content of SERPs is an ‘editorial’ arena protected by the First Amendment. So hypothetically Google could only show Google-related results and still be within the law. … Google’s dominance of the market may decline in a few years. I’m not a laissez-faire, free-market lover but the market may take care of itself. Facebook and others are working on ways to discover content that don’t require conventional search-engine usage.”
TC: “Displaying local results this way is a little less in your face, but the end result is the same. In both cases, the main link still goes to the businesses’ own websites, but the Google Places links are also prominent. Either way, the message is clear to local businesses: list your profile in Google Places and you will have a better shot at appearing at the top of the first search results page. – Are these results better for users? It depends on how good are the Google Places listings. Some of them are very good, I will admit. But try any local search and I bet you will consistently get Google Places results, sometimes taking up most of page – not always at the very top, but always as a block. They can’t all be better than results for businesses which don’t happen to have a Google Places listing. Remember, Google Places is still fairly new and developing.“