Well, not exactly. Yeah, I'm dropping names, but not to try to impress you with how important I am [laugh], but rather, the very cool people that I've had the distinct privilege to meet and/or chat with in-person over the past two weeks and the stuff they're working on:

Anita Wilhelm, Co-Founder & CEO, Caterpillar Mobile. I haven't gotten the full scoop on what Anita & her crew are up to, but from her preso at the well put together Mobile Media conference, Caterpillar is at the intersection of mobile photography, mobile gaming, and light-weight (assisted) annotation (which, if you read this whole bit, you know is an area of keen interest to me, dating back to my time at Ofoto.) I'm hoping to connect with Anita soon to see if she'll reveal enough about what they're doing to get you as excited as I am based on my high level chat with her. If not, we'll all just have to wait till July when the beta is birthed.

Mitch Ratcliffe, CEO Presuadio. Mitch's new company (he was formerly a founding member of ON24) is a Social Network analysis company (ack, competition!), an appropriate abstraction to match his etheral presentation. Whereas most presenters strictly informed, Mitch expanded the box (and blurred its edges), a key component of the conference mix for Media companies, most of whom don't know that they don't know what there is to know. Know what I mean? ;-)

Marc Brown, Co-founder Buzznet. I finally met Marc Brown and got a brief chance to chat with him. I walked away impressed and wanting to know more about what these guys are up to, and how abstractly they're thinking about the intersection point (photos, community and large commercial events) they're focused on. Hopefully the fact that they weren't part of the
photo-acquisition spree over the past month won't prevent them from realizing their potential.

Brian Russell. Brian's "the other kind" of entreprenuer; you know, motivated by and focused on social causes and community, rather than profit. By day he's with AmeriCorps; by night, he's putting together PodcasterCon, focusing on Podcasting and its community. I encouraged Brian to reach out to Craig Newmark; there's a meeting I'd like evesdrop on.

Artie Wu, Entreprenuer in Residence (EIR), TPG Ventures. In Artie's past life, he was the founder and CEO of Vividence. In his new life, he's an EIR thinking deeply about social media. Artie's thinking and questioning around building community and encouraging certain behaviors showed (IMHO) a truly nuanced understanding of the space. In a victory for yours truly, I appearantly said enough things of interest over lunch that he finally broke down and got out a pen & paper to take notes. ;-) I'm looking forward to learning (and sharing) more as appropriate.

Ari Jacoby, CEO VoiceStar, a Pay-Per-Call infrastructure proider taking the opposite take of Ingenio (who I've gushed over in the past). I actually have enough notes to justify a long form post from our breakfast; hopefully this weekend. I said last year pay-per-call was a space to watch in 2005, and from what I'm hearing, VoiceStar seems well positioned to be a significant
player.

Kirsten Mangers, Chief Strategy Officer, SME Global Solutions. SGS re-packages bidded clicks into a fixed price offering to make SEM less complex and time consuming for SMEs. The rumor mill says funding has arrived, and I'm thrilled for her and partner Terry. Perhaps we'll see them apply the same model to Pay-Per-Call? Hmm...

Stu MacFarlane, CEO & Founder, InsiderPages. A year into the biz, and things are really clicking (well, more aptly, ringing). To the tune of $1MM in new biz for their advertisers in
their first month with a live pay-per-call implementation. And how about 20K listings in LA (and ramping nicely); sounds like a Tipping Point to me.

Pamela Parker Caird, Managing Editor, ClickZ Network. I finally met Pamela in person. I think I went overboard going for the hug instead of a handshake, but she accepted gracefully. (It's truly weird how reading her blog [coupled with some blog to blog and email exchanges] made me think I knew her well enough to be that personal. One day I'll have to try to track down Mary Hodder and see if she's studied that aspect of the blogging!)

Peter Krasilovsky, President, Krasilovsky Consulting. Plug another consultant? Yeah, I'm that kinda fool. Peter's put together some thoughtful posts on the Kelsey Conference sessions I "transcripted". You can find them here (four of 'em, dated April '05).

Dick Costolo, CEO, FeedBurner. While I already mentioned that FeedBurner was going to be releasing a public API (and that I hoped that some folks would reconsider the role of Feed Mgmt Srvs because of it), I didn't say why. In a word... courage. Feed Mgmt has a challenging slot in the stack, and offering a public API doesn't necessarily put them in a better position (in fact it could disadvantage them). On the other hand, a public API sends a crystal clear "you're in control" message to Publishers, which says a lot about the nature of the relationship FeedBurner intends to build with its customers (and frankly, the nature of the people making decisions at the company). My kudos, FWIW.

Alright, there's a catch-up on some smart and scrappy folks... which leaves two conferences, a few rants, and a ton of news to comment on. More over the next few days.

Game on! Yahoo has just announced (and launched) a "beta" personalized search mechanism named My Web (a rebranding and enhancement to its previous My Yahoo Search offering).

There's a lot here, so let's try to break it down.

First, you need to login and create a My Web account (nothing to it)

Second, you need to activate My Web (not really necessary, but a solid opportunity for Yahoo! to push its updated toolbar at you, which includes My Web functionality). During this phase you'll be given the opportunity to import your Yahoo Bookmarks, etc... which is nice... albeit a bit confusing (IMHO).

Finally, you're free to start searching the web. As they say on Cribs, "this is where the magic happens." ;-)

When searching, you're given a link to Save a given search result listing. For example, if you search for buzzhit, you'll see a Save link next to the "more from this site" and "cached" links that you're likely overly familiar with.

When you click the Save link, you're given an opportunity to add a text "note" (i.e., tag) and a folder to save the listing to.

From here, there are two things of note:

1. Going forward, if your annotated site is displayed in another search result set, you'll see (and be able to edit) your notes and the save folder.

2. You can go to the My Web "control panel" (not clear what to call it) and browse and search your Saved listings (title, description, note, etc); very handy, especially for doing multi-session research projects.

Don't want to save individual sites? No problem. Just like A9 and Google's new personalized search offering, all of your search terms are automatically saved if you enabled the "my search history" option. [Note: This feature appears to be broken at the time of this writing.]

Okay. All of that seems pretty obvious. The twist, then, is that your saved listings can be shared. How? Well, as an RSS Feed, of course. And via an API. And (timing to be announced) via Yahoo 360. In fact, Yahoo is even supporting (to my pleasant surprise) the ability to format and share this data in (a version of) Attention.xml format. (Don't confuse this with real support for Attention.xml, but hey, it's a start.)

I'm heading off waaaay too early in the morning for LA to hit the Media Center's Mobile Media conference... more thoughts later this week.

Update:
Niall Kennedy talks about the Attention.xml angle and provides a public example (skip the example if you don't grok "raw" XML).

Greg Linden does what I'd normally do when I have time; compare it to other offerings. Greg does a solid job, though I'd disagree somewhat w.r.t. his assertion about the Save option being available at the wrong time; perhaps, but the incremental effort and cost of pushing the button is really low... it's really no different than bookmarking (yea?), except that users can annotate, search, share, etc the listings if they desire.

Also... expect to eventually see Yahoo push publishers for distribution of a "Yahoo My Web Save This Page" button (ala the MyYahoo RSS buttons and the Y! Q search in-situ buttons); of course publishers will want to help My Web users who aren't using the new toolbar save their pages, right? Riiiiggght.

During the cleverly named Mapping the Future of Local Search session at last week's Kelsey conference, conference attendees learned a key piece of jargon for conceptualizing how map providers think of annotating basic map presentation; overlays.

A bit of buzz was generated a few weeks back when Paul Rademacher mashed Google Maps was with Craigslist, creating a compelling way of visually navigating local real estate markets.

I was thinking about this when I read Gizmodo's coverage of T-Mobile's release of their "personal coverage check" solution, which allows you to see (claimed) signal strength at a user specified street address.

Until connectivity becomes truly ubiquitous, it would be very valuable (to me) to have a single mapping solution that could not only give you directions and local physical retailers/service providers (e.g., restaurants, banks, gas stations, etc), but also connectivity clouds (preferably with free vs. for fee presentations).

What other overlays would you like to see?

Chris Pirillo noted yesterday that his friend Robert McLaws' was running Google AdSense ads in his Feed; today, everyone is (not surprisingly) abuzz.

While I disagree with Chris w.r.t. to the signficance of this (is there anyone who didn't expect Google to support Feed Ads?!) vs. Google's announcement yesterday vis-a-vis CPM-based placed advertising, it's ultimately good for all involved that the cat is out of the bag; now perhaps we can start innovating instead of simply deploying a known mechanism into a new 'medium'? ;-)

Of note, FeedBurner announced this morning that they will move quickly to add AdSense support to publishers using their service (i.e., they will, to the best of my knowledge, become the first FMS to support multiple ad networks -- given their known relationship with Overture --a boon for publishers). Hopefully, this, coupled with their recent funding, launch of premium services, and announcement of a partner/open API will give critics of managed Feeds incentive to reconsider their position.

ClickZ breaks the story that Google AdSense is now offering advertisers the ability to target at the site level; this ability will be coupled with an auction-based CPM pricing model and animated .GIF placement. Writes ClickZ editor Pamela Parker:

"Using the same AdWords interface, advertisers will be able to select sites on which they want their ads to appear. They can either enter in the URLs of specific sites, or they can perform a keyword search to find sites on which to place their ads. Google will return a list of sites similar to the URLs people select, or a list that matches with the particular keywords. Advertisers can then select sites from those lists.

Google will continue to use an auction model to sell the site-targeted ads, but payments will be on a CPM basis. Advertisers will indicate the maximum price they're willing to pay per-thousand ad impressions. Google will then determine where those ads should appear among the CPC ads. Though CPC ads are ranked by both bid price and click-through rate, the CPM ads will only be ranked by bid price.

...There's one other differentiator for the site-targeted ads. Advertisers will be able to deploy animated .gifs for these placements."

While certainly a boon to brand advertisers, as described in this ClickZ piece, this is a slap in the face to major publishers (though Tail players like myself have reason to celebrate). To understand why, you need to think about how AdSense is used by most major pub houses, including Newspapers...

Traditionally, Contextual Advertising is used either a) as backfill for CPM based ad slots [rather than selling leftover inventory to a remnant player like Advertising.com], or, b) as an incremental revenue generator at the page footer.

By allowing advertisers to target specific sites, Google has moved into the role of a rep firm. Contextual Advertising will now compete against a major publisher's internal sales force, as advertisers will have the ability to buy Contextual placement via Google instead of directly from the publisher.

Major publishers should immediately insist that they be given the ability to restrict bidding on portions of their sites (rather than completely opt-out), and, more importantly, set a CPM floor for targeted ad placements.

As I've said many times, media co's have the choice of "playing their game" or "being players in the game". The consequences of the former (through aggressive acts by Google like this one) are becoming clearer and clearer. It'll be interesting to see how the big guys responsed.

Update: It took less than a day for chicken-little to scream "beware of impression fraud". Guess we'll be solving for that now too...

Spend a couple of days at a conference and the world passes you by. Some headlines and brief comments for topics of (potential) interest...

• MSN Spaces has 7MM blogs and is growing at 100K a day [Blog Hearld]. Love it or hate it, it's clear MSFT hit the sweet spot for newbie's, and they deserve credit for that. The real question (about all these blog numbers, not just MSN) is about trial vs. adoption.

• Rojo is out of private beta and sporting a ton of (near-term) differentiated features in the Feed Aggregator category (namely social networking and tagging). [Software Only has a great write-up]. I was very flattered to get an invite to the Rojo preview launch, but ended up passing, as I've been giving free bits of advice to a small team up in SF that's thinking along similar (but deeper) lines. No financial relationship, but as a consultant, your rep is all you've got, so best not to chance it. Hopefully the SF crew will launch soon...

• Target and Yahoo! team for photos [via PaidContent]; automatically transmit your photos developed at Target to your Yahoo! account. Target's not known as a big photo finisher (Wal-greens and Wal-mart were bigger players last I looked), but the Target demographic is perfect for Yahoo!.

• Google launches My Search History [via Geeking with Grek]; while most coverage (rightly) seems focused on the potential for search result relevance improvements (i.e., personalized search, or, in my anaology, "active listening"), one shouldn't forget the ad targeting implications (on and off network). This reminds me... we haven't heard much from Eurekster lately; now that social networking is getting mashed-up with blogging (Yahoo 360) and Feed Aggregation (Rojo, above), will anyone seek out Eurekster's learnings/IP?

• Feedburner more than doubles the number of Feeds it manages through partnership, and a private API. [via Feedburner] They also mention opening up a public API later this year; will Yahoo!'s YPN do the same?

• Ping-o-Matic celebrates its one year anniversary (congrats guys) and 100MM pings served. [Via Ping-o-Matic] Is there a future for this service... or will the powers-that-be actually cooperate on FeedMesh? Sounds like Google is supportive...

• X1, the Idealab company that powers Yahoo!'s desktop search offering (and their own branded offering) just took $10MM in funding from SV-based USVP and idealab itself. [via SiliconBeat] Very interesting to see Idealab bring in outside money to grow one of its seedlings.

• As I noted in my write-up of Udi Manber's keynote at the Kelsey conference, Amazon's A9 unit has launched five new cities for their Yellow Pages offering. It was shocking how many Newspaper and Yellow Pages execs hadn't seen A9's offering...

The Blog Hearld broke the story this morning about the launch of Feedster Media Network (FMN). As I'm included in the launch but have yet to receive a copy of the press release (ahem), I'll keep my comments high level. (And by way of disclosure, please note that I've done consulting work for the company in the past.)

First, the basics. Feedster has partnered with AdBrite to offer blog (HTML) advertising. Key differences between AdBrite and Google AdSense:

AdBrite gives publishers more sales control; while you can run contextual ads, the emphasis is on selling day, week or monthly listings based on a CPM structure. Blogs running AdBrite bear a "Your ad here" link (ala BlogAds) that lets a potential advertisier click to buy advertising for the blog, directly from the blog. Publishers may approve or reject individual advertiser offers. Publishers also have a significant amount of control over how the ads appear on their site (i.e., formatting control).

Feedster will also be pursuing a national ad sales tact, which ostensibly puts them in competition (on the ad rep'ing front) with Battelle's FM Publishing venture. If it's not already totally obvious, the battle for blog/Feed advertising has been fully joined.

Feedster is Feedster, not Blogster, so we should expect an RSS/Feed advertising offering "very soon" (as alarm:clock mused about a few days back). Beyond that, the company has a few other ideas up its proverbial sleeve, which I've hinted at before on these pages... more when appropriate on that front.

As for my inclusion in the press release... As I've mentioned before, I've been testing Feed advertising (with Moreover's FeedDirect and Pheedo) privately, and intend to do the same with Feedster (and FeedBurner, if they'll have me). I haven't done anything on the HTML front, and really hadn't intended to, but I'm very curious about the consistency between ads in HTML vs. RSS for a given posting, and this seems like a good opportunity to evaluate that too.

I'll report back anything of note over the next few weeks.

Update: Here's the press release text...

Feedster, Inc., an Internet search engine that provides timely and meaningful information from blogs and RSS feeds, and AdBrite, “The Internet’s Ad Marketplace”, today announced that they are partnering to offer blog publishers the most complete suite of tools for buying and selling ads.

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) April 21, 2005 -- Feedster, Inc., an Internet search engine that provides timely and meaningful information from blogs and RSS feeds, and AdBrite, “The Internet’s Ad Marketplace”, today announced that they are partnering to offer blog publishers the most complete suite of tools for buying and selling ads.

“AdBrite makes it easy for bloggers to earn money by connecting them directly with interested advertisers. Using AdBrite, the only thing bloggers need to do is write their blog, approve ads, and cash checks,” said Philip Kaplan, CEO of AdBrite. “We are pleased to offer the Feedster community the opportunity to join the more than 4,000 sites already taking advantage of AdBrite’s ever-growing Internet ad marketplace.”

“We’ve partnered with AdBrite because we have similar objectives in our approach to advertising. This program enables both high volume blogs and smaller, highly targeted properties to generate revenue,” said Chris Redlitz, VP, Feedster. “Smaller sites also profit from Feedster's direct sales efforts to high profile advertisers. Publishers in our Network will gain access to advertisers they couldn’t sell to on an individual basis.”

The program is easy to use and offers the highest payout in the business. After a simple set up process, publishers can set rates, specify placement and approve or reject site-specific ads.. Advertisers can search to find individual blogs and customize ad copy for each property or purchase run-of-network ads. Statistical analysis provides easy ROI tracking, historical pricing, and response projections. More information is available at http://adbrite.feedster.com

The partnership with AdBrite is the first opportunity for publishers who sign up for the Feedster Media Network to monetize their traffic. Publishers can soon earn revenue from ads in RSS feeds and Podcasts. Prominent blogs such as Buzzhit, Metroblogs, Lockergnome, Bittsplitter, Muniwireless, and SkypeJournal are charter publishers in the network.

About AdBrite
AdBrite is a marketplace for buying and selling ads online. More than 4,000 websites use AdBrite’s “Your Ad Here” functionality to sell ads directly to their visitors. Thousands of advertisers browse AdBrite’s online marketplace to find sites to place ads at a flat fee. AdBrite gives publishers full control over ad pricing, layout, and approval. AdBrite was founded by Philip Kaplan, the creator of F**ckedCompany.com and is backed by Sequoia Capital.

About Feedster
Feedster is a rapidly growing Internet search engine that provides timely and meaningful information to consumers and large Internet sites in need of targeted media. Feedster provides a fresh index across over 6 million RSS feeds and over 100,000 professional feeds several times per hour, adding millions of new documents daily. The company’s content management and developer platform powers content syndication for targeted vertical categories such as sports. jobs, products, politics, and rich media feeds. Feedster is privately funded by a number of industry luminaries, New York Angels, and Omidyar Network. For more information go to: www.feedster.com# # #

One page to rule them all... Here's a single page that links to all of the individual session posts.
A very important note: NONE of the participant comments should be assumed to be direct quotes; I did my best to capture the essence of what was said (with no intent to make any one look good, bad, etc). If you were a session panelist or keynoter and see something that's obviously wrong, please drop me an email or leave a comment

Also, all notes are raw; none have or will be proofed... take 'em or leave 'em, or, buy the DVD for $99! ;->


Event: Kelsey Group Drilling Down on Local Search 2005

Dates: April 19-20, 2005

Day 1:

• The Emerging Online-Offline Paradigm [Core PPT Supplemental PPT]
• Consumers and the New Multi-Channel Reality
• The comScore-Overture Study: Findings and Implications [PPT]
• Keynote: Udi Manber, CEO, A9.com
• Online Word of Mouth: Blogs, RSS and Social Networks [missing, as I was a panelist... if you have notes you're willing to share openly, please email me a link or full text so that I may post it]
• SMEs and Sites: Crossing the 50% Threshold
• Fixed Fee, Guaranteed Clicks: Turning Search into Yellow Pages
• Pay-per-Call: Update from the Field
• Mapping the Future of Local Search

Day 2:

• Keynote: Lincoln Millstein, SVP, Hearst Newspapers [PPT]
• Newspapers: Sleeping Giants or Just Asleep? [Supplemental PPT]
• The Future of Online Classifieds
• Blurring the Picture: Cable TV, Video Search and Local Directional Media
• Keynote Address: Paul Reddick, VP, Sprint [PPT]
• How Far Away Is Mobile—Really?
• Branding and the Future of Search Marketing

Update: Kelsey Group has posted Speaker PowerPoint decks [PPT] and additional presentations they think you'd value [Supplemental PPT]. I've added links here for convenience.

Event: Kelsey Group Drilling Down on Local Search 2005

Session Title: Branding and the Future of Search Marketing

Session Date: April 20, 2005

Session Time: 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm

Session Description:
Search engine marketing built a nearly US$4 billion empire largely on being a direct response medium, matching sellers with consumers who were “ready to buy.” But now that search has become the hottest form of online advertising, brand marketers and large agencies are starting to invest. As more and more branding dollars flood into search—as a comparatively inexpensive advertising medium—what are the implications for advertisers and the medium itself? While it will certainly boost revenues in the near and medium term, will it ultimately help or hurt search engine marketing? Will small businesses be shut out, or will search become highly segmented and stratified?

Session Participants:
Jake Baillie, Product Manager, TrueLocal
Daniel Boberg, Senior Director, Strategic Alliances, Overture
Barbara Coll, CEO, WebMama.com, Chair & President, SEMPO Inc.
Matt Naeger, VP & General Counsel, IMPAQT
Mark Josephson, SVP, Marketing & Business Development, Kanoodle
Rob Middleton, EVP, Chief Strategy Officer, Fathom Online
Justin Sanger, President, LocalLaunch!
Richard Zwicky, Founder & CEO, Metamend Software & Design Ltd.

Related Posts: buzzhit!'s Drilling Down on Local Search 2005 Index Page

Session Details[*]:

Q: Can online properities such as CBS Marketwatch match the offline revenue generation?

Coll: Only if CBS can raise its prices...

Q: How big can the market grow...

Sanger: You create more inventory by continuing to publish; you also do this by moving offsite, by moving offset (contextual advertising)

Josephson: Perhaps community newspapers aren't being efficient in driving traffic to local advertisers...

Naeger: At the publisher level, you could be doing much more sophisticated segmentation to grow advertising rates.

Q: So that goes both to targeting capability and price increases, and to inventory

Naeger: People will be able to pay more if they are getting better conversion

Boberg: As more consumers use local products, advertisers are becoming more active. Targeting will play a role, but dollars will move as consumers adopt

Coll: It's a stretch to think that people will click the local button/tab; it might be 6 months, it might be three years (user education)

Q: Can you generate the revenues on a schedule that the (stock) marketplace is demanding? How are we going to train the users so that the inventory is going to be developed? How do we monetize the Tail?

Naeger: You can train users, but you can also use demographic information as a proxy for local targeting. I'm not a believer that contextual is the future

Josephson: Targeting via context is only one way; context is one way, behavior is another, geo is another, etc. We need to do a better job of educating the marketplace

Q: Advertisers will be able to pay more over time as targeting technologies improve

Josephson: Advertising is demanding more control and transparency; sponsored link providers will be more proactive in providing services in the way that large advertisers demand they work

Boberg: Clearly there's value around the search funnel; it's not all direct response, direct reaction. There's value throughout the marketing funnel. That will open up more dollars.

Middleton: More dollars are going to flow in as TV sags; not clear that Internet has the infrastructure to handle more dolalrs

Q: Isn't there a ceiling due to scarce inventory?

Baillie: I see advertisers who don't know how to use the tools they already have. Education and tool development are big problems

Coll: Advertisers think they can't brand via search; they can uplift their brand. Yahoo!'s op is in convincing advertisers to buy their own brand name

Middleton: People ask why they should buy their names if they are in organics; we did a controlled test, removing the sponsored listing... traffic fell off 27%

Zwicky: We had a similar situation, traffic went down but so did spend

Boberg: There are 100Ms of Tail searches that are untapped; more will be created as query length increases

Sanger: Most of our small biz customers don't care about branding, they care about conversions. Most of the marketplaces serve the highest bidded ad instead of the most relevant one

Q: Keep talking about it...

Sanger: If you look at Yahoo Local, "flower san jose", you get geographic IP targeting + local match (that's good: you're showing local advertisers to a local query, segmenting local answers out to local consumers). If you run the same search on Google, you get FTD, 1-800 Flowers. This is causing what's being perceived as an inventory shortage

Coll: I think there are national advertisers who will take advantage of the local opps; same thing happens in Yellow Pages. Their goal is to completely saturate listings in every city; small businesses can't compete.

Boberg: Local advertisers are looking for conversion; that's been true; people are looking for ROI, direct conversion. In YP, you're looking at $30 leads; isn't a lot of that brand advertising

Baillie: People talk about keyword space like it's all the same. For flowers, you're probably looking for a local guy; for rental cars, you're probably looking for Hertz, not Joe's Cars.

Q: Isn't the best way to train users to provide local results; isn't there a fundamental paradox if the inventory gets gobbled up by large national advertisers?

Zwicky: Customers fundamentally care about ROI. Down the road we're going to use speech, so inventory will explode as no one will phrase things exactly the same

Q: Back to previous question

Zwicky: I agree with the premise, but there are permutations. If you're in SJ searching for something in SJ, it'll be local. If you're in Chicago searching for something in SJ, you'll get national brands

Coll: Not going to work until we're mobile and have GPS; IP sniffing is useless

Josephson: Gotta rank advertisers by yield, not just bidded amount

Q: Don't you get into a contradiction? Isn't the motivation to take the national ad dollars

Josephson: The goal is to create an effective marketplace to bid for user attention, based on user decisions. Everyone wins.

Baillie: For loca, we toss out everyone who doesn't have a physical presence (all the aggregators, online presence only, etc); freeing up the inventory for local businesses

Josephson: And we're held accountable by our distribution partners for yield; if you rank on yield, advertisers generating more clicks can bid less. Yield rank creates better relevance

Boberg: Relance is king. Results have to be good or users won't use it. We have seen categories were local advertisers can outbid national aggregators; floral, dental. It just depends on the category.

Naeger: It still comes down to the value of the person who did the search and where they want to go. I have a problem with large national advertisers being blown out of the listings. Home Depot is my local hardware store.

Sanger: Search is splintering and segmenting; engines are infatuated with user intent. One search box is not where search is going. The brilliant part of the Internet is that it can drill down into human behavior. Engines will be forced to create an experience that coincides with human experience

Naeger: The problem is that users don't use IYP, they use Google. Education.

Coll: It comes down to a question being answered and the most relevant answer being delivered. We'll figure out how to respond to the question. How can you do that without understanding user behavior.

Q: Will the marketplace tolerate 8-9 years?

Coll: I don't think industry analysts be that patient, Greg [laugh]

Q: Will SERPs be segmented with local in one pane?

Sanger: Users will demand that search meets their needs. Vertical plays are exploding because they can provide specific answers that horizontal search can't.

Naeger: Aren't you really talkin about the evolution of what the user does, versus what the search engine does. Users are educating us as much as we're educating them.

Coll: This gets back to the question of whether analysts and Wall St. will wait. Portals need to invest in the user experience instead of other places. Where do those R&D dollars come from when the pressure is on making money now?

Josephson: The largest gating factor in offline spend moving online is the brand manager not getting it. But as people with more online experience move up the food chain, things will change

Audience Q: Are you seeing click fraud in Local and what are you doing

Sangster: Click fraud is more prevelant for SMEs than at the national level. The deeper you get, the more fraud you see

Boberg: We see click fraud as a serious but manageable one. We have a dedicated team to address it, continually improving algorithms and filtering clicks

Coll: I have to agree with Justin; SMEs have limited budgets, competitive click fraud a big issue

Josephson: It's interesting to see what providers have and haven't said about it. Yahoo's done a great job. We don't want to tell people what we're doing, because it will help them game it. We all have systems and technology. Everyone looks at every click.

Baillie: The issue isn't engines not detecting it; it's that businesses aren't tracking it. Click fraud will continue to be more and more prevelant until advertisers look at their clicks. Detection and prevention is years behind what's going on. Engines can't see the activity on your site; half the responsibility is the advertisers

Audience Q: Back to voice search... is this realistic, and if so, will avatars come back to brand

Zwicky: No idea on avatars, but I see natural language voice search as a natural evolution

Kelsey: Are Google and Yahoo trying to be all things to all people... what happens when NP and YP provide a great search experience, will I go to them instead of Yahoo/Google Local? They don't have the same challenge with national advertisers? Will there be many search engines instead of just a couple biggies

Coll: That hasn't been proven. MSN is doing great things, don't forget them. Yahoo has always tried to offer users everything; they're a portal. There's a huge OEM business servicing the NP and YP; that's who powers most of their search and contextual now

Sanger: In Chicago if you want restaurant results, you use MetroMix; Tribune company. You can't drill down as a horizontal player. I think you're right John

Q: Does it build out where aggregators own the front page and drive people to local sites... Say whatever you want

Boberg: We really value choice in the marketplace; consumers determine what's relevant. I think there's a lot of room for a lot of players to create a robust experience.

* These are raw, unproofed notes taken in real-time. Nothing attributed to any speaker should be assumed to be an exact quote. Rather, my goal was to capture and communicate the essence of what was said. If there is a significant mistake, please post a comment or email me; I will make a correction at my earliest opportunity.

Event: Kelsey Group Drilling Down on Local Search 2005

Session Title: How Far Away Is Mobile—Really?

Session Date: April 20, 2005

Session Time: 2:15 pm – 3:15 pm

Session Description:
A potentially big component of the interactive local media market is wireless/mobile. There are roughly 1.5 billion mobile phone subscribers around the globe and approximately 170 million Americans that have wireless phones. The conventional wisdom holds that a lookup (whether DA or wireless Web) on a mobile device reflects an immediate consumer need and is therefore a highly qualified local lead. And as most of the directory publishers and search engines ramp up wireless products, the question is, how far off is a bona fide mobile search opportunity? Is it simply another distribution platform, or will it be separately monetized through usage fees and/or distinct advertising revenue? What needs to happen before widespread consumer adoption can take place?

Session Participants:
Stephen R. Baker, Head of Emerging Applications; VP, eBusiness, Fast Search & Transfer
Oscar Berg, Product Manager, Mobility, Eniro
Heath Clarke, CEO, Interchange
Ali Diab, Sr. Director, Local Products, Yahoo!
Joe Herzog, Director, Emerging Products, InfoSpace
Brian Lent, President & CTO, Medio Systems

Related Posts: buzzhit!'s Drilling Down on Local Search 2005 Index Page

Session Details[*]:

Q: What are the differences between US, Europe and Asia in usage, technology, etc to provide context

Clarke: European markets lead wireless usage by a few years; conversely Internet is a few years ahead here. 30% of directory assistance is intiated SMS in Europe (still for fee). 54% CAGR in text messaging for the past few years.

Herzog: In US, expect more of what Yahoo and Infospace offer; driving from computer to phone; PC applications will lead.

Diab: I think it's interesting that some think Europe is ahead; technologically speaking, I think things are at parity now. Business models different; US carriers have much more control. As they lose control here, they're gaining more in Europe. One thing that's different here is the luxury of the web here; most Europeans don't have Internet access; mobile applications become a substitute there. Americans are also car bound; integration of web services (satellite radio, etc) will grow here.

Q: Will handset makers have a bigger roll in defining the applications/services than today?

Berg: Definitely. People buy mobiles because what they do, contain. It's very personal; always in your pocket.

Q: So will the gatekeeper transition to manufacturer or carrier

Herzog: I think you're going to see bundled devices and services; I don't think the carrier gatekeeper changes

Diab: I think the handset makers will continue to lose power; more and more manufacturers from Korea, etc., leads to fragmentation. Carriers will become more important, especially for client-based applications on the mobile; that'll be carrier dependent

Lent: I think it depends on who exposes the services; US carriers have a great deal of control over what goes into the phone

Diab: Carriers control the handset data

Clarke: To the extent that services are provisioned over the web, carriers and manufacturers lose control; the consumer has ultimate control

Q: To what extent have we not yet arrived at the "right" device; GPS. Is it just around the corner?

Herzog: Right device + network + application, made easy for the end user. We're close, but not there. Apps are still hard to find, slow. 40% YOY replacement rate. We're probably 18 months out

Q: What does the device look like? Treo, Blackberry

Herzog: That plus non-qwerty based devices; triple-tapping not an issue for certain age groups. Advances in voice technologies will improve things

Diab: Not a device issue at all. It needs to be as easy to access as typing 411; now you need to fire up a browser, nav, etc.

Clarke: Pysical device challenges, keyboard, screen. Local search even on the Internet isn't where it needs to be. 300K pages aren't it; first result or two needs to be spot on to deliver the right experience on mobile

Lent: 600M+ devices last year; how many were full keyboard, etc. Gotta work for devices people want to carry

Berg: All depends on what people want to do; for Internet use, it's gotta be bigger screen and keyboard. So much variance in device capabilities, form factors; makes it harder

Baker: A lot depends on the client application; a lot of European YPs are prototyping clients now; allows you to build in personalization, etc.

Q: How do you deliver relevance on a mobile device if we're still struggling online? What are the advertising impacts

Clarke: Consumer experience is everything. Might have to forgo advertising revenue to grow the marketplace. We don't allow non-geographic regions.

Baker: Very little room around advertising for first query. The opportunity is to upsell transaction services (for movie search, ask about restaurant reservation or parking garage)

Lent: Perdictive analytics will help winnow the set. The carrier needs to be involved; they have all sorts of data on you as a mobile user that can help target results (+ GPS)

Herzog: Many usability challenges; low psychology barrier

Diab: You generally don't dial 411 for something 300 yards away; the pressure to generate revenue is less than on the web, because they're making money on the 411 call to begin with

Q: Privacy issues...

Lent: Amazon uses a lot of personalized information; it's not about using it, but not letting it loose

Herzog: There's a big difference between using that information for the users benefit, vs. selling that information to third parties.

Q: What's the business model that's going to serve everyone and drive mass adoption

Lent: Two major phases. Current and 3 years out. 3 yrs out, it will be CPA based, cost per call, etc, once the infrastructure is built out. Near term its about supporting the carrier who ones the relationship; driving loyalty, bandwidth and minute usage, etc.

Baker: Generic directory assitance is under pressure by what Google and Yahoo are doing; it's about enhanced services, where there's value add (restaurant example again)

Diab: Agree that it's value added service. Yahoo doesn't believe spamming people on the phone is a good idea. We think that there is an opportunity to provide complimentary services to the carrier and share in the revenue

Q: How big is the market in 5 years

Lent: 2.5x as many mobile devices as PCs. Average price-per-call is $20.00 vs. PPC of $0.30; could be the first trillion dollar market [being provocative, intentionally]

Baker: Advertisers will be willing to pay more for local PPC

Diab: I think it'll be a $0B network as WiFi, which is effectively free, becomes widely available

Q: Look-ups are going to be for smaller items from the car, not looking for a divorce attorney

Lent: True, but there's a volume game here. In a mobile environment, you're probably much more likely to complete the transaction

Clarke: The consumer who calls up and doesn't know the business name is the opp in 411, and that's less than 1% of calls

Herzog: Music, ring tones, games, etc; premium data services will be the third largest opp, not first or tenth

Q: How do these competing models impact each other; for example, Google giving away 1GB of storage destroyed Yahoo's mail storage upsell model

Diab: Not any different than any other industry, models can coexist, depending on user needs, frequency of use... they'll subscribe, pay per use, etc

Herzog: Winner is free to end user, best ease of use, and revenue bearing for the carrier. At first, high end phone clients, end users will pay a fee per month; it'll drop to zero over time, subsidized by advertising. They'll tolerate it as long as there's rev share

Lent: I agree with Joe... the mobile industry is the only communication industry that hasn't been ad supported (TV, Radio, Internet, etc all are); must be free to users, though some fee for bandwidth (spectrum costs billions of dollars).

Q: What about SMEs? Is this big box only? Who gets SMEs in front of users

Clarke: It's search. It's value add or upsell to existing advertisers.

Lent: Who owns the relationship? I want to advertise to mobile users in my area... but that's across 5 carriers. Seems like a great opportunity to leapfrog to a CPA model.

Q: Does that impact the Internet model (in reverse)

Lent: Don't know if it accelerates it, but online is going there anway

Clarke: Certain industries lend themselves to CPA, CPC, CPM, etc. Enormous challenges in tracking CPA

Diab: Advertisers will be reluctant to pay a fee for someone who was looking for them anyway (i.e., without promotion). Transaction rev share does make sense in a duplex medium

Berg: We're one stop; all channels; mobile is bundled with Internet (WAP service)

Q: What do you do to get people with WAP/data enabled phones to use those services

Berg: Multi-channel answer; Yahoo's got the right idea, SMS from PC to phone... WAP link in the SMS would be perfect

Diab: We do

Mod Comment: And Infoseek just did that today

Q: Focus group were all heavy Internet, had phones that could do data, but weren't. What's the biggest constraint

Lent: Quality of experience, results, etc. Handset button should be "search" not "web"

Baker: No transparency for customers as to what it costs; I never know how much I'm going to be charged, when I can just do it on my PC

Herzog: It's the unknown of the packet fee charge; bills can be very expensive, $100s. Sprints "Vision" flat fee is the right direction

Audience Q: If WiMax frees us from carrier control, what happens

Herzog: WiMax will open up broadband, making it cheaper, but no impact on mobility

Lent: Regulatory issues if WiMax becomes a primary form of communication

Audience Q: Will users need to be retrained to use shorter querries?

Baker: Query transformation will help us get closer to what users want with shorter strings as the technology improves

Herzog: There's also the ability to use SMS-lingo query

Clarke: I think that makes it harder, let's stick with English. 20-27% of YP searches fail as it is. [Ed: Sterling says that data is a year old]

Q: A year out, what are the one or two issues that have been solved, or advanced

Herzog: Query intelligence and location based services

Lent: Resolving more information about location

Clarke: Disambiguation of search from wireless devices

Baker: Client-side applications

Berg: Simple user interface with location abilities

Diab: Carriers will make location info more available; user interfaces will improve; devices will be faster, more pleasing to look at

* These are raw, unproofed notes taken in real-time. Nothing attributed to any speaker should be assumed to be an exact quote. Rather, my goal was to capture and communicate the essence of what was said. If there is a significant mistake, please post a comment or email me; I will make a correction at my earliest opportunity.

Event: Kelsey Group Drilling Down on Local Search 2005

Session Title: Keynote Address: Paul Reddick, VP, Sprint

Session Date: April 20, 2005

Session Time: 1:30 pm – 2:15 pm

Session Description: None

Session Participants:
Paul Reddick, VP, Business Development, Strategy, and Planning, Sprint

Related Posts: buzzhit!'s Drilling Down on Local Search 2005 Index Page

Session Details[*]:

- Data revenue growing; constitutes 10% ($6 of $60/mth) of monthly avg subscriber bill
- 61% domestic mobile penetration; 67% by 2007
- 1x data services out (144k); moving to EV-DO (330k+)
- Handset processor speeds improving; memory expanding as well, hard drives on the horizon

Why?

- People want to be un-thethered
- Assumed "access to the world"

Three core developments:
- Location based service; the ability to know where the device is
- Near field communication; the ability of the device to communicate with nearby objects
- Mobile payments; using the device to authorize payments

Application types:
- Communication: voice, email, IM, chat
- Entertainment: pictures, music, videos, gaming
- Information: click, internet, contact list
- Transactions: scheduling, purchases

-> Watch for more use of "short codes" in advertisements

Mobile Entertainment
- Games: $204M in 2004, $1.4B in 2008
- Music: $316M in 2004, $1.4B in 2008
- Video: $53M, $3.2B in 2008
- Local relevance: multiplayer community games, locally generated content, geographically licensed content

Communities and Communications
- Community Networks: mobile communities and peers; builds strong loyalty and enables word-of-mouth and peer recommendations
- Local relevance: location filters on IM buddy list, friend finders, push-to-talk "areas" and mobile blogs

Mobile Information
- Mobile local search; paid search will come, but the focus first is on user experience, not returning dozens of results
- Navigation/mapping; where am I relative to things - WaveMarket doing clever stuff
- Yellow pages; much like search...
- Traffic/Weather Alerts
- Points-of-interest
- Events (entertainment / sports)

Mobile Transactions - Targeted Advertising
- Advertising pull (e.g., short codes); can be reserved across carriers (basically a GUID)
- VERY targeted advertising push
- Movie ticket purchased while en route; i.e., "closing the deal"
- Fast food purchased at POS

Audience Q: Do you ever see free wireless, free mobile via advertising?

Reddick: I'm not bullish on full subsidy. I'd love to be able to offset some fees via advertising. Wireless mobile has a cost to transport; a 3 minute clip at 300K costs $0.10 a minute, going down to $0.05

Audience Q: With improvements in Voice XML, what's the possibility for voice search?

Reddick: I think there's great utility; it's a good front end for 411 services (what state are you in, etc); also good for driving. But, when you're at home, or just somewhere where you can text, it seems less useful.

Audience Q: Location based services have been coming "next year" for 4-5 years?

Reddick: Read the press in the coming days. Look at what Nextel is doing with GPS. We'll be launching some services this year. It has been painful, but it really will be this year; not everything that can be done, but a solid start

Audience Q: Are you looking at product comparison via camera phone shots of UPC codes?

Reddick: Yeah, more than just cameras and UPC codes though; could even analyze an album cover and determine if you have the ring tone. RFID chips will be $0.10 soon; waving a handset over a movie poster (RFID enabled), could tell you who's playing the movie nearby, transact on tickets

Q: How do you educate consumers to move them up the path

Reddick: One of the biggest challenges. All this functionality, but who uses it? We're hoping some of it is relevant to each person. Looking for help from those who profit from all this taking off, e.g., media companies

Q: Don't these services destroy your directory assistance business

Reddick: Don't get in the way of things that will better serve your customer; we won't restrict access to good services just to protect something (even though it's a great, high margin business)

* These are raw, unproofed notes taken in real-time. Nothing attributed to any speaker should be assumed to be an exact quote. Rather, my goal was to capture and communicate the essence of what was said. If there is a significant mistake, please post a comment or email me; I will make a correction at my earliest opportunity.

Event: Kelsey Group Drilling Down on Local Search 2005

Session Title: Blurring the Picture: Cable TV, Video Search and Local Directional Media

Session Date: April 20, 2005

Session Time: 11:15 am – 12:00 pm

Session Description:
Blurring the Picture: Cable TV, Video Search and Local Directional Media Video on demand, digital video recorders and Internet TV: All these innovations give viewers more and more control over TV content and, potentially, TV advertising. Do these consumer-oriented developments fundamentally transform TV from the once-preeminent branding vehicle for national advertisers into a directional medium with localization potential? What are the implications for cable companies, telecom companies, online publishers, consumers and local advertisers? And what about the proliferation of online video search? Will the Internet become a de facto broadcast medium and search engines the new networks?

Session Participants:
Steve Cook, VP, Programming & Ad Sales, TWC/Road Runner
Eitan Gelbaum, Marketing Director, Amdocs Advertising & Media Division
Bradley Horowitz, Director, Multimedia & Desktop Search, Yahoo!
Karen Howe, VP & General Manager, Singingfish.com
Warren Schlichting, VP, New Business Strategies, Comcast

Related Posts: buzzhit!'s Drilling Down on Local Search 2005 Index Page

Session Details[*]:

Q: Provocative question... broadcast media advertising model will collapse... agree or disagree, and will the Internet take over?

Howe: Television advertising will decend by 20% over the next 5 years... that's a large amount... that will put downward pressure on it, but it won't collapse it. Online will soak up some, but not all. Product placement may be a factor

Q: Factor Tivo into all of this; 70% skip ads

Schlicting: $60B business, fast forwarding isn't good. But consumers are in control; you can't fight that. If they don't like the model, where do you go. It's not clear that CPM expectations have moved accordingly. Interactive TV is directional

Cook: Collapse is a strong word. I think you're going to see dollars shift to where they're most efficient, and that will happen in verticals (like automotive), due to consumers researching purchases online, etc. People will want to consume media when/where they want it. Test marketing a time-shifting model where commercials can't be skipped [Ed: Wow, they really don't get it...]

Gelbaum: Technology enables highly targeted advertising, at least the way Telecomm's will deploy (IP-TV, Internet-TV). That requires a set-top box; each is uniquely identifiable. The interactive nature also allows people to conduct searches, using a very intuitive interface; 40% of households have 3 TVs. Enabling more interaction between the consumer and the medium

Horowitz: One thing that could drive the collapse is P-2-P file sharing like BitTorrent; getting a show that's aired on the East coast before it's aired on the West coast will drive change. There are some steep barriers with video than music, but if that were to start to happen, that would drive a point to point model vs broadcast.

Schlicting: The question is, can search support network television? And by the way, is network television relevant. One of the big questions is, will people search for video, to the decline of television video. They probably will. To what extent is the question. On the other hand, that's a legacy business that people are trying to protect. What happens with video blogging

Howe: People who use audio/video search are 16-24, they use it every day, rate it more important than email or IM. They use it concurrently with other activities; fractured, distracted audience. Studied 3000 kids across 40 campuses, they'd lose the TV before the Internet; it's that important to them. And there's different types of content being created; it's mostly short-form, 30 minutes or less... but that might shift. Content creators think about extending their market.

Horowitz: We see this trend; a shift from Head content to Tail content.... recently acquired Flickr, which is entirely user generated. Community that invests a lot of time, avid consumers, in building content. Will eventually apply to all forms of media. Jib-Jab ended up getting a deal with Yahoo for their content; moved from Tail to Head.

Howe: If you look at the production tools today, they're coming down market, making it easier and cheaper to generate content [Ed: Exactly what I said on the panel yesterday!]

Q: Will the money be available to create high quality shows... impossible for an individual to duplicate. Will those shows be available if people abandon the traditional model supported if the national reach disappears

Howe: People will pay for great stuff.... 80% of people do not [Ed: Bogus... that's a //service// number, e.g., dating sites, not content]

Q: What will be a hit show?

Schlicting: A hit is a profitable show; you don't need a lot of people if it only cost $6k to create

Cook: Does user generated content devalue professional content

Howe: The opposite happens; we all got tools that educated us, improved content [desktop pub reference]

Q: So that ad model of the future is verticalization, contextual relevance, and targeting ala IP-TV. Reach is no longer possible?

Gelbaum: Yes. Again, you must consider the interactive nature of search. The cost to get them on IP-TV is low. The data is there. We need to consider the passive, laid-back exposure to advertising, vs. allowing users to ask for information.

Q: Warren, Steve... your rev is not directional advertising; it's awareness and creative. How attractive is YP advertising, is it appealing?

Schlicting: Absolutely appealing... We bring the local nature of cable, we bring video... there are certain verticals where video is a bonus, upselling classifieds. We bring not only targeting and transaction, but also intent and awareness. You can't forget about branding going forward; just looks different

Q: So you'll be involved in the next 12 months

Schlicting: Yes

Cook: Cable is local by nature. Feet on the street in all of these markets. How do we get people to transition from buying YP to video. Targeted advertising is very interesting; a little easier to experiment online... some privacy issues on the video side.

Q: Can telecomm make the transition from delivering dial-tone to entertainment, and do they have the right to play in that space vs. MTV, etc.

Gelbaum: They will succeed because they have no choice. They are driven by the realities of the triple plays offered by the cable companies. No reps from telephone companies here. Hearing very aggressive talk; do or die.

Schlicting: Haven't heard that the RBOCs just want to be a pipe... they want to acquire content, upcharge, etc. Where do they draw the line?

Gelbaum: I don't see them going into programming. I see them trying to differentiate their offering. We can give you games, movie lsitings, order pizza, unified communications within the home?

Q: When does Yahoo announce Yahoo Studios

Horowitz: If planned, they haven't told me. We have created a media group, but that's focused on deals like the Apprentice deal... support and cross promotion of traditional broadcast; partnering with producers of content.

Q: Final remarks

Howe: We're talking about future possibilities.. the reality is people will do audio search, not video search. 3% of the population is interested in commerce on TV; 11% are interested in games.

Cook: We have to make this as seamless and easy as possible in order to drive adoption. Will people really pay for it? People don't really fast-forward through programs. [Ed: Huh?!]

Horowitz: I was surprised that the issue of IP didn't come up more... rights issues, licensing issues, when content moves online needs to be discussed... it actually pushes us toward the Tail, as Tail producers aren't worried about cannabilizing existing distribution

* These are raw, unproofed notes taken in real-time. Nothing attributed to any speaker should be assumed to be an exact quote. Rather, my goal was to capture and communicate the essence of what was said. If there is a significant mistake, please post a comment or email me; I will make a correction at my earliest opportunity.

Event: Kelsey Group Drilling Down on Local Search 2005

Session Title: The Future of Online Classifieds

Session Date: April 20, 2005

Session Time: 10:30 am – 11:15 am

Session Description:
Classified advertising is a multi-billion dollar market, which is moving online. The rise of the Internet as a source of local classified listings and a range of new classifieds providers (many of them free) are putting pressure on traditional publishers, especially newspapers. Does the future of local classifieds reside in classified search sites such as oodle.com, local marketplaces like Craiglist, vertical sites or highly targeted communities that offer contextually relevant listings? The panelists, who represent a range of new classifieds sites, will discuss their models and where they believe the overall market is going.

Session Participants:
Craig Donato, CEO, oodle.com
Konstantin Guericke, VP, Marketing, & Co-Founder, LinkedIn
Mike Hogan, CEO, ZiXXo Inc.
Peter Krasilovsky, President, Krasilovsky Consulting
Rajesh Navar, CEO, LiveDeal
Mark Pincus, Founder & CEO, Tribe.net

Related Posts: buzzhit!'s Drilling Down on Local Search 2005 Index Page

Session Details[*]:

Q: Offline classifieds, dominated by newspapers, is a multi-billion dollar industry. Do you see classifieds moving completely online, if so when, and economic impact

Krasilovsky: Aside from Craigslist, classifieds are being verticalized. It's all moving online

Q: Then do newspapers become second tier?

Pincus: This is really about the need for a consolidated local marketplace. We're fooling ourselves if we think newspapers are in danger near term; they're the only ones who have consolidated the local marketplace. It will all move online; the question is who will provide it... newspapers are well positioned.

Donato: It's moving online quickly; classifieds are better online... you can add pictures, more words, searchable. Superior experience.

Hogan: The experience is so much richer online. Easier to do research online. There will be segmentation, but the meat will all be online

Navar: Online you can provide free listings; you create revenue via PPC. Newspapers won't disappear, but what if classified revenue goes from $17B to $7B...

Q: There's been lots of organic classifieds, people putting "Garage Sale" on a telephone poll

Pincus: 85% of classified selling goes through non-traditional media (i.e., not commercial). Online represented 2% [2002 numbers]

Guericke: Monster drove 2% of job placements vs. 34% by employee referrals [ed: for a specific agency, name missed]

Navar: There is an opportunity to grow the market. Offenses need an offensive play; must partner with a technology play, leveraging distribution and cash flow

Donato: The fundamental business model, upfront fees, is being undercut by players like Craigslist. Big players like Yahoo are entering the market

Q: Will all online classifieds eventually be free?

Donato: A basic online listing will be free; upgrades will be available. Print will be an upgrade. But probably all P4P based.

Pincus: It seems fairly obvious that every classified site will have something free, and tons of aggregators (search engines) will aggregate everyone. Just like search engines, you'll be trying to optimize for free (SEO), but there will be upsells available (PPC).

Donato: I think the current pricing model alienates folks, driving them all to Craigslist. C-2-C will all be free (rooms for rent, etc). You can't afford to alienate whole segments if you're going to be a big player

Guericke: People get flooded with resumes when they put a job out. Crossing with social networking creates referrals, allowing employers to winnow. Listings will be a commodity; value added services will be the difference.

Hogan: The basic classified listing will be free, and it will get more and more rich: pictures, video, etc. Everything is free, but rising above the din will cost [Ed: essentially what Pincus said]

Navar: Ultimately it comes down to perfromance. [Ed: Essentially advocates a CPA approach]

Q: At Zixxo, I noticed that there's something called an ISR (Independent Sales Rep). Can you explain that, how it's working, why it's right

Hogan: We believe that word-of-mouth is critical. The local rep is feet on the street. Local businesses don't want cold calls; they want someone to explain it to them. We do have a self-service model, where we're making it easier and easier. And of course, social networking is another interesting tweak on this. The ISRs are performing, but it's very much a chicken and egg situation.

Q: Network vs. being a destination site. To what extent are you predicated on being a destination site vs. distributing listings out to the Internet to be found... and how does the network effect your brand?

Pincus: What I said in the Fall was that we were being pretty insane in the industry; that we shouldn't be competing with each other. My point is that it's assinine to try to win on being a brand people know to come back to, to building a sales force. If you're InsiderPages or Judy's Book, you should be a Web Service, so that others like LinkedIn could just access them instead of having to build their own. From our perspective, we've built a lot of these things because we've had to. We're very open to sharing our technology and users; the platform we launched yesterday has that in mind (it can integrate everyone elses stuff). People can plug in the best photos, invites, etc. You've gotta decide what piece you want to be in the puzzle

Guericke: For LinkedIn, in order to compete you have to give away something free that isn't available elsewhere. For us, that's connecting with clients.

Navar: Distributors would be a great partner for us. When you're a destination site you have to worry about other stuff, consistent experience, etc.

Q: Peter, you've been noticably quiet...

Kraslivosky: AutoTrader says no way am I going to let oodle.com aggregate me. Craig, what's the answer to that

Donato: If you're in the business of taking classified listings, you're rep'ing a seller. If you're turning down traffic, you're doing the seller an injustice. Inventory is fluid. Search for classifieds is important to help classifieds grow because it helps the buyer. If anyone thinks they can be the one-stop shop, they probably don't want to work with us.

Pincus: Craig, I think there's a real question you're going to have to answer... I totally agree that an industry level there has to be an exchange... whether it's a company or a standard... but the question is... when you start to stick a brand on it, that you want people to come back to, it makes it unclear. Sure, LiveDeal would love to syndicate their listings, but not if its to a branded site that wants to get that customer to come back to them yet.

Donato: If I can provide qualified prospects to folks, I'm not sure that would be a bad thing.

Navar: Craig, I think you have a different chicken and egg problem. eBay wouldn't use Google 5 years ago. Maybe you need to commit that within verticals, you'll have to promise you'll never be a listing service

Audience Q: Google and Yahoo are going to offer free classifieds; doesn't that destroy the business, and... doesn't that just beg for more and more of it to be free?

Navar: Just because someone has the traffic doesn't mean they can do everything.

Pincus: I'd add... why has Craigslist become such a force. I think the reason that has happened is because Classifieds are about longevity and brand. Building the better mouse-trap won't get you anywhere in 12 months. It took Craigslist 9 years. People only use classifieds a couple of times a year; you use Craigslist because a friend had a great experience with it.

Q: Final thoughts...

Guericke: Network effect is critical on the Internet. Technology is a commodity. [Ed: We understand what he meant, he just said it wrong] You have to differentiate to charge

Krasilovsky: I have a lot of confidence that you'll be able to upsell people. Newspapers get 45% of their classified revenues from upsells (extra pictures, etc)

Navar: I don't believe there's time for 10 years of trial and error, which is what's happened so far

Hogan: In response to Yahoo or Google entering the market... their brands are associated with one thing. People don't explore around beyond that; people want best of breed. [Ed: $350MM in free cash flow reinvested into their current products, YOY, will move them toward best of bread across the network...]

* These are raw, unproofed notes taken in real-time. Nothing attributed to any speaker should be assumed to be an exact quote. Rather, my goal was to capture and communicate the essence of what was said. If there is a significant mistake, please post a comment or email me; I will make a correction at my earliest opportunity.

Event: Kelsey Group Drilling Down on Local Search 2005

Session Title: Newspapers: Sleeping Giants or Just Asleep?

Session Date: April 20, 2005

Session Time: 9:00 am – 10:00 am

Session Description:
Newspapers have powerful local brands and unique local content. But, as widely reported, their local revenues and subscriber base is under siege from Internet players on all sides. Though there are some notable exceptions, newspapers as an industry have yet to really mount a spirited defense of their turf online—although that could be changing. Will more newspapers and newspaper networks aggressively compete online for local users and SME revenues, including competing for directory advertisers? Or is the inertia of internal organizational and cultural issues too great to overcome against the accelerated pace of online development?

Session Participants:
Bob Armour, VP, Business Development, CrossMedia Services/ShopLocal
Mike Markson, VP, Business Development, Topix.net
Terry Millard, President, Planet Discover
Tom Mohr, President, Knight Ridder Digital
Jeff Moriarty, VP, Product & Technology, Boston.com
Leif Welch, VP, Business Development, IPIX

Related Posts: buzzhit!'s Drilling Down on Local Search 2005 Index Page

Session Details[*]:

Q: Has there been a change in Newspaper aggressiveness in the last couple of months, year?

Welch: The giants aren't asleep, certainly not over the last year. More like being in a daze. We're seeing small changes, not aggressive. Very fragmented, different behaviors from different players

Mohr: Newspapers vary in terms of their degree of sophistication. No question, it's been a learning curve since the mid-90s, lots of mistakes made. The commitment is there. I think we're gaining increasing competence in being a long-term successful player in the local space. We look at assets like CareerBuilder, Cars.com, etc along with our local sites as being powerful players.

Kelsey comment: You said we've made some mistakes. In my opinion, the only mistakes newspapers make is when they do nothing.

Mariarty: I think we've been asleep on classifieds, local search. We have a long way to go.

Millard: What we've seen over the past 12 months... 2004 was a lot of thinking about what local search is, since Jan 2005, we've started to see some action... proof of concepts, get in the market right or wrong, see how consumers and advertisers react. It's moved from thought to action.

Markson: I think newspapers are starting to realize that great brands aren't enough; you've got to have great technology. You're seeing Boston.com working with Feedster. The Three Bears investing in us.

Q: In an industry that has a lot of legacy systems, how does integration happen. How long will it take for newspapers to have the technology.

Markson: We're a 10 person shop in Palo Alto, mostly dev. But I'd say this is a Mohr question

Mohr: We're delighted with the relationship. We need to make sure we don't get too involved and integrated into what they're doing; we want them to have the freedom to do what they do. Long Tail play. Will integrate some Topix abilities into our site

Armour: [Ed: Back to first question] Acquired in May 2004, launched the destination site [ShopLocal] in 3 months. Pace is definitely accelerating from some key newspaper companies that are driving this

Q: The Three Bears are doing a lot of the driving. Tom, how do the Three Bears work together?

Mohr: It works very well, but it's a bit mystical. It's a collaborative relationship. The principles involved in the Boards are consistent across most of the holdings. Close, trusting relationship. Very little market overlap, so not competitive. Share a common vision for where things need to go.

Q: Could there be 2-3 newspaper brands in 5-10 years that serve the whole country, all largely drawing content from RSS Feeds?

Mohr: Clearly there will be national brands like the NY Times. But there's definitely a local play. Local traffic up 89% this year. Not all content is equal. Consumers are interested in what people write or rant about... but also want content from a trusted source with editorial they can rely on.

Markson: There's commoditization in national news; but not in local. Quality is definitely an issue in the blogosphere. There are only 500-1000 blogs in our crawl. Lots of meta-analysis.

Armour: In most small local markets, the newspaper is the dominant source

Mohr: Using HitBox to track reactions to stories in real-time. Newsrooms asking for live presentation in the newsroom, so that the assignment desk knows what the readers want.

Q: What are the innovative things that are going on in the newspaper space, and how are people responding to it? What's working?

Armour: We've been live for 6 months. Feedback is positive; we like the trusted brands. But we want more. We've got the big box players, but people want the local shops too. Newspapers are in the perfect position to do this. Then, how do we get into the YP market; some self-serve, some awareness

Q: How are the local retailers taking this opportunity

Mohr: We intend to aggressively leverage our existing relationships to populate ShopLocal with robust content

Welch: We see two consumer experience trends. We're seeing unique initiatives to compete against eBay and Craigslist; cheap and free classified listings. The point is to bring the consumers back; getting the readers to become advertisers. Second trend; great content, but not findable or dynamic... working on exposing this.

Moriarty: Blogging experiments; photo submissions. The question is how to get readers to think about us for more than just reading an article; getting them to transact (search, etc)... getting them to read a travel story, then book a trip.

Markson: Our focus is on making ads part of the content [ed: not literally] by making them highly contextually relevant; insulin pump ads with a diabetes article.

Q: What's the likelihood of NP and YP working together? What would make it likely

Markson: We view the search engines as the yellow pages. Through technology, they've turned YP ads into content [contextual] ads.

Welch: It makes so much sense on paper; lots of complimentary assets, salesforce, etc. In the NP side, we're still trying to get print and digital to work together. We've talked with YPs who would love to partner with NP; but in the end, there's zero action. Likely not something that'll happen in the next 5 years.

Millard: It'll only happen through acquisition

Mohr: Business case driven. The question is how do you leverage the synergies that creates incremental revenue. Agnostic, but open; skeptical.

Armour: Low, unless there's an acquisition. No JV, no partnership

Q: The fact that your competitors don't have these cultural barriers, that they can bring product sellers and service providers together creates a hole? What about that?

NO PANEL RESPONSE [Ed: So very telling... and so unfortunate]

Audience Q: AFP believes they are being exploited for $16.5M Are news aggregators exploiting creators, or are creators getting more than they give

Markson: If you're in the business of monetizing page views, more traffic is better. Most publishers see that. We have an opt-out policy; maybe 3-4 folks have done that. Unsolicited, we've had about 2K pubs ask to be part of the crawl. We distribute news to CitySearch, Ask Jeeves, etc.

Mohr: We're definitely in the distributed net side of this; some parties still want to be a walled garden. We want to be where consumers are.

Moriarty: We see 20% of our traffic from search engines; About.com is about 50%. We're looking for more traffic from the aggregators, not less

Audience Q: Newspapers have failed to bring their advertising franchise online; where do you see advertising revnue coming from

Mohr: We've been very focused in building an online classified offering. Free listing below $250, modest fees above. Launching print+online this summer. Craigslist has really opened up a new marketplace. We're focused on making sure that we provide the marketplace in most of our markets. CareerBuilder is increasing prices... and volumes! Overall take-rate is approaching 100%

Audience Q: What changes beyond hyperlinks will we see in the ways people interact with content

Moriarty: We're working with Feedster to link Red Sox player names with blogs. We're seeing a huge growth in video plays; 1.5-2MM plays per month. Lots of potential

Welch asks Q: You don't see many local advertisers in banner advertisers, contextual. Why not build your own Google Adsense?

Moriarty: In the process of implementing InDecka [sp?!]. Now we're looking to provide opportunities within a search environment

Audience Q: Please comment on the vertical players like Edmunds, FindLaw. Are they two small to be a threat, are the acquisition targets

Moriarty: We have a partnership with Edmunds; great distribution partnership. Lots of qualified leads.

Mohr: We're impressed by Edmunds. Our asset, Cars.com, is strongest in used. Homegain is interesting; lead gen is very interesting. We're learning from this; not just in potential partnerships, but in building our own offerings

Audience Q: Tom mentioned 80% growth: where is it happening

Mohr: That's local traffic growth. Overall traffic was up 25% last year

Millard: We're seeing 20% gains MOM in sites that are running our search

Audience Q: Buffett believe print advertising trends are slidding and will continue; they'll lbe irrelevant in 20 years

Welch: The demise of newspapers has been predicted for a long time, but they're still making money... which might be why they are changing so quickly. It's really about missed opportunities; they could have been eBay, Google, etc.

Millard: I'd agree with Buffett. Think of newspapers as local information sources; great ways to market online. That's where the play is.

Armour: No question that Buffett is right. The question is can they be just as effective online

* These are raw, unproofed notes taken in real-time. Nothing attributed to any speaker should be assumed to be an exact quote. Rather, my goal was to capture and communicate the essence of what was said. If there is a significant mistake, please post a comment or email me; I will make a correction at my earliest opportunity.

Event: Kelsey Group Drilling Down on Local Search 2005

Session Title: Keynote: Lincoln Millstein, SVP, Hearst Newspapers

Session Date: April 20, 2005

Session Time: 8:15 am – 9:00 am

Session Description: None

Session Participants:
Lincoln Millstein, SVP, Hearst Newspapers

Related Posts: buzzhit!'s Drilling Down on Local Search 2005 Index Page

Session Details[*]:

- Online advertising in 2005 $11.5B
- Neck n Neck w/ Magazines
- Will pass YP in 2006
- May rival radio in 2009
- $20B in 2010

- Local is the fastest growing segment; projected at $3.9B (46% YOY) for 2005
- Newspapers 44%, YP 6%, Paid Search 5%, TV 4%, Radio 1%, Pure Plays 40%

- Most growth can be attributed to at-work access to the Internet (whereas other medium aren't used in the workplace)

- NetRatings showing a decline in time spent online per month in US; -2%, ~14hrs month -- ~22 hours in Hong Kong, 25% YOY growth

Inventory shortage
- Site based media businesses will not scale to the same degree as their analog counterparts; will have marginal impact in the marketplace as a result
- 3-4 portals will dominate
- Pricing elasticity is stretched to the limit, putting the medium at risk of being non-competitive

Long Tail [Ed: I'm happy for Chris Anderson, but why do people think this is new thinking?]
- Lots of blogs presented
- References Google Adsense as monetization of the Tail

Biggest price in the Tail is Local; newspapers and YP failing to take advantage of it
- Content not readily seen
- Expect user to gravitate to web site
- Fails to serve the intent of the user
- Publishing is the wrong model online; lean forward, not lean back

How to win: shedding the big-iron publishing model and embracing the open architecture of participation
- Free content, organic distribution, leverage competition, meet and serve audience intent

Winning with local search - newspapers and YP publishers joining forces
- One search box serving a single intent
- Harnessing the best knowledge of the communit
- Riding the distribution of the Internet
- Feet on the street selling those services to SMEs
- Leveraging traditional media assets

Shows examples of several newspaper web sites doing Federated Search, and a couple examples of newspapers integrating blogging...

New economic imperatives of 'unlimited' choice in conent
- RSS and blogging are early enalers of this model - adopt them
- Google as friend and foe; learn to exploit its massive distribution instead of only having Google exploit you
- Leverage the distributed assets of the Internet
- Aggregate and network

Q: How do you get newspapers and YPs to work together? What is Hearst doing with blogging?

Millstein: In Albany we're doing a proof of concept that we'll roll out in all TV and newspaper markets if it's successful. We're fortunate to own both the newspaper and YP in our markets. If we can be successful, other NP and YPs will follow; money will trump culture.

Q: Yahoo! just announced that they just generated $300M in free cash flow that they can reinvest in their business; do we have time to test?

Millstein: This is a live test; we're doing similar things in other markets. You're right; we've been slow to respond. Google, Yahoo are on a growth imperative; one bad quarter and they'll lose 25% of their valuation. [Ed: Huh? The point is, they //innovate//, NP and YP players don't, that's the story] The problem is we're applying a publishing model to the Internet and it doesn't work

Audience Q: Do you see NP and YP partnerships revolving solely around existing sites, or will a new local site need to be built

Millstein: You can do it with a newspaper web site; I'd rather attack this with Boston.com than starting over.

Moderator commentary: Boston.com is an exception; it's outstanding. My local site is awful.

Audience Q: How does Google exploit, how do you exploit them?

Millstein: It's corporate Judo; Google will do no evil, right? They have to deliver to the consumer the most relevant site to serve the user's intent. I'm going to create sites that are second to none. I'm going to ask everyone to point to everyone; SEO [Ed: Sounds like he's advocating link farming to game page rank...] What I'm not going to do is buy the PPC ad

Audience Q: If our competitve advantage in the future is feet on the street, why would we want to partner with Google to help them get to where they're going faster?

Millstein: That's another publishing sensibility that I've had to shed. I create a walled garden, lock everyone out; doesn't work. In this space, you need to embrace your enemies. Maybe in 10 years we won't, but for now, we want to engage in interchange

Audience Q: You talked about limited inventory, but not about raising prices

Millstein: I talked about it a little bit. At some point, you become uncompetitive with other mediums. You can't push it forever.

Audience Q: What do you think about branded RSS Readers (LA Times, etc)? Does it dillute the brand. Good or bad?

Millstein: We're looking at it; intrigued. Anything we can do to satisfy the user and his intent, we're willing to do.

* These are raw, unproofed notes taken in real-time. Nothing attributed to any speaker should be assumed to be an exact quote. Rather, my goal was to capture and communicate the essence of what was said. If there is a significant mistake, please post a comment or email me; I will make a correction at my earliest opportunity.

Event: Kelsey Group Drilling Down on Local Search 2005

Session Title: Mapping the Future of Local Search

Session Date: April 19, 2005

Session Time: 4:45 pm – 5:30 pm

Session Description:
Maps are critical to any sort of robust local search experience. Mapping and driving directions are consumer favorites. More recently, dynamic mapping has been introduced allowing consumers to use maps as a doorway into local search and directory listings. But there is still considerably more potential innovation on the horizon. What can we expect from the next generation of mapping tools and how will they become integrated with other utilities to deliver value for consumers searching for local information?

Session Participants:
Walt Doyle, VP, Sales & Business Development, MapQuest
Jeremy Kreitler, Product Manager, Maps, Yahoo!
Bill Schwegler, Co-Founder & SVP of Strategic Initiatives, Telcontar
Brad Sims, Manager, Product Development, SuperPages.com
Sukhinder Singh, General Manager, Local & Third Party Partnerships, Google

Related Posts: buzzhit!'s Drilling Down on Local Search 2005 Index Page

Session Details[*]:

Q: Grew up with Rand-McNally, "the mapping company". No where to be seen online now. Is there room for anyone else, or is the basic group of players that will be mapping, and what types of advances might we see?

Singh: Two things important in mapping. 1) The addition of new data sources (satellite, city blocks, POI); there are new data sources. A picture is just a location biased view of local search. 2) The UI still matters, and there's lots of innovation possible (panning/zooming). Advances: we're just beginning to look at GPS and mobility -- not far off, not technology but adoption

Doyle: It's a growing market. In a growing market, leaders benefit disproportionately. Mapquest mobile. Mapquest FindMe.

Q: So why can't a buy a map of Marin County from Mapquest? Why aren't you in the print side?

Doyle: Actually we are. We'll be launching Mapquest Publishing.

Q: Mapping is a secondary way into local information. What would make it a primary, front door, preferred way?

Kreitler: Yahoo! recognized this opportunity with SmartView, tying in YP, but also pulling in other data to make it actionable. Not an issue of customer segments, but of modality [Ed: Agree]

Q: How many have used AAA TripTips
A: Many audience members raise hands

Q: One of the nice things was providing radio stations along the drive. Are those the types of things that we might see?

Sims: Location doesn't always matter, just showing a list of services to customers

Q: How do we monetize maps (directly)? Different sized icons, POIs that are paid listings, etc?

Schwegler: Localized search is a great equalizer vs. the big boxes. When mobile, and you're ready to buy a burger, you're a lead; make it compelling for me to choose your business. Real time maps

Singh: We need to be very careful in thinking about the available real estate and the user experience (usability). Adding 100s of local restaurants is great, but not if it makes the service unusable. I've yet to see a graphical implementation of monetization on a map that will not degrade the quality of the user experience, at scale.

Q: What about real-estate? How about being able to see MLS listings on the map, including realtor/sales-person info, etc. And what about printing it out?

Schwegler: The ability to overlay additional spatially related information on the map will happen. For instance, overlaying a house's property lines.

Singh: A click to overlays, e.g., schools for the real estate environment, is a clear integration point that can happen. It's a user request for info instead of pushing/crowding

Q: What about buying a map listing; equalizer for small businesses, because they're the only ones who can occupy that physical space

Sims: True if you're shopping by location, but not by product. It goes back to content collection and availability [Ed: and modality]

Doyle: About 10% of RE spend is online, but 70% of RE purchases start online. Seems ripe.

Audience Q: Personalization and maps... MyMaps

Schwegler: Key driver, many dimensions. Applying local knowledge. We give you best algo map, but if you know that a certain block is under construction, you could remove it from the route. Sometimes you don't drive to a destination, you drive to a nearby parking garage; again local knowledge.

Singh: GPS; excluding privacy issues, knowing where you're actually at is a big driver for starting your search. We're already seeing telematics, mobile, etc; searching from your desk may be outdated.

Q: What product features are essential; what's novel, but not useful... Second part, how will increased competition effect those who don't implement dynamic maps?

Kreitler: Be