Peter Krasilovsky's

Local Onliner

Apr 9
2012

Applying Big Data to Home and Trade (and other Verticals?)

Home and Trade lead sites often take a simple, category-by-category directory approach, but visual contractor rankings might make more sense, argues Jiyan Wei, Co-founder of BuildZoom. Wei says that his team canvassed Home and Trade sites such as Angie’s List, ServiceMagic, RedBeacon, Thumbtack and others and noted that many don’t do much more than provide basic listing data and reviews.

Even if the Home and Trade sites are generating good traffic, they aren’t always producing a lot of leads, says Wei. That’s because consumers don’t have much to go on. Enter BuildZoom, which has developed a comprehensive ranking system. The company’s Big Data approach is based on assorted information from state licensing boards and Better Business Bureaus; crowd sourcing via social media sites; insurance and bonding status; and self-provided information.

BuildZoom’s “Pro Ranking” provides consumers with information on up to 25 candidates per job. For $100 a month, the site will provide consultative services to drive up ranking and search results, including access to copywriters, photo placement etc. “The core asset is consumer value,” notes Wei. Sites that charge commissions to contractors could have an element of built-in bias. The site also earns revenue from sponsored placement.

The site, founded in August 2010, is angel-funded and currently receives over 250,000 unique visitors a month. More than 8,000 businesses have registered, and it has 120 paying customers. A handful of sales people have been assigned in Arizona and southern California, but they are not limited geographically.

“We already have lots of East Coast contractors related to remodeling projects in New Jersey, Georgia and North Carolina,” says Wei. He adds that Home and Trade is seen as just the first of many possible verticals for the company.

Categories: Verticals

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Apr 2
2012

Top 10 Takeaways from ILM East 2012 (and Thank You!)

ILM East 2012 took place last week in Boston, and is now one for the history books. It was definitely a fun show that really showcased the fast moving local innovations that BIA/Kelsey focuses on.

There are many learnings we can focus on as takeaways, but in the interest of good reading, how about a Top 10 list?

1- The new currencies are time, attention and clickstreams. Payments can be in pixels, Facebook mentions or points and rewards (Ted Leonsis, Vice Chair, Groupon)

2- Email is for ecommerce push; phones are for texting (Ted Leonsis, Vice Chair, Groupon)

3- Local is all about scale. And the only way to achieve scale in local is by aggregation (Jay Herratti, outgoing CEO, CityGridMedia)

4- Creating a closed loop is the path to a seamless user experience. American Express is… the acquirer, the issuer and the network. (Leslie Berland, SVP, American Express)

5- Daily deals are fun, but Big Data that combines different databases is critical for targeting users and winning loyalty (various)

6- Focus on engagement, not new customer acquisition. Loyal customers are worth 24 times more than new customers (Charlie Kim, CEO, NextJump)

7- Email fatigue is probably out there, but social media complements email, rather than kills it. They are both forms of permission marketing (Mark Schmulen, GM, Constant Contact)

8- Video is a great local medium, but offers limited inventory opportunities, and really can’t compete as a standalone with a major metro newspaper for advertising (Lisa DeSisto, VP, Advertising, The Boston Globe)

9- National brands can’t go local without a platform. Otherwise, you can’t get engagement and you’ll see high churn. (Pete Gombert, Founder and CEO, Ballihoo)

10- You can’t herd 6,000 cats and come up with a digital strategy (Adam Epstein, President, Ad Marketplace.)

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Categories: Conferences, Deals, Sales Channels, Shopping/Transactions, Technology

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Mar 29
2012

ILM East: Ted Leonsis – Local’s All About Scale, ‘New Currencies’

Ted Leonsis, Groupon Vice Chair, American Express Board Member and Internet Pioneer , emphasized the importance of scaling for local in a global economy during a keynote at ILM East yesterday. “Indiana really matters. India matters more,” said Leonsis, pointing out that for larger companies, most growth will come from outside the U.S.

The way that growth is measured, however, is rapidly changing. “I try to follow the new currencies: time, attention and clickstreams,” he noted. “Now you see payments in pixels, facebook newsfeeds, or points and rewards. Amex has trillions of points.

While growth for “the biggest companies” comes from serving the entire international marketplaces, local needs are universal.

“I love local; we built Internet on businesss created about ‘you,’ said Leonsis. There is no bigger business imagineable. He noted special opportunities in “MoSoLo….the convergence of mobile, social, video.” Mobile will make up 88 percent of digital advertising, he suggested, citing analyst projections. “One thousand cities are ready for MoSoLo.”

Leonsis believes that the largest companies will soon be making spending sprees in the local arena. Local entrepreneurs should realistically shoot for selling their companies because only a couple of companies end up IPO’ing in the public market, added Leonsis, who is, of course, a major investor.

Leonsis noted that the largest companies such as Google, Microsoft and Cisco are sitting on almost a trillion dollars of retained earnings. “That’s pent-up cash. They will want to fill in their value chains.”

Channels are also changing, and quickly. Email usage is way down and has “become a deliverer for ecommerce push. Email is for manicure or pedicure deals,” said Leonsis, noting that Groupon and Facebook are really poised to leverage this with their massive email lists. Phones, meanwhile, are for texting. The average teen sends 70 texts a day and barely use any minutes to talk.

But Leonsis predicts that video will emerge as the new killer app as it becomes the core medium for self expression and sharing. “The YouTube phenomenon is truly amazing. We’re all become Cable MSOs.”

Video also will be key to the future of retail and education. Retail site visitors who view video are likely to stay on site two minutes longer on average and are 64 percent more likely to purchase than other site visitors, says Leonsis. Video is a foundation for “next generation commerce.”

The pursuit of closed loop network is the really big game here, Leonsis noted. Amazon has made everyone an affiliate and a reseller. Similarly, PayPal made made everyone a small business with 100 million plus accounts for money transfers and payments. eBay has made everyone an entrepreneur.

Moreover, Google has eight million advertisers on file, and invoices 20,000 advertisers. Amex has developed a closed loop system of its own, and Groupon has created “curated local commerce.”

But Leonsis is skeptical that the world of interactive local commerce is something that startups can gain traction in. “No one will give an eight person startup their social security number. Payments are not for the faint-hearted. Startups are better off looking for margin opportunities.

“I don’t want to see any business plan saying ‘I’ll be the next Groupon.’ Verticalization happens.”

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Categories: Conferences, Deals, Mobile, Money, Shopping/Transactions, Social Media, Verticals

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Mar 27
2012

ILM East: Google Offers Says It is ‘More than Just Deals’

During the first ever public presentation of Google Offers at ILM East today, Google Offers head Nitin Mangtani noted that Google Offers is now live in 40 cities, but he emphasized that Google’s after more more than just deals. The local commerce space is much broader and richer than deals, although deals are very exciting, he said.

Google wants to “enable an ecosystem that connects consumers more seamlessly, and drive ecommerce for all,” added Mangtani. Publishers should work with Google to “get noticed, get customers and get paid,” he said.

Google’s local vision is to help local businesses connect with consumers, noted Mangtani. Deals are part of discovery, but so are other promotions; just as Places are part of Locate, Wallet is part of Purchase; and Adwords is part of Research. The company also wants to work with external partners. A company such as Idea Labs’ Punch’d could be part of Become Loyal, he noted.

Google Offers currently works with 30 partners, including such as companies as Gilt City, Zozi and KGB Deals.

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Categories: Conferences, Deals, Google

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Mar 27
2012

ILM East: NYT’s Michael Zimbalist on The Importance of Linked Data

The New York Times and other news organizations have been hampered by the short cuts of HTML and hyperlinks, but are now reclassifying to provide more structured, fluid data in a major development with massive implications, notes New York Times VP of Research Operations Michael Zimbalist, who keynoted Day 2 at ILM East. The benefits are immediate in terms of SEO, but longer term, provider richer product for consumers, notes Zimbalist.

“Information has become increasingly granular or structured,” notes Zimbalist. Each unit of content has extensive machine readable metadata about itself.” Fluid information can move more easily among machines and people.

In the case of The New York Times can now process the 300 pieces of professional content that it produces every day — a brick of compiled information — into multiple formats, including things such as personal editions and slide shows. “You are reaching underneath the databases the power the Web to do new things,” says Zimbalist.

The key is to move the surplus of names to strong identifiers that are linking to data cloud driven bymeta data. The Times, for instance is embarking on moving all its data to DBpedia, which drives Wikipedia, Freebase, which is owned by Google, and GeoNames.

To date, 29,000 names have been recontextualized for a new semantic platform – a “super librarian “ –, which includes 39 percent of people (“Edgar Allen Poe”) , 31 percent of organizations, 76 percent of locations (“Park Slope”and 14 percent of descriptions. “The future is bright for librarians,” jokes Zimbalist.

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Categories: Journalism, Newspapers, Technology

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Mar 22
2012

CityGrid Media Announces Jason Finger as New CEO

IAC announced today that SeamlessWeb founder Jason Finger will take over as CEO of its CityGrid Media unit April 12. CItyGrid Media includes the CityGrid ad network and Citysearch, Urbanspoon, Insider Pages and BuzzLabs.

Finger was a founder of SeamlessWeb in 1999. The company grew to 21 U.S. cities plus London during his tenure. SeamlessWeb, now known as Seamless, was acquired by food services giant Aramark in 2006, with Finger leading the business while serving on Aramark’s executive leadership council.

He’s served as an entrepreneur-in-residence at Bessemer Venture Partners since 2010, focusing on SaaS, local businesses and e-commerce. Seamless currently competes for food delivery and restaurant online services with GrubHub and others.

CityGrid Media’s longtime CEO Jay Herratti told us he will be helping during the transition. During his eight year tenure at the company, he proved to be a pivotal figure in the evolution of interactive local media. In addition to acquiring UrbanSpoon, which should leverage Finger’s experience at Seamless, Herratti dealt head-on with the issue of building enough local user volume to attract merchants – a serious issue in the fragmented local world.

Next week, at ILM East in Boston, Herratti will provide insights into the evolution of local during his tenure at CityGrid. “Wrapping up my time at CityGrid Media with a BIA/Kelsey keynote seems like the perfect opportunity to reflect on the future of local,” he told us.

“During my session, I will share my thoughts on where local is heading,” added Herratti. “There is so much activity in our space right now, the next year should be just as interesting as the last.”

Categories: Conferences, Local Search, Sales Channels

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Mar 20
2012

First Person: Signing Up for Google and Intuit’s ‘Get Your Business Online’

Google has been taking out major newspaper ads to promote its new “Get Your Business Online” initiative, a partnership with Intuit that lets SMBs claim a place, update information and provides a free web site. It is a strong effort to get more SMBs online, and buying services. More than 14 states are up and running.

According to BIA/Kelsey’s Local Commerce Monitor survey of online SMBs, 66 percent now have websites, although the overall percentage of SMBs with websites is probably lower.

I saw a series of ads for the effort in The Los Angeles Times. The ad listed as the LA Area Chamber of Commerce, the LA County Business Federation, The NFIB, the California Small Business Development Centers (SBDC), Score and Intuit as partners. The ad copy promised that “It’s easy. Really fast. And really free.”

In smaller type, it notes that the free website includes domain name and hosting for one year. To me, that doesn’t qualify for “really free,” but it is still a good deal.

The ads were timed to coincide with a series of southern California workshops for SMBs. One of them had more than 1,000 sign ups.

Although I don’t need a new website, I decided to see what was behind the curtain. After clicking past an introductory page that had some SMB tutorials, the site offered to let me sign in via my Gmail account, which was automatically rendered.

What was offered was a “free, easy to build Intuit website; free customized domain name; free web hosting for one year; and free online tools and training.” After the first year, it is $4.99 a month and your domain name is $2 a month – which adds up to $96 a year.

If you already have a domain name, like me, you can import it for free. The hosting alone makes this a great deal. I currently pay about $120 a year for Host Gator (which does a great job.)

The service is also promoting a website search engine boost for $4.99 a month, which promises to submit content for constant updating and improved search ranking. Interestingly, this offer did not appear today when I checked on the site, but it was prominently displayed on Sunday.

I didn’t submit my credit card and won’t get a site at this time. Knowing me, I’d probably forget to cancel it. But the service is clearly set to boost SMB penetration, and will not only help SMBs get online, but also help Google and Intuit sell a lot of services once the SMBs are locked in.

Categories: Google

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