Last week, we wrote about The Seattle Times Co. and its new “Network search,” which is powered with FAST. This week, we are covering The Boston Globe’s Boston.com and its new “Federated” search solution, powered by Google.

Federated and Network search are different names for pretty much the same thing. But even as the respective newspapers try to tackle the issues of incorporating small-business advertisers and the elements of local search, they are taking somewhat different approaches.

Boston.com’s mission is to move away from “newspaper.com” toward becoming the aggregator of local community content, notes VP of Product Bob Kempf. The site has taken several concrete steps to get there, including local news outreach, crawls for local events, multimedia search, and perhaps most importantly, business listing search (i.e., Yellow Pages).

The initial step was making the news from The Boston Globe and content from Boston.com searchable. But since then, it has also reached out to 4,500 local Boston-area sites to supplement the content.

The event listings, using ZVents, was something that added a unique element to the site and “quadrupled the amount of listings,” says Kempf. It is more than just effective crawling. Users are seeing that the site has a really good event guide and submitting listings of their own.

Multimedia is another key ingredient for the site and its 360-degree, federated search strategy. As the site has added more and more audio and video, its content has become less findable. But that has been helped by adding search, via Everyzing, a vendor that transcribes audio content to track the content.

The multimedia application “doesn’t bring in huge traffic,” but it is very relevant for a news site, says Kempf. And it goes way beyond the search box. “What we’re doing is adding little ‘searchlets’ into the site, he notes. “We drop [clips of] Manny Ramirez right into articles.”

The business listing effort, on the other hand, suggests the strongest revenue opportunities. Many newspapers are relying on local search vendors such as Planet Discover, Local.com and Harvest Info.

But Kempf’s team reached a conclusion that those solutions would probably always be “second rate” compared with one provided by a major search engine (i.e., Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft). He notes the search engines are pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into search algorithms, making relevant matches to queries, ratings and reviews.

Ultimately, Boston.com chose to partner with Google for a variety of considerations, including the power of the Google Maps brand, which appears alongside Boston.com when you go into Business Listings; its relatively low upfront cost (it pays Google just a small amount for the searches that are actually made); access to its extensive tool set; its high level of maintenance; and the ease of using Google’s licensed listings instead of having to make its own deals with a listing company. Google’s broader deal with The New York Times Co. might have had some influence as well.

Boston.com also appreciated the ability to use Google to build out a tiered list of searches that any newspaper would want to have; a “white list” for pure listing lookups; a “gray list” for in between searches, such as place names; and a “black list” for inappropriate searches, such as tying merchandise ads to a news story on a murder in Worchester.

On a business basis, the deal with Google gives Boston.com a chance to make money on reselling the CPM at higher rates and also from local AdSense ads that appear alongside the searches, says Kempf. It also provides new inventory to sell around the search box — not dissimilar to what newspapers have always done, selling mortgage ads around real estate listings and other content.

What Kempf and his team haven’t begun to work on is any search integration with classifieds, an area he admits is the “least sexy.” It also hasn’t begun to aggressively sell to smaller local advertisers — something The Seattle Times appears to be far in front of. “It was very core for GateHouse,” where Kempf worked on Wicked Local in the suburbs that surround Boston, one of the first federated search projects. “But it isn’t core for us.”

In a followup email to me after this post was written, Kempf clarifies:”Classifieds are on the roadmap but not on the immediate roadmap; small business listings very much are core and are on the immediate roadmap.”

Next steps that Kempf envisions include using the search technology to help develop more vertical directories, such has health and business. The site is also getting a massive dose of TV and radio promotion, where Boston.com is not treated as a newspaper, but as an information source.

“The trick is to untrain users for news,” he says. In a followup email to me, also cited above, Kempf adds:  “The news use case remains core and very important to us.  Expanding beyond that use is the challenge.  I wouldn’t want your readers to think that we’ve abandoned news or its importance to us.”

This year’s National Automobile Dealers Association convention in San Francisco, Feb. 9-12, reflected the tough times that have hit the industry. Themes at the show didn’t go much beyond the convention’s official title: “Focus on Profitability.”

But a sub-theme at the show was the transition of auto marketing to the Web, and the importance of auto dealers to various Web (and other interactive) entrepreneurs. These ranged from eBay Motors, which is reaching out beyond its auctioneer roots to provide SEO/SEM services to local dealers; to Marchex’s VoiceStar, which gets a whopping 30 percent of its call tracking business from dealers; to AdMission Corp., which handed out 250 apple pies to thousands of dealers on Monday (“Pie Day”) to enlist them for its searchable display ads.

So went the conversations on the Moscone Convention Center floor with various industry execs. AutoTrader CEO Chip Perry, for instance, says the one thing dealers want to know from him is “why do you raise your rates 20 percent every year?” But they seem to get the value of a medium that is used “seven times more than newspapers,” he says — even if their spending doesn’t nearly reflect it.

Cheaper solutions, of course, are available for dealers. But they don’t approach the traffic levels of “the auto industry’s search engine,” as Perry likes to think of AutoTrader.

eBay Motors, meanwhile, continues its evolution from a narrowly focused auctioneer of auto parts and classic cars to a marketing partner for dealers, providing SEO/SEM services and a rich assortment of Web authoring and analytic tools for local dealers that sign up to its recently launched Local Market service.

eBay Motors already works with 15,000 dealers. Now it hopes to sign many of them – and others – to the Local Market package, which is $1,000 a month. They should probably do it. Some dealers at the show said the service provides better-than-average leads, and was helping them sell “six or seven” cars a month.

Other convention participants really zeroed in on helping dealers better engage their users – basically trying to create an automotive equivalent of a Zillow or other social site. Kelley Blue Book is a pretty good example. In fact, the site, which provides new car pricing, trade-in values and related info, has been totally reengineered around a new “life stages” campaign designed to attract highly targeted banner ads.

“Life creates experiences,” goes the pitch. “We turn them into Car Shoppers. From a job promotion to a new addition in the family, life events occur that leave millions of consumers in need of a new vehicle.”

Cars.com, which is taking on AutoTrader with a $200 million promotion campaign that started with several Super Bowl ads, is following along the same path with the handout of Lifestyle awards. The awards acknowledge “the best cars across a number of categories that car shoppers can identify based on their personal vehicle need.” Categories include “Best family car,” “best play car,” “best commuter car” and “best green car.”

Life stage efforts always make sense, at least to consultants. But they’ve been hard to pull off. We’ll see how these sites do.

Besides life stages, the industry is also getting gender specific (again, like the real estate industry, where Scripps’ HGTV has launched frontdoor.com, a women-friendly site). Askpatty.com has certified “female friendly dealers” in an effort to engage, sell and retain women customers. The service provides a number of additional features, including online chat, narrated credit application, online preapproval process and schedule maintenance.

Another social site, Carsdiva.com, has built an online social networking community “by, for and about women and the car business.” The site provides an easy-to-use automotive dealer ranking and review system, where consumers can go to both rate their dealership sales and service experience, or find out what their neighbors think of their local new and used car retailers. It also provides a Wiki, and classifieds enhanced by video and audio.

Newspapers increasingly see an opportunity to sell SEO/SEM solutions to local advertisers. Such efforts probably began in earnest last year with members of the Yahoo! consortium using Yahoo!’s platforms. Others have been working with WebVisible and other resellers on a custom basis. But things seem to have been heating up, prior to the NAA Marketing conference in Orlando at the end of the month.

Some high-profile (and well-respected) industry execs have recently left their posts and are apparently consulting to the newspaper industry on local solutions. Scripps Interactive VP Bob Benz and former Belo Interactive President Wes Jackson have teamed up with former WebVisible employees Chris Tippie and Charity Huff to sell solutions via a recently formed company named Maroon Ventures. Tippie, 36, left WebVisible one-and-a-half years ago to move to Crested Butte, Colorado, a resort town that is now headquarters for the company.

Maroon already claims to provide “daily operational oversight” of the far-flung Yahoo! consortium to 21 of its members, including Hearst, E.W. Scripps, Philadelphia News Holdings, Media General, Lee Enterprises, MediaNews Group, Cox Newspapers, New York Times Regional Group, Belo, McClatchy and Morris Communications. It also claims a relationship with Metrix4Media, a little-known search firm in which Hearst has a financial stake.

In a press release, Maroon is described as “a professional services firm that connects emerging business opportunities with media companies to help them execute in local markets. Its members draw on extensive operational and strategic experience to drive innovation throughout the business lifecycle.”

Looking at the big picture, we’re pondering Yahoo!’s role in newspaper SEO/SEM. If the deal with Microsoft is consummated, is the consortium solid enough to convey? After all, it was mostly founded to partner with HotJobs, which accounts for the bulk of the deal’s revenue. But banner advertising, behavioral targeting and SEO/SEM are also being added on a tiered basis with some of the consortium members.

Basically, the Yahoo! consortium is entirely a pick-and-choose affair. And sometimes it won’t even end up with Yahoo!. Last year, for instance, in real estate, it chose to work with Zillow.

Theoretically, a combination between Yahoo! and Microsoft and its aQuantive properties would aid the display piece, which is highly coveted by newspapers – especially in building creative capabilities. But that will probably be treated separately from the search equation, where newspapers might want a more independent role.

WebVisible head Kirsten Mangers won’t comment on the development of Maroon Ventures. But she tells us her company has had some success with newspapers in selling SEO/SEM solutions, especially for new advertisers that haven’t previously worked with newspapers. WebVisible has ongoing relations with companies such as MediaNews Group, McClatchy and New York Times and some Gannett-owned properties.

Mangers says the company does best when substantial sales and marketing resources are provided to the partnership. Strong results are being recorded in markets such as Minneapolis, where a dedicated salesperson has been allocated to The Star Tribune. Traditional newspaper sales reps tend to have a hard time focusing on the new SEO/SEM opportunities, due to the fact they carry so many products in their bag, she notes.

Mangers adds that newspapers may be working with several different vendors … even at the same company. Freedom Interactive President Michael Mathieu notes that The Orange County Register, for instance, works with both RHDinteractive’s LocalLaunch and WebVisible. “There is no ‘approved’ vendor” for the industry or for the consortium, she says.

Ultimately, Mangers expresses confidence that her 64-person company has the software, know-how and commitment to be a strong contender in the space. Several newspapers and Yellow Pages companies have gone with other solutions only to come back to WebVisible, she notes.

Other newspaper execs have left their companies also to provide consulting, although they have not specified that they’ll zero in on SEO/SEM solutions. These include MediaNews Group VP Teresa Lawler and Maine Today President Joe Michaud. Similarly, longtime Tribune Interactive head Tim Landon has left Tribune — but that probably has more to do with the change in Tribune’s ownership.

Quick, what industry gets the highest customer service quality ratings from U.S. adult consumers, according to an August 2007 Harris Interactive poll? No. 1 is supermarkets with 92 percent giving them a good rating, No. 2 is online search engines (84 percent), and tied for No. 3 (78 percent) are computer hardware companies, hospitals and banks. My personal opinions are irrelevant, but I must admit that supermarkets would not have been at the top of my list. What is interesting to me is that 84 percent of respondents said search engines provide good customer service. This piece of wisdom came from eMarketer Daily, which ran a fascinating story on “Search Marketing’s 800-Pound Gorilla.” EMarketer is an expert on giving you enough information to make you hungry for more and then offering the whole report for a fee. In this case, Search Engine Marketing: User and Spending Trends is worth every dollar to anyone who is interested in the search engine business.

The author, David Hallerman, senior analyst at eMarketer, writes:

“However, the term ‘customer service’ is likely used broadly here, since one would guess that the vast majority of people who have used a search engine have never actually spoken with or e-mailed the people running that engine. Most probably, these results imply that people like what they get from search sites.”

Imagine that. There’s no greeter at the front door, nobody to bag your purchases, not even a smile from a candy-striper or a teller. All you get is what you, yourself, are able to pull out of a search engine. I have never built a boat in a bottle, or even attacked a complicated crossword puzzle. But I have done a lot of searching, and when I find what I’m looking for, often on a local search, there is a great deal of satisfaction. In a blog tomorrow, I plan to see if there is any way to compare satisfaction of using a search engine with other ways of finding products and services, such as Yellow Pages or newspapers.

Mr. Hallerman’s article refers to the huge number of people in the U.S. alone who used search engines last year. It’s at least 155 million and that number will rise by 25 million in 2011. Search advertising spending continues to grow, even if it is at a slower percentage pace than in previous years simply because the absolute number is already high. As the chairman of a company that spends a fair amount of money on paid search marketing every year, a key issue to me has been whether I’m getting my money’s worth. People don’t report to us that they are coming to a Kelsey Group conference or buying a report because of a paid search or contextual ad. Forrester’s Research, according to this eMarketer report, would reinforce this. Fifty-nine percent of respondents say they don’t pay attention to search ads, and 36 percent don’t trust them. Meanwhile, eMarketer is predicting that U.S. search advertising spending will grow from $8.6 billion in 2007 to $16.6 billion in 2011.

Consumers are happy. That’s good. And advertisers are continuing to pump more money into search advertising, despite the fact that consumers report they’re not paying much attention to the advertising, or worse. Some of this is clearly the novelty effect and the fact that advertisers want to be on the leading edge. Still, the bottom line is return on investment. This suggests that at some point, perhaps sooner rather than later, Yellow Pages and other traditional media are going to look pretty good compared with some of the new media options.

SEM reseller and campaign management firm ReachLocal today officially brought Google AdWords into its ad product toolbelt. This extends its offering to SMBs interested in search engine marketing or in cross-platform ad bundles. ReachLocal’s online offerings to SMBs also include Yahoo! (YSM), MSN (AdCenter), Ask and Superpages.

Many other SEM fulfillment firms that address the SMB marketplace resell AdWords as part of a comprehensive SEM, SEO and landing page bundle (see TKG Advisory “Selling SEM & SEO”). These include LocalLaunch, Marchex, Matchcraft and a handful of others that mostly work with Yellow Pages publishers to arm their sales reps with SEM and landing page services (LocalLaunch is owned by R.H. Donnelley, while Marchex works closely with AT&T and Yellowpages.com).

ReachLocal goes straight to the source with its own growing sales channel. This build-rather-than-partner strategy is no easy task, but ReachLocal continues to scale up and show that it can be done. The company’s October $55 million cash infusion (and resulting $305 million valuation) is a vote of confidence in this model and a means to continue to develop it. The same can be said (albeit to a lesser degree) for its newly minted AdWords reseller status.

Auto dealers and real estate brokers (and agents) are increasingly contending with mission creep for their Web needs that require them to have two or more Web sites. Part of the problem is that they must conform to standardized requirements. For instance, Ford, Toyota and Nissan dealers have a number of mandated requirements.

At the same time, local staffs are seeing to create an edge for search; put in promotions; manage services; and add multimedia features such as TV commercials, audio spots and images of inventory. Ultimately, any expectations that SEO-smart “microsites” can do it all may be unrealistic.

“It is a two Web site business,” says Catzilla CEO Alan Gunshor. “People need to get used to it.” Gunshor’s nine-person company does search optimization and creates guaranteed click packages for Google, Yahoo! and ValueClick — an interesting third player that really delivers, even if you work with them on a “blind” basis, says Gunshor.

Catzilla has been selling for 18 months and is specifically focusing on autos and real estate at the local level. The idea is that if it can crack the code for such intense verticals, other verticals, such as health care, legal and weddings, will fall into place down the line.

But Gunshor says Catzilla can’t allow itself to focus on the particulars of a dealer, or a broker. “We’re not into microsites. We are paid to confer a lead, so every link is designed to do that.” The company is currently working with 30 advertisers, mostly in the Bay Area, but also some regional and national plays. The average spend is about $5K per month.

According to Gunshor, the company has reduced spending by 35 percent for some advertisers. At the same time, it has been boosting leads, in some cases, by 50 percent. The differentiator, he says, is that advertisers “own” Catzilla’s lead generation process, rather than seeing “their” leads go to multiple sources — a situation he calls “rampant” among third-party sites.

In 2008, the company hopes to expand to other local markets. City managers are being initially hired for Los Angeles, with plans to add Chicago, Detroit and New York later in the year.

While the other telcos have divested their Yellow Pages units, AT&T maintains that there is real synergy in pursuing a three-screen strategy. Rather than selling the YP unit and using the proceeds to build out its network, a la Verizon, AT&T is betting that there is a home field advantage in keeping its landline, mobile and U-verse video customers intact, and selling advertising — especially local advertising — across the digital channels.

It is a big bet. U-verse apparently has had start-up pains in an intensely competitive video marketplace. And mobile advertising obviously needs to be very sensitively handled. AT&T could always change course and spin out the YP unit. But for now, I like the ambition of it all.

Speaking at its 2007 analyst conference, Ray Wilkins, group president of diversified businesses, said his revenues are $600 million today, but that he hopes to see $1.5 billion in non-print advertising revenues by 2010. Yellowpages.com, especially, is the core of the opportunity, since it represents a giant umbrella for all the products. It is expected to get 30 percent revenue growth CAGR over the three-year period.

The basis for these projections is integrated sales from the YP sales force, a boost in searches from 2 billion to 3 billion, the integration of Ingenio’s Pay-Per-Call platform and the general growth from search revenues, especially on the mobile side. Wilkins noted that 18 million wireless handsets will be pre-installed for AT&T mobile search next year, and enabled in 20 million others. By the end of the year, he said, digital ad insertion will begin in U-verse homes.

Google is simultaneously the most open and most shut business I can think of. On one hand, it is amazingly transparent. You walk around the two campuses in Mountain View and you can walk right by Larry and Sergey’s offices. During my short time there, I even spied CEO Eric Schmidt casually ambling by with a group of Japanese businessmen.

It also takes real pains to understand its partners, and to help their businesses. What’s the word I am thinking of? It is thoughtful. And it keeps the checks coming.

On the other hand … it hardly ever says anything. Not in public, or in private. Like magicians, its executives mostly want to show off demos of its increasingly large roster of products. And while it pays its partners nicely, and on time — it is even a life saver for many companies — who knows what the payment formulas really consist of? Basically, it doesn’t think it is any of our business.

So it was interesting to fly out to the Google-plex to speak at the company’s first Local Symposium, with 120 invited partners and would-be partners. The symposium was not necessarily a unique event — apparently, Google is going right down the list of business segments, doing one symposium after another. But it was unique to us Local Onliners.

Craig Newmark gave the keynote. Steve Johnson from Outside.in was on stage, too. As was Josh Walker from CityVoter, Court Cunningham from Yodle and Zorik Gordon from Reach Local. And then there was our local blogger panel, and a group of local businesses that use Google products.

None of this was Google-centric. It was local-centric. We were welcome – and even encouraged — to talk about whatever we wanted to. Even the Yahoo! Newspaper consortium.

Google’s own efforts at the symposium were to go over its rules and best practices, and to discuss some of its ongoing efforts with call reporting, mobile ads, printable coupons and Web site analytics. It was not very revealing, but it was pretty helpful.

Some highlights:

General Improvements: Simple signup and pricing, snapshot “proofs” of ads, and minimal campaign management. “We want to drive customers through the door.”

Call Reporting: Google is providing extensive call reporting to small-business advertisers for both online and offline ad formats (including radio and print). The reporting includes frequency, duration and originating location, and advertisers can use either local or toll-free numbers.

Mobile Ads: Google is rolling out AdSense for Mobile, including syndicated search ads on search partner results. The service carries the same charges as online clicks.

Google Maps for Mobile: In addition to putting maps on the phone, Google is enhancing them with traffic reports and satellite views.

Printable Coupons: Remember when Jeff Jarvis said Google’s entry into coupons was the true death knell for newspapers? That may or may not be true. But Google is pushing a coupon capability via its local business center. A coupons link appears on local listings and on Google maps search results. They can also be searched at the local level.

Web Site Analytics: Google intends to expand the use of its free analytics tool for small businesses. The analytics, formerly Urchin Software, is embedded directly in AdWords. Advertisers that take advantage of the tools tend to spend more as a result. It has proved especially powerful for geotargeting.

Idearc has announced another distribution deal aimed at satisfying SMB demand for performance-based advertising on Superpages.com.

The latest deal involved Findology, a California-based company that operates the Zipcodez.com local search engine. Idearc will now place its PFP advertisers on the Zipcodez.com site. According to the press release, Zipcodez serves “3 billion searches per month.”

This deal continues a pattern of deals from Idearc to build its distribution platform, via small and large partnerships or acquisitions. At the top of this list is the September acquisition of Switchboard from InfoSpace. Other smaller deals in the same vein include agreements with YellowUSA.com, Intellistrand, WhitePages.com and others, plus its acquisition of LocalSearch.com from American Town Networks.

On Idearc’s third-quarter earnings call, CEO Kathy Harless asserted that, “Throughout the year, we have discussed with you the three distinct components to Internet local search that are required to succeed — content, technology and traffic. We have consistently advanced on each of these areas with a laser focus on traffic.”

Out of curiosity, I tried a few searches on Zipcodez using my local ZIP code (in suburban Chicago) and the results were mixed. Searches for “office supplies,” “plumbers,” and “heating and air conditioning” turned up zero results (except sponsored links and listings), while “restaurants” returned a limited set of listings that appeared to be accurate and all of which linked to Yelp listings with reviews. A search for “coffee” included several local coffee spots, as well as a local car dealer. These also all linked to Yelp listings with reviews. The site did return reasonable search results in these categories for a ZIP code on Chicago’s Near North Side. These results also link to Yelp pages for the listed businesses.

       

Blog: Local Media Blog, Internet Yellow Pages, Paid Search, Pay Per Call, User-Generated Content
Posted by: Charles Laughlin at 10:40 am - Comments (0)

December 3, 2007

Closing the Book on ILM:07

It is hard for me to comprehend, but we are finally finished with ILM:07. We were grateful to have had 650 interesting and enthusiastic attendees from all over the world, 72 stimulating speakers, a full load of sponsors and an excellent partnership with SES.

Our next conference, April 30-May 2 at the Westin in Seattle, will be a highly differentiated affair. Stay tuned for what we are doing with that (but not for a couple of months, OK?).

For those of you who can’t get enough coverage, a virtual conference will be up with all the PPTs in a couple of weeks (but only for attendees). You can also order the DVD.

For immediate gratification, however, check out the posts from my talented colleagues on the Kelsey Blog.

I especially liked Michael Taylor’s write-up of our discussion with Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis. Michael is totally correct: “The long and short of Calacanis’ comments go to several of the key themes heard over and over again at ILM:07 — relevant content, deep content and engaging, passionate people are all needed to make a highly relevant and personalized search experience.”

In addition to the Kelsey write-ups, Mike Boland has captured links from the press and bloggers who attended our event. It was good to have them aboard. And Mel Taylor took some great pictures.

Here are easy links to Kelsey ILM:07 posts:

1. TKG Analysts Lay the Groundwork (Michael Boland)

2. Winebaum Provides a Fresh Look at Local Search (Michael Taylor)

3. Cash Is King for Local Search Investors (Charles Laughlin)

4. Herratti’s Citysearch: Social Media Video Partnerships (Bobbi Loy-Luster)

5. NCI: ‘We Can Work with Zillow’ (John Kelsey)

6. ILM:07 Spotlights mobilePeople (Stephen Marshall)

7. Stubbs Discusses AT&T’s Post-InGenio Vision (Michael Taylor)

8. TMP’s McKelvey Discusses Online/Offline Research Data (Michael Taylor, Michael Boland)

9. New West’s Weber and Independent Local Media (John Kelsey)

10. Marchex’s Horowitz: Bet on People Already Winning (Charles Laughlin)

11. Google’s Hanke: Maps, Mobile and Mashups (Michael Boland)

12. An Intuit-ive Approach to SMB Marketing (Stephen Marshall)

13. Injecting Social into Local Media (Michael Boland)

14. Taking It Home: The Final Panel at ILM:07 (Stephen Marshall)

       

Blog: Local Media Blog, Classifieds, Directory Assistance, Display Advertising, Forecasts, Google, Internet Yellow Pages, Mapping, Mobile Local Search, Newspapers, Paid Search, Pay Per Call, Print Yellow Pages, SMBs, Social Networking, Social Search, User-Generated Content, Verticals, Video, Webification, Yahoo!, Hyper-Local, Blogging, Mergers & Acquisitions, Contextual Advertising, City Guides, General Marketing, Online News, Funding, Conferences, Local Ad Sales, Advertising Networks, AT&T, Devices, Web 2.0, Brand Marketing, RH Donnelley
Posted by: Peter Krasilovsky at 8:31 pm - Comments (0)