Peter Krasilovsky packs a lot into his ten brief trends from 2006 for local online. Nearly each of his points supports Front Porch Forum’s position, so check out his full list. Some snippets:
Google and Yahoo have… 70 percent [of local search]. All the others belong in a subset. But the subset, of course, can be lucrative too.
How fast will Google and Yahoo migrate beyond local search, impacting classifieds, brand/display and Yellow Pages. It ought to take awhile.
Sites that protect local positions should get some traction.
Google-style, self-serve [ad sales] solutions will creep up on the industry faster than expected.
We’ll see a lot of localizing [from national advertisers] in 2007.
What surprises me is that the Yellow Pages companies haven’t bothered to buy [local social networks, and ratings/review sites]. Yet.
Ghost of Midnight is an online journal about fostering community within neighborhoods, with a special focus on Front Porch Forum (FPF). My wife, Valerie, and I founded FPF in 2006... read more