Author Archives: Michael
Get the ZipSkinny
ZipSkinny is worth a look. This beta site compares census 2000 data by zip code… very interesting.
$1.5M more invested in Outside.in
Greg Sterling highlights today that Outside.in recently received another round of investment: $1.5 million.
The company is trying to scale “hyper-local” and has improved the look and functioning of the site since its launch. As founder Steven Berlin Johnson told MediaPost:
“The development of our partner program and targeted regional and national advertising will be two major initiatives for the coming year,” said Outside.in co-founder Steven Berlin Johnson. “We’ve spent our first year building out a state-of-the-art platform for organizing the Web geographically, and now we’ve got a fantastic opportunity to build a business on top of that platform.”
Smalltown is also in this category, although taking a more incremental approach to building out its sites. The challenge of course is direct advertiser acquisition. Backfence (now gone), Judy’s Book (now evolved) and InsiderPages (now acquired) have all faltered along this path to monetization. Yelp has had success in certain markets doing direct sales because of its brand recognition and consumer traffic.
Most Trusted Source? The Envelope Please…
Greg Sterling summarizes recent studies that ask about the most trust source of information…
Front Porch Forum deals with lots of word-of-mouth. I differentiate between word-of-mouth from anonymous strangers (most review sites) and word-of-mouth from a clearly identified person with whom you have a connection. With FPF, the recommendations come from clearly identified nearby neighbors.
And from the eMarketer Newsletter…
Local Online Growing, Growing, Growing
Seems like the word is getting out about “local online.” Some recently reported developments…
Greg Sterling takes a look at “mommy sites”… lots of them popping up all over. Some of these are similar to Front Porch Forum… very local and talk about whatever (not just reviews or just classifieds).
Marketers and local businesses should consider some of these mom sites in their thinking about targeting local audiences and in terms of “online word of mouth.” While it’s considerably more challenging to market within online communities, a little time and attention to some of these sites could pay off in a meaningful way. Regardless of whether marketers pay attention to them, these mom networks are in fact driving lots of recommendations and business referrals all over the US. It’s very much an untold story in local.
Bill Day writes for Marchex a post titled “Building relevant and useful sites for neighborhoods.”
How do you cover a landscape as fragmented and targeted as the 42,000+ neighborhoods/ZIP codes that exist in the U.S.? And what needs to be done locally versus done centrally to ensure a solid consumer experience? As a company that owns ZIP Code Web sites covering most of the U.S., we are dealing directly with the challenges and opportunities that come with building highly relevant and useful local sites covering each of the ZIPs.
Hmm… a ZIP Code is interesting, but too crude of a cut. Just in my own experience I’ve lived in ZIPs that feel like home, others that feel disjointed and jerrymandered. And they change. Does that mean the “neighborhood” changes too? Perhaps a techie’s solution to a human challenge. Who knows?
ReachLocal, a provider of local online marketing solutions for SMBs, has raised $55.2 million in new financing. This comes on top of the $12.7 million it has raised since its founding in 2004. The new funds give ReachLocal an estimated valuation of $305 million, since it was previously valued at $250 million.
That’s a lot of money. Reminds me of Big Tent… social networking for soccer moms. And Ning… DIY social networking. Both of which I believe have huge sums of investment.
Finally, Cameron Ferroni on the Marchex blog seems to agree with my assessment that the local online space is getting both broad and deep…
There is so much data out there that some set of consumers will love, and others will think is irrelevant. Deciding how to bring it all together and get consumers excited – now that is the challenge.
Different Type of Neighborhood Blog
Richard in Toronto sent me the link to his neighborhood’s blog… interesting. He’s set up an entry for every house in the neighborhood and several have some flesh to the bones… photos and text.
This is more in the spirit of Front Porch Forum than the typical citizen journalist reporting on his/her view of the neighborhood. Trying to turn the ENTIRE neighborhood out for the conversation… not just a mostly one-way deal.
Social Exclusion and the Internet
Kevin Harris has an interesting posting this week about people who are socially excluded/isolated in life and how they carry on online. Does online social networking help bring the most excluded of people into community?
Online Advertising Growing
Greg Sterling wrote about online advertising revenue projections this week…
According to the just-released IAB/PwC online ad revenues report, US online ad spending reached $5 billion for the second quarter and $10 billion for the first half of 2007. Year over year growth was just over 26%. Online ad revenues should hit or exceed $20 billion for the full year, 2007.
The distribution of revenues across ad categories is also follows:
- Search remains the largest revenue format, accounting for 41 percent of 2007 first six-month revenues. Search advertising revenues totaled $4.1 billion for the first six months of 2007.
- Display-related advertising revenues totaled $3.2 billion or 32 percent for the first six months of 2007. Display-related advertising includes Display ads (21% of 2007 first six-month revenues or $2.1 billion), Rich Media (7% or $699 million), Broadband Video (1% or $100 million), and Sponsorship (3% or $300 million).
- Classifieds revenues accounted for 17 percent of 2007 first six-month revenues or $1.7 billion.
Lead Generation revenues accounted for 8 percent of 2007 first six-month revenues or $799 million.What’s striking is that:
Online advertising continues to remain concentrated with the ten leading ad-selling companies, which accounted for 70 percent of total revenues in the second quarter of 2007.
Assuming that the projections are fulfilled and US Internet ad revenues reach $20 billion, that will mean that as an ad medium the Internet is larger than:
- Yellow pages
- Radio
- Outdoor
- Most categories of TV (though not in the aggregate)
- Most categories of magazines
But consumers don’t trust online ads vs. traditional media advertising. That’s a problem for marketers that want to shift more of their budgets online to pursue those audiences. Internet ads have to be done much more thoughtfully than traditional advertising.
About Blog
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
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