It has been awhile since I have posted something from Greg Sterling.  He talks about Boston.com offering local search.  It is very interesting how things are evolving on the internet.  The geo domain industry is the center of the world for media companies wishing to do business locally.  Tradional media will get the picture eventually, but when they do, it will be an expensive lesson learned.

The people running the Boston Globe’s Web site and city portal Boston.com, are confident local advertisers will benefit from a decision to have Google provide local business search results.

The New York Times Company-owned site, which had been using local business search results provided by Axciom and an in-house application, announced this week it was switching to Google’s platform.

“It’s giving Google distribution for AdSense and, on our side, it provides revenue from AdSense and a great platform for giving better content: well-suited ads that both we and Google can sell,” said Boston.com Search Product Manager Joel Abrams.

Boston.com said the improved business listings content “provides a foundation and framework to offer an effective and diversified range of marketing opportunities” for advertisers.

The ad opportunities include Google AdWords text ads, targeted display ads, enhanced events content and Web pages optimized for search results and lead generation, said the company.

(via clickz.com)

Interesting article on Local.com’s Local Promote advertising program.  A small business owner discovers the power of local search on the internet.  This is just one example of thousands, that small business owners do not understand the power of the internet.  Once geo domain owners develop effective content in large volumes, local advertisers will leave many secondary platforms to advertise on targeted geo domains.

I find it interesting that after all these years, there are still several of businesses that rely on print yellowpages and have not explored the internet to its fullest capacity.  Most have experienced with google adwords, but this method is becoming very expensive for a small business owner.  Have you seen the prices for local keywords lately?  Expensive for a visitor that is not guaranteed to spend a dime.  They are better off spending advertising dollars on a fixed internet ad on a local platform or geo domain.  

Exciting times for all in this industry!      

In early November, Goldstone placed his first Local.com ad and said that within a couple of weeks, the phone started ringing and hasn’t stopped.

ScanMyPhotos.com is using Local.com’s Local Promote advertising program, which guarantees its customer’s listing will appear at the top of the search results page in a specified category and region.

Goldstone said that the best part is he is spending about half of what he had been on Yellow Pages ads. Despite that reduced budget, the effort is producing more qualified leads.

“We used to get three or four calls a day on average [that came from the Yellow Pages ad],” Goldstone said. “Now, we get eight calls a day on average and 10 calls a day during the holidays.”

As a bonus, Goldstone said that the customers that come through the Internet “seem to be more qualified.”

So Goldstone is saying farewell to Yellow Pages advertising.

(via btobonline.com)

Yesterday, I posted Google.com’s, DoubleClick.com, launching a new auction advertising platform.  Now Google releases Adsence for videos today.  This is great news for those .TV owners who have developed video content on their websites.  Additionally, for those who are still currently developing their domains with video content.  Google has been experimenting with this program for the past 2 years and has selected 20 partners to test the technology platform.

Although this is a small part of the web advertising market, Google.com remains committed to this niche.  Historically, Google.com has proven to stay the leader in niche markets because they have been the first to offer user friendly programs and technologies.  Additionally, they have continued to be the first in many niches that have kept them on top.  

Google.com is not slowing down their dominince in the web advertising market anytime soon.  I am sure in the upcoming months, they will release some new technologies to interlink the complete advertising network with the click of the button for advertisers. 

(NyTimes)

JupiterResearch recently released their forecast for display advertising and search advertising to grow by 18% and 16% within the next 5 years.  This is an indicator for geo domainers to start focusing on these areas where businesses will be spending their money in the coming years.  Develop and implement platforms that will embrace these trends on your websites.  You will not go wrong if you follow the money.   

What I found interesting in the article is that the growth of online classified advertising within the next 5 years will only be minimal.  This may be a sign that consumers are bored with the current technology of classified ads after all these years.  Maybe, just mabye, Video Classified Ads will be the new platform to spark unheard of growth in this field.  We have seen a few websites from blog readers who are starting to see consumers embrace this new way of selling products.  

Will video ads be the the key to future growth for online classified advertising?  I think it will be, as everyone loves to showoff the things they have for sale.  There is always a story behind a product, to include employment opportunities.  Think back to the things you have sold throughout your life to individuals; were you eager to tell your story about the product you were selling?  

 The articles are good overall and help give you industry situational awareness.

(via DMNews)  (Businesswire article)

Local advertising, overall, is expected to increase by 13% in this time period, while online advertising as a whole is expected to grow by 12%.

Internet users are getting savvier when it comes to searching for local businesses online, the forecast stated. In addition, search engines are working to increase the quality of their local and zip-code-specific results.

This growth should not discount traditional media, JupiterResearch warned. Local advertising in traditional media “is not a dying market,” the report states. Consumers continue to rely on print materials for information on local businesses, the report said.

“The easiest way to keep track of what’s happening on your block, in your neighborhood and all over your city.”  This is an interesting platform I came across today while visiting Greg Sterling’s blog and following link trails.  Greg is an expert in local technology and finds some of the most interesting platforms coming to market.  I think Geo domainers could benefit greatly from this platform as it continues to add new features and spreads into other cities.  Currently, it is only being offered in New York, San Francisco, and Chicago.  You can learn a great deal on this platform on EveryBlock’s Blog.  

Interesting platform being offered for free, but many upgrades that need to be added to be 100% effective.  A step in the right direction overall.  There has been one review of the performance so far by Chandu Thota.

(via Greg Sterling)

Urban Mapping has created an API and is offering its database of neighborhoods across the US for free to developers. The company works with search engines and portals to provide more accurate search results (and advertising) when people use “colloquial” or local queries that are not reflected in official boundaries or recognized geographic designations.

CEO Ian White told me in an email that he envisions the API being used by “any site that captures [local] listings of any type (e.g., events, real estate, business listings, etc.) . . . they can now associate [them with] a neighborhood attribute.” He’s also eager to see how developers creatively use the API in alternative ways.

I have been conducting research on several of geo/local platforms that can assist geopreneurs with their domain development goals.  There are several new technologies coming out that are aimed right at geo domain developers.  I will discuss the ones I find interesting and perhaps beneficial.  It will be upto you to determine how you can implement them into your development (If you chose) and to conduct further research on the complete features they provide. 

The abundance of these new geo/local platforms from major companies over the past 5 months is validating the new hot trend of the internet, geo/local.  The time is finally coming to those who have waited so long for this moment.  The geo/local niche is going to explode in 2008, and those with an effective game plan will be in a very solid position.  It won’t be long before businesses and developers of these platforms realize the most effective use of them will be on geo targeted domains.