Life, Local and the Pursuit of Advertising; My experience growing a local online guide.

There has been a lot of chatter about local business data recently in the local blogosphere. (Here and here ) I’m in the business of local business data and I agree it sucks. I spent this week at Search Marketing Expo attending sessions from some of the best in the business and the search engines themselves. And what I realized is that everyone is just trying to create a technology that will eliminate personal interaction and direct updates.

There is no one size fits all anwer to the local data question. How do local businesses represent themselves online. Well first you need to educate them on why they should be online. (here’s a good resource for education) If they know they need to be online chances are, they don’t know where to start. They don’t know where to start. Some have ideas, some have misgivings and some are misguided. One of the biggest problems I find is that there were people that came to them in 2003 and told them they were the next big thing. Small businesses paid up and never heard from these guys again. They are weary and rightfully so. Today there are about a hundred local search options out there, thousands if you incorporate all the offline media they could be buying.

The real query that hasn’t been indexed is how do you gain trust, build a really SOLID local business database and make money while doing this all. Not an easy question. Automation is nice, but you aren’t going to get a bar owner to self-service, not in 2009, maybe not in 2012 - maybe not for along time. The issue is time and ROI and trust. Small businesses don’t want to waste their money on advertising, but they know they need to advertise so they are willing to do that. What they really don’t want to waste is their time.

So if you are venturing into the local search space, you need to recognize one thing. These guys are busy and they are afraid to try new things. If there is one thing thats on our side though, its the fact that they can’t keep justifying increasing print rates with declining circulation and escalating printing costs. So they are going to have to try new things. Alot of companies charge for customer support, so why can’t you? Because you don’t have it.

No algorithm will ever replace handshakes and personal contacts. Walk your prospective clients through your product, educate them on why its valuable and you’ve got a client. Give them a self service portal that injects their business into a Live Nation infested noise fest, they’ll never take action.

Moral being, talk to your customers.  Be there for them. The web is strange enough for these old tymers don’t be a full voicemail box and an anonymous email. Be a person, don’t forget - they’re people too.

I am spending my first trip to San Francisco working and taking in the culture. I’ve been attending SMX West, getting some great knowledge, meeting some really interesting people and really exploring the power of Twitter. I installed tweetdeck so I could monitor the conversations happening in other sessions. I made some new friends through the online conversation, then I met them offline after the sessions. The world of SEO is a funny one and there are some pretty clear thought leaders in the field. Its exciting to be meeting and learning from them out here.

The real takeaway I’m getting from this was accentuated by a second post from Fred Wilson I just read with my morning coffee. Its about Status (facebook/twitter status) and how it is quickly becoming integrated into our social fabric. In a way it is sort of becoming our social fabric. I explained to my girlfriend why Twitter is interesti by relating it to Facebook Status, or Gmail/AIM away messages. In college I would put real thought into my away message when I went to class/lunch/out. Some people would be “boring” and put “class” up, and others would say things like “enduring another endless rant form my crazed finance professor” - Thats interesting, and its not a need to know, but it can make me laugh and it can make me want to meet someone I might only know through class or passing in the hall.

As more and more people are using Twitter and more and more functionality becomes available through their API, its only going to get cooler. And the potential to integrate a single update to your Twitter account and your Faceboook is really exciting! We are working on a solution to this right now, and its going to be live in a few weeks (focused on getting small businesses involved). Twitter is just so freakin cool, there’s no reason anyone should be afraid to jump in.

Fred’s posts are typically very inteligent and this Status post (read along with Truth) is certainly no exception. But today I feel extra energized to be involved, even in just a tiny way as a user, in this media revolution thats occuring. Its happening right now and i fantastic! Maybe its the atmosphere out here, maybe its just this week immersed in my geek side of life, but I think its all of those things and just a general feeling that better things are coming.

For now, I’m going to keep living my life 140 charachters at a time and I’m going to get as many people I can to start doing that too. Because the more people who are contributing the better the interaction will be, the better the content will be and the better off we all will be. If I can get my girlfriend to twitter, I can get you too…

I just read a very interesting post by Fred Wilson on the extreme loss of jobs this economy has seen recently. Then I came across this post by Greg Sterling (smart guy, loves local). But the response to one of his questions really pissed me off. Its somethings thats been hurting the micro-world of start-ups more and more. Its contributing to the erosion of creative capital.

Is there a revenue model?

Revenue models will exist, but they’re a low priority at the moment.

Now I realize there are alot of companies that have been founded and been successful with the idea that first we need to make a great product that everyone will love, then we’ll make money. I don’t mean to pick on the particular company being mentioned, the tone just bothered me. But I get frustrated that many (I would guess 85% of the start-ups on TechCrunch) start-ups that are highlighted in media and receiving great press all over the blogosphere, don’t even have a plan for a revenue model. Not even a plan.

Everything in life can’t be free. Its just not possible. Users expect everything to be free these days, but its the same problem that built so many consumers into such scary debt. “Let someone else pay for it/ I’ll worry about it later.”

Fred’s post was about job creation, not just through starting new companies, but through creative thought in existing companies (maybe specifically how to look for a job in those companies). But down in the comments it gets fleshed out that people need to create viable businesses that enable commerce or build sustainable businesses with customers in order to create jobs.

What bothers me about the whole situation here is that stupid blogs out there are so lazy that they just report whatever it is that comes into their inbox. Stupid companies that add a fancy little widget to shorten my Twitter posts are great. Thanks, but how many jobs is that going to create? Twitter is awesome, its like the invention of the key-pad phone over the rotary, its a platform for communication and it serves a great purpose. I have no doubt they will figure out a way to make money (or someone will whose doing the same thing). But can people please stop fussing about random little companies that admittedly don’t have a plan to make money, don’t do anything special or different, and generally don’t do anything?

Point here is there are alot of companies that are hiring. They are growing, they are adding value to their communities and they are creating jobs! They maybe only 3 jobs, maybe they are 8 jobs. But there are hundreds of companies out there hiring, and all we get to hear about is impending doom and the latest free iPhone app that shows girls in bikinis dancing.

I wonder what these guys think about? Consultants and professional bloggers… probably going to hire one soon tho

Ok, I’m gonna go on a bit of a rant here. I want to create a simple app/widget that I can put in the sidebar of this blog so I can share my song of the day with anyone who might be interested (mostly so I just have a musical history of my life - a mlog if you will)

Why is this so difficult?

I dont understand last.fm at all. Half of the songs I want to listen to it only allows me to “preview” but only if I’m logged in. If I log out, I can listen to any song I want as many times as I want, but if I am logged in it limits what I can do. What the crap is that? Their FAQ’s say I can listen to most any full legnth song up to 3 times. So I can just log out and then listen as many times as I want?

Pandora allows me to customize my stations to an unbelievable degree of quality and accuracy. But it doesn’t allow me to really share that at all. Pandora give me a widget!

I just want to share music with people. Isn’t music supposed be shared? Take down your walls already music industry!

Thanks Vint. 

Everyday I find the internet more valuable. I found out about todays plane crash through an email chain I share with about a dozen of my friends. It even beat twitter. But not by much. I just found an amazing set of mashups of Jay-Z and Radiohead (jaydiohead.com - its amazing). My brother sent me the link. A skype chat with our development team led me to Girl Talk. I’d heard of him through twitter, but never checked it out. Great find. I also found a sick new band (Pinback) trying out last.fm. Although Last.fm kind of bothers me because it limits how many times I can listen to a song, which is kind of annoying. 

I was stuck in LaGaurdia yesterday for several hours waiting on a very similar flight to NC to the US Air flight that landed in the Hudson this afternoon. It is so amazing that everyone survived, truly heroes walk among us everywhere and it really goes to show how great we are when we come together.  I’m simply taking a few moments to reflect on our society tonight. It has become a place where people are instantly able to connect, across vast distances or across town. Some people understand the added value the internet brings to our lives, and some don’t. But really thats ok, because when it comes down to it, life is really about people. 

As much as I love the internet, I love people alot more. Today was a great day for people.

I was watching the daily show last night and a commercial came on for weight watchers. Along with several seemingly good features offered by Weight Watchers program was the fact that it will teach “ways to eat filling foods so you don’t eat when you’re bored.” Now I understand that some people have eating problems and this isn’t at all meant to address that topic. I feel as if boredom is an issue that affects our country and it is ruining America.

I haven’t been bored in so long. I don’t really get bored, ever. The reason for that is my natural human curiosity. Curiosity which was oppressed or restrained throughout my childhood. Again this is not a topic about me, I’m making the point that Americans have become so mentally lazy that discovery or self-discovery at a young age is frowned upon. Sure there is a segment of each generation that becomes early adopters and trendsetters/makers, but the bulk of each “class” (meaning a sort of graduating class) turns into “do what they tell you and don’t raise your hand unless you have the right answer” people.

“I am Rick Wagoner, I have worked all my life to be CEO of GM and now that I’m here I’m not going to anything differently than the last guy, lest I screw something up even worse than were screwed now.”

These are the people who are running our large companies into a wall. Really smart and competent people who simply play by the old rules and do what their or their companies legacy behooves, rather than thinking forward and making something better.

Cars depend on technology. But if Intel made chips that were only slightly faster than their previous generation, there would be no reason to buy new chips. Same logic applies to Apple; if the new macbooks were the same as last year but they put 2009 in all their marketing, people would not rush to buy them. If you were to take a 1992 ford Taurus and compare it to a 1999 ford Taurus there was little difference. In 1992 the Ford Taurus was the best family sedan on the road. In 1999 the Camry and Accord had leapfrogged Ford and GM two times over. But look at a 1992 Camry and compare it to a 1996 camry then compare to the 1999 Camry. Each is significantly better than the last.

The car comparison is a perfect example or fading American industry in the face of international competition. The same thing happened to the financial industry last year. Sure there were lots of really complicated things that made all this happen, but imho it was laziness. Laziness on the part of the SEC to regulate the industry, but really laziness on the part of the executives to really analyze what was happening. “We have been trading mortgages and subprime loans and all sorts of credit swaps for years now, how could anything go wrong?” Well the world changed and technology and communication advances made it easier to do business far away. People took loans they couldn’t afford because the guy who gave them the loan was 2000 miles away, what are they gonna do? The guy who sold the loan doesn’t care at all what happens to it because his company just bundled all the loans and sold them to somebody else “Not my problem.” The credit traders kept buying debt and re-bundling it and reselling it - and making money - “as long as other people want to buy this debt there’s no reason we can’t make money off of it” What happens when no one wants to buy that debt anymore? And when the music stopped the ball of debt fell to the ground and everyone involved just stood up and pointed fingers and dealt blame and did nothing.

UNC and Duke are good at basketball every single year. Every year they are good. They aren’t good because they have long term contracts with the best players. They are good because their coaching staff trains them to work together as a team, to work as hard as they can, to the best of their ability. The Yankees were so good for so long because they worked as a team, they won close games - in the 9th inning! And their players developed into a team. Today the Yankees are lazy, they just spend as much money as possible on the best players and expect them to win.
GM was the largest auto company in the world for so long, not because it was the best or worked the hardest, but because it was the only biggest auto company in the world. Today there is competition and GM’s competition is working harder than them, evolving faster, and making better products.

I doubt there are many people who know more than Rick Wagoner about the auto industry. Its hard to argue that there is a more talented baseball player than Alex Rodriguez. In 2007 Lehman Brothers was one of the richest companies in the world. But how many World Series has A-Rod won for his team? How is GM doing? We know what happened to Lehman.

I’m not blaming Arod for the Yankees playoff miss last year, but I’m blaming the Yankees for Arod. They brought him in to win, they didn’t so its his fault - blame him. Last time I checked there are 2o-some people on their roster? But its easy to blame Arod. Its easy to blame Rick Wagoner and Fuld and every other high profile person who’s catching blame. That way we avoid the curiosity that might reveal our own piece of guilt. We avoid self-discovery that could expose a flaw in ourselves. We avoid actually doing anything and we move on. Its all ok, this was all Maddoff’s fault, he’s gone now so everything is ok. The inauguration hype is another perfect example. All the people who mocked Bush’s “Magic Wand” statements are now expecting Mr. Obama to wave his magic wand and fix everything. “I voted, I did my part so they better fix everything!”

Well your part isn’t done. We aren’t along in this thing alone. This is a huge world and there are hundreds of people you see everyday, hundreds of millions of people in this country and over 6 Billion on this earth. Take that into perspective next time you make a decision. Teams are built - not made, teams become champions and heroes arise from champions. Heroes are not made with blame, cynicism, or hate. They are made through hard work, effort, and desire to succeed.

The underlying reason that people in this country are getting fat because they eat when they are bored is the same underlying reason why so many problems are surfacing throughout this country’s economy. We are lazy, we are quick to blame and we lack desire to succeed. Aiming for good enough will end your streak pretty quickly. Being bored is being lazy. Read a book, write a blog, see what twitter is all about - go for a jog or a walk, do something productive. But rest assure blame is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do but it doesn’t get you any where.

The world has fundamentally changed, and everyone who remains lazy and bored will be left behind. This includes companies, people, businesses large and small. Its time to innovate and look at yourself and your competition and decide whether you are going to be better/faster/smarter than them, or blame some market condition for you’re situation. Its hard on everyone, so try something new and learn something. Or just sit there in your rocking chair, blaming and doing nothing, bored.

DVNO by Justice

Just let it happen…

Today was a very exciting and exhausting day. Introducing some new people to the site, adding some great people to the team. Its amazing. Welcome to 2009.

I have an interesting perspective on what I’m doing. I learned my tricks from battling in the streets. When I first started I walked the streets with a blue  paper folder (the kind with the pockets), print outs from Word with a description of my new website.

“Thats, great kid. Let me know when someone else is on it.” - Ok

I learned that small businesses don’t really care about the internet. They dont care about SEO, they don’t care about fancy algorithms and pre-roll ads. They care about getting customers in their door and making them happy. I learned quickly that if you can make marketing easy for them they will listen. I learned that if you could show them new customers at a lower CPA than the local paper, they would not only listen - they would buy.

I have great idea’s everyday, I have a really great idea in my head right now and I know its 6-10 months away from happening.  In the past few weeks I got my girlfriend to start blogging, I think she finally understands how Twitter is cool and she even set up and iGoogle page this weekend. My parents have a computer in the kitchen (you have no idea about my parents - whats facebook?). People are using the internet to find things they need. - But of course they are Jamie! - Yes, but now they’ve realized they can find all kinds of crazy things they need on the internet easier than with their (insert non web-based tool). There are so many great things to do out there, the internet is going to explode when this economy recovers.

People aren’t leaving their neighborhoods like they used to. And if they are they are planning their trip from their desk, via the internet. They are searching for local businesses, for location specific activites and destination related things to do. This is what we mean by local. This is why Google introduced its OneBox (those bastards!) and its why everyone and their mother is started the latest and greatest local search site.

Well I didn’t figure out local was cool last quarter. I didn’t notice people were starting to ramp up local searches in June, not even of ‘07. I’m not telling you 2009 is going to be “the year of local” [trumpets sound]. But I am loving it. Loving the buzz, loving 2009 trend predictions from J.P. Morgan and Barclays. Loving the fact that a small company from Boston is dominating a huge billion dollar company with an almost identical name because its thinking small.

I’ll leave you with this, because you’re probably in the same game I am somehow or another. So cheers:

Internet activity continues to increase as the medium plays a more significant role in people’s lives, and this increased usage and dependence should leave Internet companies well-positioned when the macro environment improves.

- Barclays’ Doug Anmuth

I live in a nice apartment building.  It isn’t the nicest one you can live in, but the rent isn’t cheap and they try to present a very high class image.  But they only do just enough to keep me from complaining. When they come to fix the something in my apartment, they do about 90%. The gym is always a mess. It is just good enough to not lose people.

But it isn’t excellent.

My New Years Resolution it to never once say to myself “good enough.” Good enough is exactly the oposite of what it should be, great. Clearly I am not a revolutionary here (if you haven’t read the book you should), but thats my resolution. To be great. Not really good, or almost. But great, all the time in everything I do.

I’m starting tomorrow. Every day I’m going to add a “song of the day” and at least a few short words about my thoughts. I have so many, but I never seem to get them down here, and I’d like to use this blog to look back at ideas and to have a conversation about them. Clearly the latter is not happening.

Dear BlackBerry,

I love you.

I love you’re easy to use features. You’re quick response. The convenience key that lets me switch applications as fast as I need. I have loved you since I had the first BB, with the side scroll and the strange-at-first double letter qwerty keyboard. I loved my 8830 even more than I could imagine I would love a phone. I enjoyed that phone for nearly 2 years. Crushing google maps, downloading new apps and dealing with the adequate browser that could out Google an iPhone. Man do I miss those days.

I purchased the Storm the day it came out. I spent the weekend after playing with it, trying to love it. But it just wouldn’t happen. I customized it the way I needed it to be and the I wanted it. Touch screen is cool. I’ve avoided an iPhone because I didn’t want to give up my keyboard. I wanted an iPhone so bad, but it was on AT&T and my good friend couldn’t make or receive phone calls in his apartment in Battery Park. Manhattan. Really - you’re phone doesn’t make telephone calls in Manhattan - I don’t care where you are - this is the capital of the modern world here in NY. Your cell phone should work everywhere.

My Storm is faster than any iPhone with the browser, including the 3G. I haven’t used any special testing software to gauge milliseconds or nanoseconds - to the common eye it is significantly faster. Give me a first generation iPhone and you’re not even in the running. Verizon’s network is MUCH better than AT&T with everything that I have compared.

But RIMM, you disappoint. My Storm freezes. It displays the camera while I’m typing an email - for no reason. It gives me black screens - flashing sometimes, for who knows why. I try to change from side to upright - the accelerometer is slow to respond. I shouldn’t have to count and show my friends how long it takes to react.

Man am I pissed.

I did the upgrade that Verizon recommended. Worlds better. But still not good enough. Not good enough to compare with 3 years of faithful BlackBerry loving. This device is barely worth the Verizon name and is not anywhere near the value of a BlackBerry name. It is a really cool phone, but when I need to make a call/ text/ email and I have to turn it off, disconnect the battery, then restart because the screen is not responding. That is bush league. And BlackBerries should not be bush league.

I’m trading this back in for my Curve and getting an iPhone. I still hate AT&T and I would pay $1,000 for a Verizon iPhone. But the iPhone is cool, and it does work. And thats what I need in a phone I use for work. Not a fancy clickable touchscreen. Not even a touch screen. I need a phone I can depend on. To Google, to Map, to Email, to text. I can get all the fun stuff I want from an iPhone. But when I need it to work, well BlackBerry - the Storm just gets blown away.