09 October 2007
Why location is the problem with local search, and the Yahoo!/newspaper deal
In my 242 Google Alerts over the weekend, I came across two gems from blogs which address completely different issues; but as they're so good, I'm going to include them in the same post.
The first is from Matt McGee on SmallBusinessSEM where he responds to another post about the importance of SEO for local search (sometimes it all rather seems like navel-gazing). Whilst Matt doesn't disagree with the premise of the original post, he argues that the real problem with local search (for search engines) is location. As soon as you start adding a location variable to a search enquiry (e.g. Birmingham TVs), you complicate the enquiry to a much greater degree than if you simply added an extra element (e.g. flat-screen TVs). This because the relative importance of the location versus the item can be different for each user, and also because it depends on a number of value judgements made by the search engines on the definition of location. This is not to say that the big search engines will not eventually crack this puzzle; it just means that there's a real opportunity for other players to address these location issues. Read the full post.
The second is an excellent analysis of the plight of newspapers and their attempts to respond to the onslaught of the internet, particularly with regards to the Yahoo! partnership. Terry Heaton of The Digital Journalist identifies the key issue as the newspapers' refusal to abandon their old business model and simply tinker with minor aspects - the Newspaper Next project is described as "right brain solutions through left brain processes". Terry quotes a recent piece of research which highlights daily newspapers as the primary victims as their news-gathering and immediacy USP has been completely eroded by the internet, but also fingers local media which will get lost in the online big-brand name war.
Analysing the Yahoo! deal, Terry believes that whilst the newspapers have gained some advantages from the relationship, Yahoo! has gained considerably more, being the controller of the network rather than one of the 'nodes'. But even then, Terry concludes that whilst Yahoo! is all about bringing people to the network, Google is much more about bringing itself to the network which will ultimately prove more successful. Terry's full post is here.
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