Feb 5, 2013 at 9:43am ET by Greg Sterling

ConstantContact's SinglePlatform division has released the results of a new survey of small businesses (SMBs). The "headline" finding is that nearly half (49 percent) say they've never updated their listings online. The survey polled "more than 350" SMBs. Most small businesses are overwhelmed and confused by even basic online marketing. This is reflected in some of the seemingly contradictory findings of the survey: 50 percent of SMBs have seen listings for their business that are not accurate 70 percent of SMBs say they don’t have the time to manage listings on all of the sites t [...]

Yext “Reinvents The Local Business Listing” With New Rich Content Options

Jan 15, 2013 at 11:24am ET by Greg Sterling

Location data platform and provider Yext has introduced a range of new data types and rich content into its PowerListing local data syndication product. The new offering is called PowerListings+ (Like Google+). Enhanced local data categories enable the inclusion of employee/staff bios, event calendars, product inventory and services (including prices). Yext said that the new content types would be available at the same fee structure (no additional charge) under its PowerListings product. Yext syndicates data to 45 local search sites, including Yelp, Yahoo Local, Foursquare, WhitePages [...]

Foursquare Responds To Facebook Nearby By Tapping Facebook’s Friend Graph

Dec 19, 2012 at 7:55pm ET by Matt McGee

Foursquare has made a quick response to Monday's announcement of Facebook Nearby, with its own announcement today that Foursquare Explore is cranking up its personalization. The irony? It's going to use Foursquare activity from a user's Facebook friends to improve the recommendations in Explore. Think of it as Foursquare judo: It's using Facebook data to battle against Facebook itself. Touché! Here's Foursquare's explanation of how it's using Facebook to turn up the personalization dial: When your Facebook friends do public things on Foursquare, like write a tip, like a place, or ta [...]

Recce Offers Winning Take On 3D Mapping

Aug 3, 2012 at 11:47am ET by Greg Sterling

The most interesting development in digital maps may not in fact be the forthcoming introduction of Apple maps in iOS 6. It may instead be the recent launch of mapping app Recce (pronounced "rekki," which is short for reconnaissance). The company was previously called Mapply, but a trademark conflict motivated the company to change its name. Recce creates 3D maps through automated rendering. It layers in data from multiple sources. However it's only available for iOS right now. The difference between what Recce is doing and Google Maps/Earth or Apple's new 3D mapping is that the maps hav [...]

Google Maps Competitor deCarta Benefitting From Google Fees

Jun 6, 2012 at 10:49am ET by Greg Sterling

Later this morning Google is going to hold an event to update us on the current state of all things Google Maps. This is widely seen as a pre-emptive PR strike of sorts against Apple. Next week Cupertino is potentially going to announce its own advanced mapping service as an integral part of iOS 6. Even as Google Maps celebrates its dominance an ubiquity in the world of local search and third party services all is not ponies and sunshine. Last Fall Google announced that it would be charging its heaviest Maps users for map views/impressions over 25,000 per day. Each additional 1,000 page lo [...]

Foursquare Adds Another Search Feature: Check-In History

May 4, 2012 at 1:03pm ET by Matt McGee

Still not convinced that Foursquare wants to be more than a check-in game with points and badges? Today the company launched the latest of several search features that continue to position Foursquare firmly as a formal local search engine: a fully searchable history page where users can review their entire check-in history, including photos, tips and who else was there. The history page offers a date-based dropdown, plus filters to narrow results by location, who else was there and business category. It's fair to question when or why anyone would want to return to an old check-i [...]

New comScore Study Suggests 50 Percent Of Local-Mobile Search Happening In Apps

Feb 29, 2012 at 11:09am ET by Greg Sterling

Localeze, 15 Miles and comScore released findings from their 5th Local Search Study. The survey of 4,000 US adults (together with behavioral data) documents how consumers search for and find local business information across digital platforms. It's a pretty comprehensive study and there are a great many interesting pieces of data, some of which I've written up here and here. In this article I want to focus on a single finding: 49 percent of smartphone and tablet owners are using apps to find local information. On one level this is unremarkable and makes sense; apps are popular and there are [...]

Foursquare Brings More Search Refinements To Mobile Apps

Feb 9, 2012 at 10:16am ET by Greg Sterling

Calling it "personalized search for the real world," Foursquare brought its mobile Explore functionality into its recently redesigned PC website roughly three weeks ago, and added some new search capabilities in the process. Those capabilities included the ability to filter places results by four categories: 1) "I haven’t been to yet" 2) "I have been to before" 3) "My friends have been to" 4) "Have Foursquare specials." The mobile-PC cross-pollination continued yesterday as Foursquare brought some of those enhanced search capabilities back to its iPhone and Android mobile apps. Now you ca [...]

Foursquare Launches “Personalized Search For The Real World”

Jan 12, 2012 at 12:42pm ET by Greg Sterling

Foursquare is introducing what it calls "personalized search for the real world" on its recently redesigned website. What that means as a practical matter is the introduction of the "Explore" feature, better keyword search and several new filters that enable users to drill down in search results. We can now, without hesitation, now call Foursquare a "local search engine." You'll now see an Explore button or tab in the upper right on the website. It's obviously been on the mobile app for some time but not on the site until today. Because I was so used to seeing Explore on the mobile client I [...]

Search Trumps Social For Local Business Information

Dec 14, 2011 at 10:59am ET by Greg Sterling

The internet and search engines in particular are the top sources for information about local businesses, according to a new survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Foundation. That's not really a surprise. But what's interesting perhaps is how many people rely on print newspapers and how few seem to rely on social media for local information, according to the survey data. Pew surveyed just over 1,000 US adults by telephone in January, 2011. What it found was that 55 percent of people "say they get news and information about local restaurants, bars, and clubs" and 60 percent "say t [...]

Foursquare Hires Sr. Google Engineer For Search-Related Efforts

Dec 9, 2011 at 8:47pm ET by Greg Sterling

Foursquare has hired Andrew Hogue to beef up the company's search and search-related initiatives and capabilities. Hogue was a senior engineer with Google from 2004 through November of this year. The company recently announced it had passed 15 million users globally, 50 percent of which are outside the US. We spoke to Hogue about a range of topics last week from New York, where Foursquare is headquartered and he will be based. Hogue brings some serious engineering chops to Foursquare and it's a coup for the company to get him. Hogue told us that he was eager to work on improving Fours [...]

Foursquare Redesign Creates Expanded Opportunities For Users, Advertisers

Nov 16, 2011 at 8:56am ET by Greg Sterling

Once upon a time Foursquare was a mobile app that allowed you to "check in" places and tell your friends you were there. That seems like a long time ago now. Foursquare has evolved into a local discovery tool and loyalty platform for businesses. It has effectively won in its "check-in" segment and has moved on to bigger and better things. It's no longer simply a mobile app either. The Foursquare website was effectively an afterthought for a long time. But now a redesign makes Foursquare.com a full-blown destination and generally a much more interesting and useful place to explore. Th [...]

Euclid Offers “Google Analytics For The Real World”

Nov 4, 2011 at 10:48am ET by Greg Sterling

Yesterday Euclid Elements, a relatively new firm founded by some of the people behind the product that became Google Analytics, announced a $5.8 million first round of funding. The company is seeking to enable retailers and business owners with physical locations to measure things like foot traffic by time of day, average customer time in store, loyalty and lift of online promotions, as well as the effectiveness of window displays and other metrics. Conceptually none of this is entirely new. There are a range of "analog" companies and methods that measure retail foot traffic. However Euclid [...]

Waze Craze Brings $30 Million For Growth, China Expansion

Oct 18, 2011 at 11:19am ET by Greg Sterling

Waze is a somewhat unlikely success story. The social navigation and traffic app has just passed 7 million users globally and also announced another $30 million in funding, bringing its total to nearly $60 million. It also said that one of its new investors is Hong Kong magnate Li Ka Shing, who will help the company as it navigates (pardon the pun) the challenging and difficult Chinese market. The other investor in this round is Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Mary Meeker joins the Waze board as a result. Waze has successfully created a community of engaged drivers with its crowdso [...]

Local Search A Multi-Site, Cross-Platform Affair — Report

Jul 20, 2011 at 5:54pm ET by Greg Sterling

Google may currently "own" search, but local search is a different story. Mapping sites, specialized local sites, general search engines and deals, as well as mobile browsers and apps constitute the distributed landscape of local, according to a new report, "The State of Local Search," released yesterday by the Local Search Association (LSA), with data compiled by comScore. Entitled "The State of Local Search," the report looks at search trends and traffic over 2010 and into 2011. Billions of Local Queries In January there were roughly 2.3 billion local queries on search engines according [...]

Android Has More Check-In Users Than Apple, But Just Barely

May 12, 2011 at 6:42pm ET by Matt McGee

Android has almost a 10% lead over Apple in the smartphone market share race, but its lead in check-in activity is a lot smaller according to a new comScore report out today. According to comScore, Android's overall US smartphone market share is 34.7%, compared to 25.5 for Apple. But Android's lead in check-in activity over Apple is less than three percent -- 36.6% of check-in service users are on Android, compared to 33.7% who are on Apple's platform. RIM accounts for 22% of check-in users, comScore says, while Microsoft, Palm and Symbian are all less than 5% of that audience. Almo [...]

eBay Buys Location-Based Services Pioneer WHERE.com

Apr 20, 2011 at 11:07am ET by Greg Sterling

Adding to its LBS portfolio, eBay has acquired Boston-based WHERE.com, which has a popular mobile app and operates a "hyper-local" mobile ad network. Last year eBay bought local product inventory finder Milo.com. The terms of the WHERE deal were not disclosed. Great Mix of Assets WHERE, which began as uLocate, will apparently be housed in the PayPal business unit. WHERE itself acquired a deals site last year called LocalGinger. The combination of WHERE's location technology, ad network and deals capability proved a compelling mix to eBay, which has been searching for new sources of gro [...]

Whrrl Upgrades Personalization Engine To Fuel Discovery

Mar 10, 2011 at 3:23pm ET by Pamela Parker

How can you find a new restaurant, a well-curated boutique, or a artisanal cheese shop, if you never even knew it was there? Local search works well when people know what they're looking for, but companies like Pelago, with its Whrrl application, are looking for alternative ways to enable those serendipitous discoveries. The start-up company today released version two of its software, which can be accessed on the Web and via apps for iPhone, Android, and, with the new release, BlackBerry. Through a system of rewards and by encouraging social behavior, Whrrl enables people to check-in, make [...]

Yelp: 35 Percent Of Searches Mobile Now

Feb 4, 2011 at 10:13am ET by Greg Sterling

Yelp released some new mobile data yesterday based on usage and activity in December. The company said that its mobile apps generated calls to local businesses "every other second." Here are some of the other data: 3.2 million unique visitors used a Yelp mobile app Every other second a consumer generated directions to a local business A photo was uploaded every 30 seconds from a Yelp mobile app Most striking to this audience will be the following stat: "35% of all searches on Yelp.com came from a Yelp mobile app." The mobile audience on Yelp is more active and engaged than its PC [...]

Google Finally Adds Check-Ins To Latitude, With A Couple Twists

Feb 1, 2011 at 2:47pm ET by Matt McGee

Google has finally added full check-in capabilities to its Latitude product, following in the footsteps of Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, Facebook, and others that have been doing check-ins for some time now. Latitude has been a tool that lets one user share his/her location with friends, but now it goes further and allows users to check-in to specific businesses and locations. But Google's check-in system comes with a few twists compared to similar services: Latitude can send reminders to check-in at locations when you arrive. Latitude supports automated check-ins at places you choos [...]

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