Today's announcement on Insider Pages acquisition by IAC is another interesting development in the local search market space. This article by Jeremy over at Lightspeed analyzes market dynamics pretty well. Here are some things to consider,
- The average Joe running a small business is a swiss army knife, all skills packed in one. From marketing to operations to promoting the business, it's pretty tough job. Most of them end up working long hours, weekends and probably stressed out. Even for a Internet savvy small business owner, there is little time to research and actively engage in the online aspects of their business
- The traditional ways of promoting business still seems to work for them, or at least they think so. The people they interact on a regular basis still are the biggest influencers. Their customers, distributors, phone company, local newspapers are their circle of influence. The interesting trend of user generated content, blogs and other forms of social content is certainly intriguing to them (atleast in major metros), but when it comes to getting them to spend money on these online channels, it is still work in progress. Further, Google and Yahoo haven't exactly made it easy to address their needs.
- Therefore a successful approach to cracking the local search puzzle should leverage the ecosystem that has been integral to these small businesses, at least for a while . The relationships that have been established though years must be availed. Companies that try to crack the entire nut in one go will more likely fail than not.
From that perspective, today's announcement is more interesting in how traditional players are trying to aggregate all the social pieces of the puzzle ( well I guess the price was right on this one!)
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