Biggest Growth in Online Advertising Will Be Local

Jupiter Research reports found local display and search advertising have found life on the Internet and are leading among all online advertising categories for significant growth;

" According to the US Online Local Advertising Forecast, 2007 – 2012, released by JupiterResearch, local advertising will increase by 13 percent from 2007 to 2012, faster than online advertising as a whole, of which a 12 percent growth rate is anticipated during the same period. But it will be local display and search advertising that are poised to make the biggest impact."

"At this point, most local advertisers are not marketers and do not have the time or resources to manage, let alone optimize, online advertising campaigns," said David Schatsky, President of JupiterResearch. "Although search is increasing its impact on the local market, it still demands a degree of sophistication unavailable to most local advertisers."

Our unofficial research tells us that at least in our local geographic area businesses are unaware of online advertising options.

The venue is not part of the "common culture" among small business yet.

Many are being introduced to the concept by the same people that put them in the Yellow Pages for $1,000 to $4,000 per month and are now trying to sap them similarly online.

Wikia Search

Jim Wales and his Wikia crew released Wikia Search (alpha) early this morning. No surprise some pundits downgraded the search site immediately. Hard to say what they expected.

The search pages will take some time to form but the social element is inviting. Wikia Search is a social search site where search and the social elements are intertwined. Facebook and MySpace are social networking sites that have little or nothing to do with search.

The interesting aspect of the Wikia Search is people on the network determine what search results are pertinent.

It's an open palette where the participants have a say in the site. Everyone is an editor, not just a profile.

The implications for local will sort out over time. Like Facebook, every business owner should be able to have a personal profile filled out. If you own a pet supply store in Dallas or a used book store in Bakersfield you can place your local footprint on the search results pages. Once there befriend everyone with your local profile keywords, work the network.

If Wikia Search finds widespread acceptance, early adopters will be rewarded for getting involved in from the start.

Here is a quote from Jimmy Wales,

The idea is to have a community controlling all the editorial functions
of search, the functions that are normally done behind closed doors.
There will be many things that users can do, publicly, to rate urls,
guide the spider, blacklist, whitelist, etc.

These things all rely upon having some notion of "trust". In a wiki,
the activity of users is more intimate and conversational, and trust
emerges through dialog and debate. In this context, clicking to rate a
url, there is much less need for dialog and debate, and so it seems
unlikely to me that solely through that process users could come to know
each other well enough to really judge who is doing good (or bad).

The social graph provides a more explicit look at that. Plus, it's fun. :)

--Jimbo

WeBuildPages Tools Go Behind Pay Wall

Can't say I blame Jim Boykin for doing it but just the same what I admired about his business was his decision to share openly such cool tools.

Here is what he had to say about the decision to take down the cool tools;

"I was able to get Aaron Wall, Andy Beal, Bill Slawski, Jim Gilbert, Cameron Olthuis, Neil Patel, Shoemoney, Jill Whalen, Christine Churchill, Lee Odeen, and Stuntdubl, and myself, to create training videos for this program. I’ve also decided that most of the We Build Pages Tools should no longer be public, but should be included in the internet marketing ninja program as a free add-on to the program. I also put in a bunch of our private SEO tools into the program as well.

The price is $2995/year. To me, the video training is well worth that investment, as well as the tools are well worth the investment, so together I think it’s a pretty good deal. Yea, many won’t be able to afford the cost, but that will keep the program a bit exclusive."

The Online Marketing List

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