A few years ago, the Internet experienced a video revolution. As broadband access expanded and more people began uploading content, video became an expected resource for consumers. Businesses could get more mileage out of television commercials and engage users by linking to video reviews of its products.
A year ago, we saw evidence of small and medium-sized business increasing budgets for video content – to be used both on their homepages and in advertisements. In 2009, 19% of businesses polled were using video (up from 5% in 2008) and I’m willing to bet that number will be much higher in the 2010 report that should come out later this month.
Now, as technology has become more affordable and increasingly mobile, we’re able to experience virtually anything online. As such, local search engines are evolving into master content synthesizers to meet the needs of consumers and advertisers alike – offering video and photos, local advertising deals, user reviews, QR codes, maps and directions, etc.
Consumer expectations of local search engines have never been higher. Users want to see photo and video reviews of a company’s products, read what other people have to say, and even take a virtual tour of your store or restaurant before they visit.
The same is true of small- and medium-sized business owners looking to find a competitive advantage. Local search engines are offering more dynamic content than ever before to users and it’s up to search marketers to help business owners feed that content.
It’s interesting to see how video content has changed since the advent of YouTube. Instead of traditional video advertising, we’re seeing new technology that lets users look around your business from their own home. Soon, we’ll be able to find virtual creations of almost any environment online – and those virtual tours are being integrated with current deals and other advertising promotions to drive traffic to your business.
Recently, a company called EveryScape partnered with Bing and YP to offer digital advertisers a new local search solution – virtual tours. For example, YP360 will let a user step inside a restaurant in Baltimore while they’re still on the train. They can choose a place and even set a reservation, all within the same application on their phone.
Google Earth has gone indoors and local search engines are responsible for bringing this detailed and vivid content to users while keeping it simple and accessible. And the business case for offering this new content to users and advertisers alike is clear as local advertising is expected to grow to $16.1 billion this year, up from $13.7 billion in 2010.
Even more, mobile phone advertising spending is expected to be more than a billion dollars in 2011, up 48% from 2010. Local search engines like YP and Yelp! are seeing over 20 million visitors a month, many of them accessing via mobile phones.
This is a great opportunity for local search engines and advertisers to embrace this new technology and get ahead of the pack. Effective local advertising goes beyond building a social networking presence and listing in directories – you have to make sure your content is engaging. In the online world, the savviest local search marketers who use this technology well will have the most successful campaigns.
I recommend that any business owner or local search marketer read up on the latest digital advertising solutions and consider offering your customers virtual tours of your products or store. To set your business apart, you need to stay current with the best that local search has to offer.
Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.
Related Topics: Locals Only
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Maya Moore of Connecticut Huskies wins fourth All-America honor
Connecticut's Maya Moore joins select company as only the second women's basketball player honored as a four-time All-American by The Associated Press.
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<b>News</b> Effects | HiLobrow
News videographer Dan Chung's footage of the tsunami devastation is moving, literally and morally. Shot on assignment for the Guardian, the work has attracted a good deal of attention—and no small amount of criticism, ...
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<b>News</b> FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and Funny Pictures
Fox News is hard right heroine. They love pushing stories, even with only an ounce of truth and a pound of spin, to their audience. However, it is basically the only opposition voice people on the far right have besides talk radio. ...
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In February of 2007, 83.24 percent of users visiting TechCrunch did so from a Windows machine. One year later, in February 2008, the stranglehold remained firm at 80.44 percent. In February 2009, the number was at 74.04 percent. Last year, it was 61.59 percent. And this year? The number of people visiting our site from Windows machines dipped to 53.84 percent.
The writing is on the wall.
Look at those numbers again for a second. In four years, Windows share among TechCrunch readers has fallen 30 percentage points. That’s incredible.
The knee-jerk reaction in the comment section will likely be something like “it’s because you guys cover Apple so much”. But the fact of the matter is that Macintosh share, after rising for three of those four years, fell last year as well. It’s the mobile devices — specifically the iPhone, iPad, and Android devices — that are eating away at Windows.
In fact, if the trend over the past four years continues at about the same pace, in two years, devices made by Apple (Macs, iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads) will surpass devices that run Windows as the top visitors to TechCrunch. And depending on how popular the iPad 2, iPhone 5, and OS X Lion are, it could easily happen next year.
Here are the broken down numbers:
Feb 2007
- Windows: 83.24%
- Mac: 13.59%
- Linux: 2.51%
Feb 2008
- Windows: 80.44%
- Mac: 15.15%
- Linux: 2.97%
- iPhone: 0.77%
- iPod: 0.15%
Feb 2009
- Windows: 74.04%
- Mac: 20.48%
- Linux: 3.01%
- iPhone: 1.60%
- iPod: 0.28%
- Android: 0.09%
Feb 2010
- Windows: 61.59%
- Mac: 28.62%
- iPhone: 4.07%
- Linux: 3.49%
- Android: 0.87%
- iPod: 0.53%
Feb 2011
- Windows: 53.84%
- Mac: 27.64%
- iPhone: 6.72%
- iPad: 3.44%
- Linux: 3.28%
- Android: 3.06%
- iPod: 0.62%
While even the last batch of stats shows that Windows still has a nice cushion over number two, Mac, if you add the Apple products put together, it’s a different story.
- Feb 2007: 13.59% Apple products
- Feb 2008: 16.07% Apple products
- Feb 2009: 22.36% Apple products
- Feb 2010: 33.22% Apple products
- Feb 2011: 38.42% Apple products
In the four year span, Apple has added 25 percentage points to their share among TechCrunch readers. That nearly all of the 30 percentage points that Windows lost in that same span (Android’s growth pretty much fills in the rest).
So it currently stands at Microsoft’s 53.84 percent versus Apple’s 38.42 percent. Again, a big year for iPad, iPhone, and Mac could mean a changing of the guard as soon as next year. But unless something drastic changes, you can be sure that Apple will be dominant among TechCrunch readers in two years.
The latest rumors have Windows 8 showing up sometime in mid/late 2012. But the fact of the matter is that Windows 7, much more widely praised than the disaster that was Vista, hasn’t helped Microsoft buck this trend among our readers. Perhaps they’re only hope of gaining back share at this point is Windows Phone. So far, that hasn’t been going too well. Nokia should help that, but will it be enough to offset the Windows losses?
Humorously, Microsoft’s best hope for not falling to Apple may well be Android. If Google’s platform continues to make gains, it could prolong Apple passing Microsoft.
But again, Apple has iPhone 5, iPad 2, and OS X Lion on the immediate horizon — all within the next few months. And then there’s the very real possibility of another iPad in the fall.
The iPad 2 and iPhone 5 are likely to push the Apple share forward immediately. But don’t sleep on OS X Lion either. The early indications are that Apple has indeed made it much more iOS-like. That means millions of iPad/iPhone/iPod touch owners who have traditionally been PC users, are going to feel a lot more comfortable on a Mac than ever before.
And a new PC-to-Mac data migration system built in to Lion will only help that.
OS X Lion is going to feed off of iOS users, and vice versa. And the Mac ecosystem is going to continue to expand. Just as happened in the browser world with Chrome taking over, a transition is happening among TechCrunch readers in the ecosystem space. The numbers don’t lie. And Microsoft better pray that our readers aren’t leading indicators of overall trends in the space — which is exactly what you have been in the past.
Titles from major book publisher Random House will now appear in Apple’s iBooks store. The news was one of many talking points covered earlier today at Apple’s media event. Random House had previously been the only major publisher not represented in Apple’s popular iOS book store, as it was not willing to grant Apple the 30% cut taken on titles sold through iBooks. The addition of Random House is a major coup for Apple as it looks to compete with the likes of Amazon’s Kindle bookstore and other popular offerings. Hit the break for Apple’s full press release.
Random House, Inc. Makes Entire US Catalog of 17,000 ebooks Available on Apple’s iBookstore
iBookstore Now Features More than 2,500 Publishers, Including All Six Major Trade Publishers
SAN FRANCISCO—March 2, 2011—Apple® today announced that Random House, Inc., the largest trade book publisher in the US, has made its full catalog of 17,000 ebooks available on Apple’s iBookstore℠, including bestsellers by Stieg Larsson, John Grisham, Dan Brown, Danielle Steel, Laura Hillenbrand, Cormac McCarthy, Lee Child and many more of the world’s preeminent authors. Starting today, customers can pre-order upcoming releases from Random House including Lisa Gardner’s “Love You More,” Suze Orman’s “The Money Class” and Jean Auel’s “The Land of Painted Caves.” With the addition of Random House, the iBookstore now offers ebooks from all six major trade publishers and thousands of independent publishers.
“We are delighted that Apple’s iBookstore now will be carrying Random House’s US ebooks for the first time,” said Markus Dohle, Random House’s Chairman and CEO. “And we look forward to bringing our 17,000 ebooks to Apple customers.”
“We’re thrilled to offer Random House on the iBookstore,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of Internet Services. “iBookstore customers have already downloaded more than 100 million books in less than one year, and we think they’ll love being able to choose from Random House’s incredible selection of titles to enjoy on their iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.”
iBookstore customers can choose from a wide selection of illustrated and video-enhanced books that look incredible on iPad™, including Jay-Z’s memoir “Decoded” and Bing West’s “The Wrong War”; bestselling children’s series such as Magic Tree House and Junie B. Jones; and cookbooks by Martha Stewart, Rachael Ray, and the Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten. Random House, Inc. comprises more than 80 adult and children’s US publishing imprints including Alfred A. Knopf, Doubleday, Crown, Pantheon Books, Vintage, Ballantine and Bantam.
The iBookstore, included in Apple’s free iBooks® app, is the best way to browse, buy and read books on your iPad, iPhone® and iPod touch®. iBookstore offers ebooks from more than 2,500 publishers in more than 20 categories, including Mysteries & Thrillers, Biographies & Memoirs, Cookbooks, Children’s & Teen, Humor, Romance, Business and Travel.
Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork, and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple is reinventing the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.
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Ask yourself, what are my company’s core capabilities? If your answer is simply, restating the product you sell, you are most likely incoherent. The coherence premium is a high level strategy used by some of the largest (and most profitable) corporations in America. Companies that are “coherent” can define 3-6 capabilities internally that differentiate them within their industry, build a deep workable strategy focused on “winning,” and develop product portfolio based around their capabilities.
What makes the coherence premium such an interesting topic? The fact that companies who are “coherent” are healthier, more profitable and better set up for long-term growth. Coca-Cola, a poster child for coherence, (almost 100 on the Coherence Capabilities Score) sees on average 20% higher earnings before interest and taxes than profiled companies with a Coherence Capabilities Score of less than 20.
Take Wal-Mart for instance, they’ve aligned all of their capabilities:
- Aggressive vendor management
- Expert point-of-sale data analytics
- Superior logistics
- Rigorous working capital management
Simple, but to the point, Wal-Mart understands their internal capabilities, which stretch from logistics all the way to IT. Capabilities should be specific enough that they exact a point of where you stop competing and start excelling your industry. A more thorough example of a capability would be, “A company’s ability to use customer-data mining to develop new products.”
Benefits
- Strengthens a Companies Competitive Advantage
- Companies are Better Prepared For The Future
- Produces Efficiencies of Scale
- Aligns Strategic Intent and Day-To-Day Decision Making
Steps
1. Ways to Play- learn how your company provides value and the way you will face the market.
- Are we investing capabilities that matter to the way we play?
- Are we clear about the way we choose to create value in the marketplace?
2. Capabilities System -determine your 3-6 core capabilities.
- Have we defined how these capabilities work with our system?
- Do all of our businesses draw upon this superior system?
3. Build a Strategy For a Balanced Portfolio – Build your future growth and product initiates to maximize your core capabilities.
- Have we found our product and service “sweet spot”
- Are new products and acquisitions determined on the way the fit within our capabilities system?
Understanding your core capabilities and becoming coherent is not necessarily the easiest thing to do. Your capabilities should be assessed with a healthy mix of both internal and external information and careful thought. All of this is worth the hassle; coherent companies consistently reap more profits, are better prepped for the future and place themselves atop their industries by innovating.
The major legislative item on the agenda in the Senate this week will be The Small Business Reauthorization Act (S. 493). Republicans plan to use this bill as a platform to promote critical pieces of legislation through the process of non-germane amendments to the bill. Here are some vital amendments that will be debated and voted on throughout the week:
- Senator Mitch McConnell is offering an amendment (S. AMDT 183) to prohibit the EPA from promulgating any regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. There is perhaps no force that is more destructive to our prosperity, consumer freedom of choice, and job creation than onerous cap and trade schemes. There are many red state Democrats who are up for reelection in 2012 and will be hard pressed to go on record as supporting policies that are an imprecation to the interests of their states. Make sure to call Senators Claire McCaskill, Joe Manchin, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, and Jon Tester in particular.
- Senator David Vitter is offering an amendment (S.AMDT. 178) forcing the federal government to sell off unused and underused property. This is a serious issue. The federal government owns over half of the land in some western states and has been using it to stifle energy development. Selling unused federal lands would also serve as a prudent means of generating revenue without raising taxes.
- Senator Rand Paul is using the SBA bill as a platform to offer his signature budget bill (S.AMDT 199) which would slash $200 billion in spending for fiscal 2011. Paul’s plan slashes funding by 50% to the Departments of Energy, Education, and HUD. This amendment represents real limited government and budget austerity and will separate the men among the boys in the ranks of the Republican Conference.
- Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is forcing a vote (S. AMDT 197) to delay the implementation of ObamaCare until a final resolution is reached in pending lawsuits. Unlike other bills that are designed to merely ameliorate ObamaCare, this amendment would completely halt it during the ensuing legal battles.
- Senator Tom Coburn has filed an amendment (S.AMDT.184) to force federal agencies to compile comprehensive lists of all of their programs
Make sure that all of your Republican senators are on record supporting these amendments, especially Rand Paul’s budget proposal. Also, let’s see which faux moderate Democrats will commit to supporting anyone of these commonsense initiatives. Needless to say, I didn’t waste time calling my senators; Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin!
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Take Two: Donald Trump Releases Official Birth Certificate - The Note
Donald Trump learned the hard way this week that if you're going to call on the president to release his official birth certificate, you'd better do the same. The Note, authored by ABC News' Amy Walter and Michael Falcone, ...
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Atari readies new Warlords remake <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net
Read our news of Atari readies new Warlords remake.
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