Google STILL Not Killing Classifieds: Local Safe, Too
Every Google product enhancement, minor or otherwise, worthy or not, is pushed to an eager fan base with great fanfare.
Google’s pre-Thanksgiving “treats”: “Think globally,” mark globally,” a map product fix cum upgrade and “A new bulk upload dashboard,” making it easier than ever to feed Google’s “universal search” with the content of others via Google Base.
Google’s “adjustment” to its map functionality may be heralded as a Google move to “open up” to users by “wikifying” the experience, but Google itself acknowledges that its maps actually send people to the wrong final destinations, even those seeking to party with Googlers! Hoping for mass citizen corrections of Google Maps to make them meaningfully better for the masses is undoubedtly a long shot.
More (in)famous Google wishful thinking: Google’s $10 Local Search Pipe Dream: Slave Wages to Squeeze Yellow Pages
Google Base? Long gone are the days when THAT product was feared as a big, bad classifieds “killer.” Peter Zollman had warned “People in the classifieds business have to assume that Google is coming at them full force.”
The New York Times, on the eve of Google Base takeoff November, 2005:
Several industry executives and analysts said they believed that Google Base was an aggressive first step in a series of maneuvers that would position the company as a powerful player in the $100 billion annual market for classified advertising. The general industry perception is that Google could potentially transform that market, which has already been shaken by the rapid shift to online searching and the free listing services offered by Craigslist.
“It’s very clear that Google is planning to launch a classified advertising product,” Peter M. Zollman, publisher of Classified Intelligence Report, an industry newsletter. “It will be a huge threat to traditional classified businesses.”
Two years later, the classifieds force is still NOT with Google, as far as Google Base has shown. Craig still rules, even as Craigslist minority shareholder eBay strives to steal Craig’s thunder via Kijiji!
Can Google Map Out the Future of Local Search? I analyzed earlier in the week. No strong evidence of a Google landslide to date, however; The Google hands-off, automated, self-serve ”magic” GOOG fuel is cost-effective but not effectively converting a critical mass of local merchants or local consumers.
Perhaps we will know more about Google’s local ambitions soon. I have the pleasure of sharing the final day Kelsey Interactive Local Media Conference honors with the Director of Google Earth & Maps, John Hanke, next week in Los Angeles.
Following the Hanke, of Keyhole fame, ”keynote” on how Google is “contributing to the local ecosphere via local search, maps, directories, and classifieds.” I will be joining Kelsey analysts on stage, tasked with opining on the state of local online: “Revolution, or evolution.”
Last week, I presented the revolutionary ambitions of local contender AnchorFree, SEE AnchorFree CEO: Hotspot Local Ad Network Beats Google, Yahoo, INTERVIEW
AnchorFree’s local wi-fi revolution is nevertheless already being contested by powerful incumbent CBS Outdoors, as I report and analyse in CBS To AnchorFree WiFi: WE Own The Ad Billboard, Online AND Off.
SEE YOU THERE? CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN
IN THE MEANTIME, READ MORE:
Stepan Pachikov: EverNote Web 2.0 Perfect Mobile Storm To Hit in 2008, INTERVIEW
MerchantCircle CEO Aims To Disrupt Local Advertising $39 billion Spend: INTERVIEW
Naked Google Maps: NO Local Ads For Hungry Motorists
Local Ad Sales War: Why Google is a Guaranteed Winner
Google, Yahoo CAN’T Crack Local Ad Sales Code
Yahoo Wants $12 billion Local Search Ad Spend, So Does CitySquares
1-800 Pay-Per-Call: Marchex Buys VoiceStar, $4 billion Local Advertising Bonanza?
Google Local Search Gold Mine: When Does Google Cash In?
RH Donnelley Means Business.com: Google Feeling Vertical Search Heat