Looking in at Outside.in (Part II)
Today we finish my conversation with Mark Josephson of Outside.in
Q. How can a small business profit or help themselves with outside.in?
A. We can geotarget an ad campaign to a specific place, address, intersection or latitude/longitude. We can create a simple fixed campaign for an advertiser looking to reach customers within a very defined radius from their place of business.
If you’d like to advertise with us, drop us a line at advertise@outside.in. In addition, if you have a blog, submit your feed at http://www.outside.in/geotoolkit and let us drive traffic to you for free.
Q. Where do you see local search going in the next few years?
A. The entire model for local media is being turned upside down as we speak. These are exciting times for new models of local news and search. Consumers are going to increasingly turn to new sources and new platforms to find out what’s happening around them and to research and buy products and services. I think that as this happens, new models for user <—> small business interactions will evolve.
We expect mobile and location based services to drive a lot of this innovation. It is not just bringing research and data from retailers to the PCs of home users, but also bringing that data closer to the offline point of sale via mobile applications.
Q. During your panel session at ILM 08, you said, you thought in a year or two, the hyperlocal material would be the keynote instead of being presented the last day. Could you explain why you feel this way?
A. We are seeing some trends that speak to the growing importance of hyperlocal and should lead to real growth for our business and those of the other panelists:
- Consumers are demanding more personalization in their content. They set keyword alerts, rss feeds and newsletters about their individual stocks, teams, ailments, etc…, but not at all yet for local. Today you can’t do better than a ZIP Code or a City/Town. That all changes going forward.
- More devices and applications are becoming “geo aware” — that is, knowing where you are is going to be easy. The next step is “what’s going on around me right now?” and that’s what we all do.
- There is an explosion of content being created at the hyperlocal level. Historically there has not been enough “there there”, but with the explosion of blogging platforms, municipal data and discussion platforms like Twitter, there is an abundance of content.
It is our belief that these trends speak well for the growth of our business and that of our panelists and we should be bigger part of the local media scene going forward.
Thanks again Mark for the great insight and info. Look forward to seeing Outside.in and the online hyperlocal community grow.
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