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
Blogger Andrew Trench recently presented a theory on the threshold of when Internet penetration starts to matter, writing:
Social networks have also been given plenty of credit for the revolution unfolding in Egypt.
So I went and had a look at the numbers over on www.internetworldstats.com to see what they could tell us about these two scenarios. Well, fascinatingly, both Egypt and Tunisia have seen a massive growth in internet users and internet penetration over the last 10 years.
Both have now got internet penetration of over 20% and in Tunisia's case it was as high as 34%.While it is clearly simplistic to over-state this factor and there must be many more drivers contributing to such a rapid political uprising, it is obviously a factor as evidenced by the Egyptian regime pulling the plug on the country's internet access to try and block the rising tide of revolt.
My back-of-napkin theory is this: that a rapid increase in internet penetration in a repressive regime does play an important role as it provides an unfettered channel of communication allowing disaffected citizens to share views - and more importantly - to rapidly organise and mobilise.
If Egypt and Tunisia are valid case studies, it looks like internet penetration of around 20% is the mark.
Geopolitics & Macroeconomics adds:
Internet penetration: Social networking sites were critical to sustaining the momentum in the recent protests. The internet penetration in Egypt is 16%. In Libya, it is a meagre 5% [1]. The unrest in Libya has thus far remained concentrated in regions that are geographically distant from the seat of ‘real' power (see more on this below). The dependence of momentum on internet communication is far greater in Libya than in Egypt where protests began in Cairo itself.
Taking the conversation to Pakistan, Sabene Saigol writes, on BrandRepublic:
Perhaps one reason for this is that we're still not that used to communicating via the ‘net - maybe we need greater broadband and internet penetration. Personally I think it is more to do with culture - while Pakistani internet users are savvy to using social media to connect with friends, I feel they have not yet ‘crossed over' to seeing SM as a means for professional communications - or even wider social communications that go beyond their immediate circle. Yes, there are no doubt savvy people - both within marketing and tech circles, and outside - however, these people are likely a tiny proportion of the total number of ‘net and social media users.
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Maya Moore of Connecticut Huskies wins fourth All-America honor
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Apple advertises its products as magical. They’re at the intersection of “technology and the liberal arts,” Steve Jobs said today. Something that moves your heart, not just your lust for technology. Will consumers still buy that in 2011?
The big picture question of the day is whether Apple has done it again. With the original iPad, Apple crushed its rivals, taking more than 90 percent of the tablet market in 2010 and selling more than 15 million units. Jobs predicted today that 2011 will be the year of the iPad 2. Based on what I have seen today, I think he’s mostly, but not entirely, right.
Competitors will discover that Apple has a lot of inherent financial advantages, including being a low-cost leader. That may not sound intuitive, but I believe it has to be true. It is selling so much volume of its products that it can get discounts on parts and manufacturing services that no one else can get.
When it sells its products in stores, it also doesn’t have to give away 20 percent of the margin to a retailer. That is a huge financial advantage. Carriers are also willing to subsidize the costs of Apple products in a way that they won’t with other tablet vendors. All of these things may explain why the Motorola Xoom, a very cool product, is selling for $800 while Apple has priced its new devices at $499 to $829, (and dropped the price of the old iPad to $399). Apple has also left very little room for rivals here, since it has signed up both AT&T and Verizon. Perhaps there is room for rivals to sell $199 machines, but users probably aren’t going to like them.
Those are reasons why any cool Apple mobile product could beat other rivals. But Apple has also done some smart things with the iPad 2. It has created another rev of its microprocessor, the A5, which has two cores, or computing brains. And it has nine times faster graphics than its old A4 chip. Since Apple designs this chip itself, it doesn’t have to give away much margin to a chip design firm. It only has to give a small margin to a chip manufacturer such as Samsung to make the chips.
Apple has also custom-designed the A5 to run Apple applications on a device with a 10-hour battery life. Apple should have an edge there, as it won’t sell the A5 to rivals. But if this is an advantage, it isn’t likely to last long, as Nvidia is being very aggressive with a new quad-core chip that it could sell to any Android rivals.
The design of the iPad 2 is where Apple has more advantages. The iPad 2 will have faster web-browsing with a new version of Safari. It has two cameras that will inspire a lot of video and photo-related apps. The availability of the Mac applications — iMovie, Garage Band, and Photo Booth — on the iPad 2 will make a lot of users happy. More interesting features will come with new releases of the iOS, or Apple’s operating system in the fairly near future.
There are some users who won’t like the restrictions of Apple’s ecosystem. If they want universal serial bus (USB) and SD card ports, they are out of luck. Apple didn’t change the resolution of its screen either, leaving it at 1024 x 768. Competitors could add these options and put emphasis on them as selling points. (Critics are disappointed that Apple did not improve the display, but that’s a big cost issue others have too).
Apple has also made great improvements in the feel of the product. It’s 33 percent thinner, 2 ounces lighter, and it has a wonderful new screen cover that doubles as a stand for the device. (It wakes up the device when you peel it back and it has micro-fibers that clean the screen when the cover is on).
Now here is why Jobs is not entirely right. Apple has come up with a stunning machine at prices that the competitors will have a hard time beating. But it is almost inevitable that Android-based tablets will gain market share on Apple.
So far, I don’t see the Android machine that will beat the iPad 2. But the potential is there, given ingredients such as Android 3.0, Nvidia Tegra 2 chips and other fast microprocessors, and 4G LTE. The latter is the main weakness in Apple’s armor.
LTE is fast, with a minimum speed on Verizon at around 12 megabits a second and actual speeds running much higher than that now. Getting access to 4G LTE is as big a benefit as having access to lots of cool apps, from my point of view. Right now, the timing of the still-young LTE technology means that Apple cannot yet put it into its mass-produced, lowest-cost tablet computers.
If LTE costs come down sometime soon, then Apple can launch a new version of the iPad to incorporate the technology. But it’s not a simple upgrade, as it means that the hardware of the machine — including the radio chip — has to change. And for now, LTE chips are larger than their 3G equivalents, so the heat dissipation and product size are affected. In other words, LTE can force Apple to redesign the iPad.
Apple can do that. But Android tablet makers might be able to move faster than Apple directly into the 4G LTE tablet market. If they do that, then they will have found a scenario where they could steal a march on Apple. Apple is not likely to let that gap last for a long time, but it might be enough for Apple to lose some share this year.
Apple’s leadership position in this market will be hard to beat, but the collective weight and reach of Android rivals could erode it. And here’s a sobering thought: If Apple eventually winds up with only 30 percent of the tablet market, it could still be No. 1, and its place as the largest technology company in the world will not be at risk.
Check out Apple’s overview video on the iPad 2 and Jobs’ comments on technology and the liberal arts below.
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I read an interesting article this morning that suggested Apple would change its mind and put Adobe’s Flash technology on its iOS devices within a year. I don’t think that’s going to happen.
In an open letter to users, Apple CEO Steve Jobs gave several reasons why he didn’t want Flash on the iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. They are: Flash isn’t open; the full web; reliability, security and performance; battery life; and touch.
Adobe began shipping Flash Player 10.1 for Mobile last June, but even Laptop magazine admitted that “Steve Jobs was right,” and that “Adobe’s offering seems like it’s too little, too late.” Granted, that report was from six months ago, but it still doesn’t bode well for the technology.
There is no doubt that Adobe is making advances with Flash on mobile devices, but I don’t believe future changes will be enough to get Apple to adopt the technology.
Jobs has been very clear that Apple supports HTML5, an open technology that is controlled by a standards committee, not one company. By building support for that technology into Webkit, Apple is ensuring that mobile Web browsers will be able to access what we’ve come to know as the “full web.”
Webkit is used by Google, Palm, Nokia and RIM, so it has a pretty solid base.
One of the arguments often bantered about when the discussion of the “full Web” comes up is video. There is no doubt that Flash made huge strides over the years in having sites like YouTube encode their videos in Flash. But that’s for the desktop.
As Jobs points out, almost all of this video is also available in H.264 format (a format Flash also supports), so it’s viewable on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
“Add to this video from Vimeo, Netflix, Facebook, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ESPN, NPR, Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, People, National Geographic, and many, many others. iPhone, iPod and iPad users aren’t missing much video,” wrote Jobs.
You may ask why other companies adopted Flash for their mobile devices when Apple won’t. That’s easy, they are looking for something they have that Apple doesn’t. Considering how hard it is for tablet makers to compete with Apple, any perceived advantage will work.
I’m not an Adobe hater—I know quite a few people that work at Adobe and I think they’ve done some amazing things over the years. Flash for mobile devices isn’t one of them.
Chris Dawson said he gives “Apple a year until they cave [and adopt Flash]. Android tablets will just be too cool and too useful for both entertainment and enterprise applications if they don’t.”
I have been using my iPhone for years and my iPad for one year. I honestly can’t remember the last time I went to a Web site that wouldn’t load because I didn’t have Flash installed. I can load videos from YouTube and a host of other sites too, no problem.
Apple has sold more than 160 million iOS devices and there are no screaming, angry hordes of users breaking down the doors at 1 Infinite Loop demanding Flash on their devices.
In order for Apple to change its mind and adopt Flash, the technology has to be proven to be indispensable and that it will benefit its users. Apple has proven just the opposite is true.
Editor’s Note: Jim Dalrymple has been writing about Apple for more than 15 years. You can follow him on Twitter @jdalrymple and on his Web site at The Loop.
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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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