The recession, or whatever it is, could be like an earthquake for local search players. And if you’re one of them you may want to make sure you packed your brand in your earthquake survival kit.
While at Ad:Tech I overheard a provider of local business information mentioning that they are getting more inquiries than ever from companies looking to purchase data for web start-ups. Sounds like it might be time to update my spammers guide to local search sites. Given this info combined with the credit crunch, the economy, the war, etc. it also might be time for current local search players to double down on their investment in their brand. With more and more services bleeding into local search it’s going to be harder for any one player to dominate and differentiate. Brand strength as measured by user experience, customer service, advertiser performance and even SEO performance is going to be what enables your local search site to survive the seismic activity, walk through the valley of the shadow of death and make it to the promised land, or at least to your next round of funding.
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