I started flipping houses in Venice, CA in 1999. Back then any idiot could buy a house, hold it for a few months, paint it and resell it for a $50K profit. Needless to say every idiot eventually figured this out and started doing it. Suddenly it wasn’t so easy.
Local search is starting to feel a bit like that, without the profit part. For instance today I learned that The Onion has launched a local search site called Decider. It’s basically what you’d expect (restaurant, bar and entertainment guides) and it generally matches up with what I would guess The Onion’s audience is (20-something males) and it’s probably a good strategy (sort of reminds me of the ads in the back of comic books), but at the same time it feels like a turning point for the industry.
What’s next? National Lampoon’s Dentist Reviews? Paris Hilton’s Home Improvement Directory? Lindsay Lohan’s DUI Attorney Finder?
2 responses so far ↓
1 Alan
Just checked it out. It’s actually the best designed local web site I’ve ever seen. They might be on to something….
2 Decider Enters Local Search : Natural Search Blog
[...] When I heard about Decider, I immediately though, “oh, yet another business directory site among the many others,” — a thought apparently shared to some degree by Andrew Shotland. [...]
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