Just booted up the laptop and jumping in a little late.  In short, according to Neil Polacheck, a lot of investment in local, and a rapid movement from horizontal to vertical media is the lens through which we should all view this space.

Peter Krazilovsky steps up to the plate:

Marketplaces are conversations:

  • Groupon has 1,000,000+ users
  • Real time news feeds tap into existing engagement tools to add location & context to blogs, SMB sites, etc.
  • Optimized content (SEO) acts as ad substitutes.
Steve Marshall takes the podium to go over the latest BIA Kelsey survey data (will fix formatting later – maybe):
  • Now more SMBs using online than print media 77% onine v. 69% print
  • 0-3 yr old businesses spend 30% of budget spent online v. 13% for businesses that have been around for over 11 years.
  • 39% of SMBs say they are going to use UGC reviews on their site in the next 12 months up 29% from one year ago
  • 23% say they are going to use video on their sites v. 10% one year ago
  • SMBs with Websites by “Super Vertical: 62% Fin Services have sites, only 34% Home Services have sites, 65% Pro Services have sites (e.g. Lawyers)
  • Increasing use of online verticals by Super Verticals
  • An emerging content eco-system, driven from a cloud-based platform.  Uses free or inexpensive tools like blogs, social nets, Twitter, etc.  Content gets scraped and finds its way to local search sites.
  • # of sources used in shopping for local products by avg consumer from ’07 to ’10 – 5.6 to 7.9!
  • The Internet is now heavily integrated into purchasing behavior:
  • – 82% use Web as primary or secondary source for product purchases
  • – 45% use Web to research non-routine purchases before buying
  • – 27% completed purchase online
  • More searches being done on mobile devices for local services (18.5%) v. out of market searches (11%)
  • “App or Ad” is one of the new decisions a SMB has to make to allocate mktg resources
  • Get out of your product or media silo!  Think about the entire communication & transaction chain.

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