Seeing Forests

As Techcrunch reports in “Best Buy Rolls Out Shopkick’s Geo-Coupon System To 257 Stores” we get to start seeing that scene from Minority Report come to life, although instead of seductive avatar asking about some new unmentionables, we get a a-buzzing and a-you-got-mail, er coupon message chirping on your phone. To me, this raises the question not of “Net Neutrality” but of “Net Ubiquity” and whether I as a consumer (or a business) will need to be locked into a proprietary technology/platform to access these deals. Sure, Shopkick should do all it can to try to establish this kind of a monopoly but monopolies aren’t in the general interest. Just as those zany Velociraptors found a way on Jurassic Park, so to will these deals find a way that won’t be corralled to one private network.

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Recent Techcrunch post “Why Online2Offline is a Trillion Dollar Opportunity” essentially tries to differentiate the admittedly exploding market for online coupons into some kind of brand new market segment that’s fundamentally different from the online directories - not. The whole goal of the online directories is to drive consumers from an online experience to offline purchase. And they do so in myriad ways of which coupons are only a fraction and part of an overall mix. Different segments require different marketing incentives - not a lot of coupons for Doctors. Directories offer full-service online programs for the entire market but they’re all about getting people from their computer to their phone and finally to the front door (whether the local florist or their own door for the plumber). The reason we see the success of all these sites is two-fold. First, it’s because there are still clear opportunities for “horizontals” - sites that focus on one thing in the consumer behavior mix ala Yelp for reviews, Open Table for reservations - because it is a challenge to do all things well for all segments. And, two, technology is catching up to facilitate more complex behaviors online. Just providing a “payment method” doesn’t magically define some new market segment. As a side note, I don’t think there are many of us in the directory space that consider Yelp a directory but, hey, like Greg says, we’ve only been saying this for a decade so who am I to pontificate. I just don’t get to say it (or is it pay for it) on Techcrunch.

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Google just introduced a Small Business Blog that promises to to bring together all of their details about managing a Place Page. Just what the mythical small business needs.

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Rather a long time between posts but more on that later. Saw a strange take on local. It seems that IFC (International Film Channel) and Foursquare are teaming up to promote and solicit “Always On, Slightly Off” local venues. Apparently IFC “celebrities” are going to make recommendations for venues like sushi bars with “with monkey waiters in tutus” and the like. What the business driver here is a bit beyond me but it’s an interesting merger of local.

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Looking forward to catching up with everyone and talking about what Brilliant Arc is up to in 2010.  Nice to have something to talk about instead of talking about talking about something sometime.

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Saw Greg post about the New Google Maps Lab tab at the top of Google Maps now.  Just zeroing in on the “Around Here” feature which does a “*” wildcard search around your current location and shows the top results.  Grabbed a snapshot below.  That certainly clears things up.  :)  Seems like more of a case of “we can, so let’s” instead of something that’s got a driving use case behind it.

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I’ve been wondering about this for a little bit.  I’ve always thought the notion of “checking in” digitally to some place via a local social service like BrightKite or FourSquare to be a particularly novel behavior enabled by mobile Internet technologies.  I’ve just wondered who came up with it first.  I only ever saw it first with BrightKite but being that I’m not the most social guy, I may have missed it somewhere else.  And I don’t count online check in for airlines here.

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After playing around with the Nexus One for a while, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Nexus is a cat and the iPhone is a dog.  The iPhone is just warm and fuzzy and wants to jump up in your lap and lick your face.  Nexus One, with it’s little “shrug” every time you hit the back button, is cool and sleek and wants to jump up off your lap and flick its tail and remind you that ultimately, in the long run, it doesn’t need you.

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Following a tweet from Greg, and Sebastien, and now the post on Read/Write Web, I went to the Google built-in browser on the Nexus One to try out Google’s “Near Me Now”.  I don’t quite get why Marshall at RW says this doesn’t bode well for the likes of Yelp and NextStop (can someone say, Local Guides?).  The site is pretty pedestrian; the production values pretty plain.  Of course, if you’ve read Google’s PlaceRank patent, you’d be expecting this.  They’re providing a list of most popular categories for canned searches that drive to result pages with links to their Place Pages.  Got to tell you, though, results are quite good and I’ve always liked their Place Pages so if all you ever want is what everyone else always wants, you’re in good shape here.  I can’t help but believe that there’s still more to answering the question to what’s “Near Me Now” than what’s behind a list of Google-blue international standard icons for restaurants, lodging, and shopping.

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I don’t really care about Pogue one way or the other.  He writes some useful high-level consumer stuff (like about pocket projectors).  But I do have to kind of sympathize with him for some of the hostile reaction he got to his generally positive piece on the N1.  I mean, come on. Idiot?  Incompetence?  Pogue?  Please.  Upon reflection, though, I do feel something may have passed me by personally.  I’ve been one of those open-source, Apple-loving, Microsoft-hating kind of guys for so long, I thought I’d only have to go to war with the old order.  Now I might have to be an open-source, Google-loving, Apple-hating, Microsoft-equivocating kind of guy?  Wow.  Not sure, here. Given an option, I’ll always pick a fight, but I think I’m gonna need the afternoon to at least look at my new N1 before I don the shield and brandish the sword (although I admit, doing a little burning and pillaging of Apple’s group-hug, no central checkout, ain’t you lucky you can shop here “store” might be timely).

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