Seeing Forests

I really enjoyed Greg’s moderation of the Monetizing Maps & Mashups panel discussion at Where 2.0.  It was a generally solid discussion albeit laced with a few too many acronyms even for my tastes.  The participants included Jed Rice from Skyhook Wireless who provided some keen insights.  Notable amongst them was the observation that there is less traffic and inventory available for the more “micro local” buy, but you get higher click-thru rates and possibly higher value[1].  Perfectly fits the “long tail” model.  Ian White’s “Keyword Conspiracy” theory - that the search engines don’t want to make these terms available because they don’t make enough money on them - was probably the most intellect free comment of the entire conference.  Couldn’t possibly be explained by simple market dynamics.  No, there’s an entire price-fixing conspiracy amongst the search engines designed to keep the little (micro) man down.  Uh-huh.  I think Perry points out the opportunity here pretty well and while it may make sense for Google to be more focused ‘up the geo hierarchy’ the market will eventually demand and the marketplaces will eventually deliver more micro local opportunities.  I do think YP companies can seize an initiative here, particularly as they combine more micro with deconstructed buying and disaggregated product strategies.

[1] I use the term “micro local” instead of “hyper local” because I like to be more precise in the use of my Greek prefixes as “micro” means small and “hyper” means “over or beyond”.  Just a little pet peeve.

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