Final Thoughts on DMS'08

This was my first Kelsey Group conference and I must say I was impressed. The sessions, breaks, snacks, meals were great. Not being a Yellow Pages guy, I learned a lot. It was a lot of fun finally meeting folks I have been talking with via email, Facebook, LinkedIn etc.

I walked away from the meeting, with a ton of ideas of what I can do for my local business customers. Right now the Yellow Pages industry is working to “re-define” itself. There are a lot of perception vs reality issues in the field that need to be addressed.

The future is wide open and the Yellow Pages are not dead. Such areas of video, mobile search, IYP are going to be important components in the future. The term multi-platform was used a lot and you will probably be hearing that more.  This is where instead of just dealing with the offline Yellow Pages, the on-line Yellow Pages and related areas  will also be included in the mix. The Yellow Pages industry wants to be your “media specialists.”  Now this is not a bad thing, but if they contact you, get them to explain what all they want to do.

They spoke a lot about the sales aspect of the Yellow Pages and the improvements/changes that are needed there. I would tend to agree based on the limited contact I have had and that of some of my clients.

Overall though, I know a whole lot more about the Yellow Pages industry, IYP, and local search. Yes mistakes have happened in the past (in the Yellow Pages industry) and areas have not lived up to expectations but the immediate and long term future look very promising.  (Over the next few weeks I am going to review all the slides and presentation notes I have. So much good stuff!)

Here are links to the others bloggers of the conference. A great bunch of guys:
Praized Media Blog from Sebastien Provencher
LocalSEOGuide from Andrew Shotland
Small Business Commando from Dick Larkin