LocalBizBits Local Search Marketing Information and Resources
One of the final talks was The Web 2.0 Communities, which featured Dave Galvan, VP, Business Development, Topix, Mark Josephson, CEO, Outside.in, Mike Orren, Founder and President, Pegasus News, and Sebastien Provencher, Co-founder and VP, Product Management, Praized.
They, like the earlier talks, spoke about the geo-targeting component of the online local community. Many of these sites are developing iphone apps and looking at how they can work within the hyperlocal space.
Mike Josephson predicted that they would be the keynote at Kelsey within the next year or two. (I do not doubt it). The geo-targeting component is key. Mark also said geoSEO is now. Businesses need to optimize for location.
Seb also commented that within 12-18 months all browsers will have geo-targeting. He feels the world wide web is transforming to the local wide web (paraphrased) and that for these sites the next things are building trust and identity in these Web 2.0 communities.
A bit about the presenters:
Outside.in: provides…
for consumers- what is happening around me?
for publishers- extend editorial content
for bloggers- maps of content, interface
Topix: Started as a news aggregate site and have moved into a community site, with 70% of user content. They do well all over the US, mostly in the south and central US rather than the coasts due to competition there. Dave said that they work on casting a wide net and then have patience as they slowly spread. I got to speak with Dave about Topix, which will be in another post.
Pegasus News: is only in the Dallas area and provides a hybrid of staff, users, pulled content but can customized user’s experience.
Praized Media:is a white label, social label platform based in Montreal. From their website: “Praized enables publishers to provide their users with an easy way to recommend local places to each other. It’s the first distributed local search platform designed specifically for social media sites like blogs, social networks and other vertical sites (basically, everywhere there’s a vibrant community).”
Larry — great writeups! Thanks for attending the ILM:08 conference. It sounds like you really took advantage of all the things we were putting out there!
Peter K, Kelsey Group