Advertising - The Price of Free Content

A little off-base today, but still somewhat connected to the world of interactive channels. I want to talk about local search and the advertising opportunities that come with knowing WHERE someone is. I will also preface this with the fact that my company, 5o9, Inc. has a direct interest in this topic, so forgive my blogging transgression, but this is too important to ignore. That being said…

This blog is inspired by Truelocal.com, an Australian “Local” search engine. Yeah, I know there are lots of local search engines out there, so why am I excited about this one. Quite simply, it’s the company behind the Web site - News Digital Media. If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is the digital arm of News Corp (Fox & MySpace), one of the key players in the Interactive Channels space. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. News Corp’s holdings are global and their only real weakness is in the interactive advertising space. When I heard about True Local I was hoping to see something exciting on the local or digital advertising fronts. As far as search sites go, this one has a nice mapping feature that pops up next to the listings, but their advertising seems very weak.

This may be a function of culture, but secretly I was hoping for something ground breaking in the local search and advertising areas. Local search is achieved by typing in postal code, city or state – same as with every other search engine. The advertising was almost non-existent. To me, this signaled that Google still holds the lead in digital advertising infrastructure – the primary component that is defining the shift in interactive channel development. It's time to shake things up.

So what is the next big innovation? Local advertising – or more precisely, automatic local advertising. Particularly in the arena of mobile search and mobile social networking, the less a user has to type in on their tiny keyboard the better. This is THE technological breakthrough that that all the key players are trying to achieve. So how far off is it?

It’s here! Automatic local search from GPS coordinates is technically feasible and is demonstrated here. Demo Instructions: (Just use the 3^rd entry box and select one of the photos. Location is being pulled from the photo metadata. The demo is live, so feel free to replace the search for ‘pizza’ or ‘hotels’ with whatever criteria you like). Our use of selected search engines is entirely arbitrary and we are not endorsing one service over another.

So if the location data makes it to the Web server, then truly local and personalized advertising is now available to whoever adopts it. So who will be first to personalize interactive content, search and advertising based upon WHERE you are, WHAT device you are on and WHO you are (your personal preferences)? Google? News Corp? Microsoft? Or maybe Comcast or Cox? It’s hard to say but before the decade is out, our interactive media and the ads that pay for it will go beyond targeted, to personal.

Exciting times!