Last week while getting my lunch I noticed my 1st Qype sticker in the window of the restaurant – Just Falafs. I am not sure how long Qype has been promoting this to businesses but it follows a similar strategy to Google Maps and Yelp. Qype is a local reviews and information site with user generated content and social media angle – it is basically a European Yelp and also competes with the likes of Trusted Places (which is A Fuller View favourite!)… All I can say is this is more fuel for bye bye Yellow Pages which no bad thing…
Over on Greg Sterling’s blog there is a good post – Among the ‘Top 50′ Many Local Sites- about all the traffic that coming from ‘local sites’ in the US. This does onlycover US data but I’ve got to think there is a similar trend in the UK and across Europe. For some reason this post got me thinking about all the local sites that I either use regularly or know others use a lot. What is striking about this list is the number of sites in the Uk that have local user generated content (UGC).
A list of some of the bigger and better Local UK Sites:
Plus in the UK there is a very strong local newspaper market and a super saturated media market just for London (8 million plus people with 80%+ online at home, work and mobil) … I will dig around for some stats and try to come back with a view of how much online local traffic is being driven in the UK.
On a related note: I notices that new printed yellow page books (hard copy) had been delivered around some parts of central London today. I predict that many of these will just sit out on the street. I will try to keep track and report back.
Docoloco is a new entry into the user generated local info space with a couple of unique features and a fresh approach. btw – I did a previous post on Docoloco when they launched back in July – which didn’t deserve to live (=lame post) so I deleted it.
Now let’s try to explain what this site is all about – it is an innovative twist on user generated content (UGC) meets social networking meets local search (as in a business directory, IYP)… My initial take is that the site is some combo of: UGC + social network + a pinch of yahoo answers + a pinch of yelp + Google maps (of course) + lists (some secret sauce) + ajax/ruby-on-rails UI = Docoloco!
What I like:
Site creates lists of related entries based on folksonomy
the look and feel of the user interface
the design and look (nice logo!) of the site
presentation of the data and maps
asking questions
global coverage (not just one country, but in theory world wide coverage)
post to blog feature
what I didn’t like:
not very intuitive to navigate around
some parts of the UI hard to follow, input validations tricky
not much help or FAQs
geo data validation is funky for UK
search and navigation could be improved
I am sure the founders have a ton of changes and improvements planned, so this is just an initial view [not a full(er) view]. I definitely think they are onto something here. The list feature and global coverage is sweet. I will watch and continue to use the site see how it develops. The founders have significant experience in local search, so I would bet some money this site does get better. Johnny Cussen one of the founders, who I know personally, has worked for both Looksmart & Sensis). The other founder, Chris Mander has a serious web design background, we used him to help with UI deisgn while I was working at FAST.
I hope to see Docoloco get some traction. If I were a VC or angle investor I’d be contacting them for sure.
I plan to do a follow-up post or update to this one with a little bit of a deeper dive into key features and a profile on the company when I get a chance.
A corollary of the micro-elite principle is that one of the best ways to help a project requiring a micro-elite is to find the right contributors and persuade them to help out. We should also examine the rewards that such projects offer to see whether they offer enough incentives to draw the micro-elite. The key prerequisite for good writing is good writers.
This is smart. Zoomf, a UK property search engine, is using Facebook to drive traffic and raise awareness. How? They have created a Zoomf group, they have a fan page (on Facebook, must be logged in to see fan posts) and there are having the fans send messages to keep people up-to-date. It helps that the fan sending the messages is an attractive young woman. I thought about adding her photo to this post but decided that was pushing the limits of good taste…
The site also just had a re-design and new search UI released. Like I said before, this is a site to watch. But they need to get more data and coverage – I can’t find the house on my road that I know is for sale now. See property search can be infotainment especially in property obsessed Britain.
Update: check the Zoomf blog for more on the Facebook fansumer action.
Wow, what a week or couple of weeks it has been for the hype around social networking. Please don’t get me wrong, I am a user of and believer in social networking/media serevices and sites. Plus, the wider trend in Social Media is one of the really useful and fun areas of Web 2.0 that definitely delievers something of value. I believe it is here to stay.
First off, I’d like to say its good news that there was only minor damage and no major injuries from the moderate earthquake in SF Bay Area last week (on Tues 30 Oct – 5.6 magnitude on old the Richter Scale).
The ‘quake’ that followed in Twitter was total bollocks IMHO… Check the Scobleizer for what I mean. While I do think it is interesting to note that services like Twitter and mobile devices for sure are changing (and many cases already changed – see BBC and Read/Write for some ideas of what I mean) the way we gather information about important events – such as earthquake, fires etc – and keep in touch with loved ones. However, in this case most of the info coming from Twitter about this event was drivel (Mr Doeff was good enough to record most of it, seriously thanks) – at least it confirmed the scale of the event. Maybe in the future news organisation will use Twitter or a similar services to gather info from the field?
I thought about adding her photo to this post but decided that was pushing the limits of good taste…
