Trustedplaces - which is agreat site for local business reviews - annouced an interesting partnership with bview this week. From the official PR:
We’re very excited to announce that TrustedPlaces has just partnered with Bview to offer online marketing solutions for local businesses. Bview is a new customer reviews directory for all UK businesses. The combined offering is the first collaboration of its kind in the UK and places the two companies in a unique position to benefit from the growing local, online advertising market. It presents a viable and cost-effective alternative to traditional directory players, at a much lower cost.
The partnership enables and supports local business owners to manage their online reputation by providing attractive advertising models and enhancing exposure to relevant customers across both sites. We believe this is a fantastic opportunity to provide our growing community with great special offers from relevant businesses and establish a two-way, constructive conversation between TrustedPlaces members and business owners.
You can read the full PR HERE.
Categories: Small Business · UK · local · local search
Categories: GOOG vs. MSFT · Microsoft · deals · search engine
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.
Categories: London · local · local search · user generated
It was very sweet today to get online and see that Ireland.com has relaunched the site as a local search ‘portal’ for all things Irish. BTW - this is such a money domain (simple, geo, universal)!
In addition, the Irish Times newspaper site has been re-designed, the subscription charges dropped and the newspaper has moved to a dedicated URL - http://www.irishtimes.com/ (the newspaper used to be at the URL Ireland.com).
The Irish Times site has also had a major face lift and is much improved. The site also looks to be driving a strong connection to the major classified channels: Homes, Jobs, Cars and with a special Dating channel as well (this is interesting to have a focus on dating).
A quick review of the Ireland.com site reveals a very clean design and an almost sexy brand - definitely bright and breezy. It is driven by a single search box that handles What/Who/Where. The results pages are very Web 2.0 and include UGC, with an option to create your own account some you can add a review.
There are ‘lifestyle’ channels (you can see these channels icons above) that can also act as navigators (an alternative path to finding content and can also acts as stand alone sub-sites) covering:
- Sport
- Travel
- Going Out
- Staying In (nice one!)
- Style & Beauty
- House & Home
- with 2 others yet to launch (ie - coming soon)…
Here’s an example hotel results page:
I will be back with more on this site, but I wanted to get something out quickly this morning to help get the word out there. Would enjoy getting feedback and commnets from anyone using the site. Thanks.
UPDATE: Greg Sterling has a short post on this site here - I agree that is a “killer” domain and the new Ireland/com really is a shinning example of what and how to develop this kids of local/geo site!
Categories: Europe · classifieds · islands · local · local search · newspapers · web 2.0
I finally installed Xobni on my Outlook at work. This plug-in was reccommended by a couple friends awhile back here on Razorshine and by SB, hey I am slow but I finally got there. Anyway, plain and simply this plug-in rocks! It has productivity gains, is fast, great search & navigation, easy to use and has cool analytics which are both userful and fun. Try it, use it, love it.
Categories: Life Hacking · apps · email · plug-in
A friend sent me this link to a piece about Alan Webb - US middle distance star (Track & Field in the US and Athletics in Europe. You can see his profile here on the USAFT site. I am starting to get excited about the Olympics but there are still some great events between now and August - US and GB trials to name but a few. The US event is being held in Eugene, Oregon (’08 US Trails site) this year - which is a great venue for the even… I may start posting up some thoughts on Athletics over the summer.
btw - respect awrad for Mr Webb who set a US record for the mile last year - a blistering 3:46.91!
Categories: Athletics · Track and Field · respect
Categories: Yahoo! · humour
I’ve been using drop.io for awhile now and it continues to amaze me how useful this very simple service is. From the about section on the site:
A drop is a chunk of space you can use to store and share anything privately (pictures, videos, audio, documents, etc.), without accounts, registration, or an email address. Drops are not “searchable” and not “networked;” they just exist online as private points for exchange between individuals or groups.
You drop files and even can now start “dropcasting” things. I am sure that all sorts of new, wild and cool ways to use this “atomic” service to do many more useful and bigger things is well underway. By “atomic” I mean this service is simple and boiled down to the minimal essence of what is needed, but it can be combined with other things to create cool stuff.
Drop.io recently announced a partnership with Scribd’s iPaper and raised $2.7 mllion in series A funding earlier this year. A service to use and a company to watch.
Categories: Web 2.x · dropcasting · p2p · startups · web 2.0 · widgets
Categories: Microsoft · ROI · advertising · just for fun
Microsoft made two interesting announcements so far this week in Europe. The 1st shows strong momentum in the ad serving space with a series of new publishers taking MSFT advertising technology products designed for large publishers. This shows growth across Europe and a continued commitment to the publisher side of the online ad ecosystem.
The 2nd announcement - European Search Techology Centre to deepen investments in Live Search - is much more exciting as it show more commitment to search and specifically to the European market. Setting up a search technology (R&D) hub in Europe is significant. And with such a large war chest of money and no sign of a Yahoo deal, one would anticipate lots of investment on this initiative… I can see many interesting ways for Microsoft to disrupt the search landscape in positive ways in Europe. Watch this space.
[Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft, however the above are my own thoughts and not based on any insider knowledge.]
Categories: Europe · Microsoft · ad serving · search
