Mobileslate

Frazier Miller, General Manager, Yahoo! Local gave the Keynote Address to open the Search Marketing Expo event focused on Local and Mobile in San Francisco today. He claims that Yahoo knows Local and Mobile. User queries for local search are increasing. The complexity of the local searches is shown by the length and number of terms are increasing. His example of finding “coffee san francisco” has changed to: “coffee organic fair trade glen park san francisco” He also notes Yahoo has seen a 76% Year over Year Growth in the quantity of Local Search.

Some of his claims is coming next for Local Search:
- Development of New Local Sites: Just the beginning to seeing new local sites that have pools of local knowledge
- Local Social Networking: From the desktop and mobile, eventually leads to physical interactions; thus it is an enabler
- Hyper Local: Content and rich media enhance the experience (photos, videos, user generated content)

Lastly, two statistics that was mentioned:

• $500B USD of offline commerce was influenced by online research, marketing, etc in 2007
• 89% of Shoppers research online, before purchasing

What Do We Think?

Yahoo has a lot to win and lose for Local and Mobile search. The circus is just beginning - throwing Local and Mobile into the mix. And these animals joining the party are much bigger and complex than just the web.

Tags:   keynote address · Local Search · mobile search · SMX ExpoNo Comments