Renaissance for local directories?
Jinfo Blog

28th April 2009

By Tim Buckley Owen

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For generations the humble classified trade directory was the mainstay of print-based public reference libraries. Now – against all the odds perhaps – it seems to be enjoying a renaissance. First it was the 13 year old web veteran Yell.com, with a revamped UK site offering enriched content from advertisers plus background information on products and services culled from elsewhere on the web (http://digbig.com/4yqpe). For the first time, too, small and medium sized businesses can use the online Yell advertising management site to tailor their own content directly, with detailed descriptions of their products or services, photos, maps and videos. Yell’s enhancements result from an agreement with search solution specialist Exalead. Exalead now hosts Yell’s search engine, and its CloudView platform can create information applications that access structured and unstructured enterprise and web information, as well as allowing businesses to add their own mash-up applications (http://digbig.com/4ytmc). Meanwhile VIP LiveWire’s Diana Nutting has highlighted a report in Information Week magazine that the social networking site MySpace is also dipping a toe into the local directory pool (http://web.vivavip.com/forum/LiveWire/read.php?i=18668&start=20). It’s teaming up with the city guides database Citysearch.com to encourage MySpace users to review and rate small businesses in their area – albeit just restaurants, bars and nightlife in selected United States cities at this stage. Rather more radically than either of these, perhaps, local online business directory provider Brownbook has announced that it is partnering with Friday-Ad (an established classified ad specialist) to post professionally made video ads from local businesses on YouTube and about 50 other sites (http://digbig.com/4yqpg). They’re starting small scale in Sussex and Hampshire and their charges to advertisers are rock bottom – but scalable business without scalable costs is the web’s forte, and the partners have the rest of the UK and other countries in their sights. It’s all a far cry from the local print library days, when the choice was basically between Yellow Pages and Thomson Local (both still available in print and online at http://www.yell.com and http://thomsonlocal.com), Kelly’s (still online as http://www.kellysearch.co.uk) or Kemp’s (now apparently defunct). The choice was limited, the content inevitably terse, static and inflexible – but the brands were well established and visible. Now anyone can have a crack at it, whether through social networking or mashing. If we are seeing a local directory renaissance, the challenge for providers will be visibility – and for users, who to trust.

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