Newsletter No. 187
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"Helping 73,000 people use the Web for their work"
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ISSN 1460-7239 28th July 2005 No.187
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IN THIS ISSUE
-------------
EDITORIAL
By William Hann
MY FAVOURITE TIPPLES
By Sadri Saieb
FREEPINT BAR
In Association with Factiva
a Dow Jones & Reuters Company
JINFO :: JOBS IN INFORMATION
European Information Specialist - Maternity Cover
Internet Researcher
Information Services Manager
Part Time Professional Archivist
Information / Knowledge Co-ordinator
TIPS ARTICLE
"Plain and clear: Resources on Plain English"
By Vasyl Pawlowsky
BOOKSHELF
"Business Information Management:
Improving Performance Using Information Systems"
By Dave Chaffey & Steve Wood
Reviewed by Patricia Daze
FEATURE ARTICLE
"Local Search, The Search Engines and Yellow Pages"
By Duncan Parry
EVENTS, GOLD AND FORTHCOMING ARTICLES
CONTACT INFORMATION
ONLINE VERSION WITH ACTIVATED HYPERLINKS
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The July issue of VIP contains the first ever reviews of OneSource's
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EDITORIAL
By William Hann
I really like things that help you maintain a sense of perspective.
It's all too easy when you've got a lot on your plate (as most of us
have) to forget the bigger picture. A few things have reminded me
recently about the insignificance of daily troubles.
Firstly, I'm finally finishing Bill Bryson's excellent book "A Short
History of Nearly Everything". The book's tone of schoolboy awe at
the leaps in understanding the world around us is infectious.
Bryson makes unimaginable things imaginable; or, at the very least,
vaguely comprehensible and memorable. For instance, I now know that an
atom is the size of a millimetre-long line being cut into ten thousand
segments, each of which is cut it another ten thousand segments. As
for the size of an atom's nucleus: if you think of the atom (most of
which is like a cloud of gases) as the size of a cathedral, then the
nucleus would be the size of a fly inside that cathedral.
Like Bryson's ability to describe the very large and the very small,
I've always loved those animations (usually in the movies) which start
in outer space and then zoom right in to a city or a specific
building. So I've been in my element using Google Earth -- being able
to fly around the world, zoom in and out, and even 'tilt' to see
certain terrain or buildings. It's quite humbling and worth a look.
Finally, it was great to watch this week's launch of the space shuttle
Discovery. I held my breath as the solid rocket boosters were
successfully jettisoned when the craft reached 3,000 miles an hour.
There are some interesting resources about the launch on ResourceShelf
<http://digbig.com/4eccy>, which continues to be extremely
informative, with new postings every day of the week.
On the theme of moving from the very big to the very small, today's
FreePint looks at how search engines are focussing in on the
development of their local search offerings. We also cover some
resources to help with writing plain and clear English, by a Canadian
working in Ukraine.
We hope you enjoy today's FreePint. Don't forget that different
versions of this newsletter are available online, including a fully
formatted full colour version in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/>. You can modify your account to
receive that version by email, or encourage your colleagues to set up
their own subscription, at <http://www.freepint.com/subs/>.
William Hann
Managing Editor and Founder, FreePint
e: william.hann@freepint.com
t: 0870 141 7474
i: +44 870 141 7474
FreePint is a Registered Trademark of Free Pint Limited (R) 1997-2005
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MY FAVOURITE TIPPLES
By Sadri Saieb
* As legal librarian in charge of the periodicals and reference
service, I am continually impressed by the work of John Doyle at
Washington & Lee Law School for his Most-Cited Legal Periodicals
<http://law.wlu.edu/library/mostcited/index.asp>.
* I am also a fan of the work of Bernard Hibbitts and his team for the
very up-to-date JURIST<http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/>.
* For free and fast access to law, WorldLII
<http://www.worldlii.org/> is a wonderful collaborative project of
several legal information institutes.
* To check legal references and abbreviations used in periodicals, I
use the brilliant and exhaustive Cardiff Index to Legal
Abbreviations <http://www.legalabbrevs.cardiff.ac.uk/>.
* Recently, came across a simple and clever interface for electronic
periodicals at the University of New Brunswick
<http://www.lib.unb.ca/eresources/e-Journals.php>.
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Sadri Saieb is a reference librarian
at the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law <http://www.isdc.ch/>.
Submit your top five favourite Web sites. See the guidelines at
<http://www.freepint.com/author.htm>.
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There must be lots of FreePinters on holiday at the moment as there
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After the knowledge management article published in the last issue of
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The latest edition of the Jinfo Newsletter has been published with a
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Can you help a business studies degree student find information on
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That's it for now, until next time.
Penny Hann <penny.hann@freepint.com>
FreePint
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JINFO :: JOBS IN INFORMATION
<http://www.jinfo.com/>
The Jinfo service enables you to search for and advertise
information-related job vacancies.
The Jinfo Newsletter is published free every two weeks, and contains
a list of the latest vacancies along with job seeking advice. The
latest editorial is entitled "Time to plan the induction programme".
To read the latest Jinfo Newsletter and to subscribe to receive it
twice-monthly by email, visit <http://www.jinfo.com/newsletter/>.
Here are some of the latest featured jobs:
European Information Specialist - Maternity Cover
An international executive search firm based in London is seeking a
researcher to join the information services team.
Recruiter: Spencer Stuart
<http://www.jinfo.com/go/j4222>
Internet Researcher
AQA (Any Question Answered) is looking for internet researchers to
help stamp out question marks. Flexible hours, work from home.
Recruiter: IssueBits Ltd
<http://www.jinfo.com/go/j4224>
Information Services Manager
Exceptional individual with proven track record in successful team
management required by Law firm.
Recruiter: Sue Hill Recruitment
<http://www.jinfo.com/go/j4250>
Part Time Professional Archivist
A charity based in Victoria is seeking a Professional Archivist for
a job share role of 15 - 20 hours a week.
Recruiter: D A Solutions Ltd
<http://www.jinfo.com/go/j4256>
Information / Knowledge Co-ordinator
Recent Library/Information graduate? Exc. opportunity to combine
research and K.M. skills in friendly Central London consultancy.
Recruiter: Glen Recruitment
<http://www.jinfo.com/go/j4262>
NB: There are 42 other jobs in the current edition of the Jinfo
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TIPS ARTICLE
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/280705.htm#tips>
"Plain and clear: Resources on Plain English"
By Vasyl Pawlowsky
It was not by chance that I have decided to write on this topic,
which I believe is important both in the industry in which I work, and
for business communication in general. Working in a Kyiv-based law
firm, we have to deal with documentation in Ukrainian and
Russian, and also in English, as our clients are not only domestic
but also international firms.
On a regular basis many of our employees come to me (one of only two
native speakers in our firm) seeking advice on translation, grammar
and syntax. One day I was approached to help with the translation of a
clause in a contract, which read as follows:
"Except as otherwise provided in this Agreement, no remedy hereunder
or with respect hereto which may be available to any Party hereto is
intended to be exclusive of any other remedy available to such Party
and every such remedy shall be cumulative and in addition to every
other remedy available to such Party. If circumstances, facts or
events are covered by several clauses of this Agreement and its
Annexes, which are not the same or do not foresee the same
consequences therefore, this shall not be construed as an ambiguity,
but rather as independent claims, rights or obligations under each
Clause, provided, however, that under no circumstances shall this
result in losses or damages being recovered fully or partially twice".
I asked a couple of my firm's lawyers: "Is it completely clear what
the clause means?". I could never get a quick response, many took a
great deal of time trying to understand the English, let alone
translate it into Ukrainian.
It was not long before I realized there must be an easier and clearer
way of writing whatever this clause was supposed to mean. I started
searching how to clarify it and this led me to all kinds of resources
on the use of plain language.
Plain and simple
----------------
One of the first online resources I came across was the Plain Language
Association International's website
<http://www.plainlanguagenetwork.org/>. Not only does this site provide
its visitors with a better understanding of why things should be
written using plain language, but one can easily find plenty of
articles by advocates about using plain language in general and, more
specifically, on plain legal writing.
The first stop of the tour in this site is the article entitled 'An
Introduction to Plain Language' by Cheryl Stevens
<http://www.plainlanguagenetwork.org/stephens/intro.html>. It quickly
gives one a clear understanding of what plain language is, but by
taking a step back up the path of the URL
<http://www.plainlanguagenetwork.org/stephens/>, there are three other
sections all equally useful: Building Plain Language from the Ground
Up, Other Articles, and Design Issues.
Besides the introduction to what plain language is all about, the site
provides a fair amount of comic relief on its sample page
<http://www.plainlanguagenetwork.org/Samples/>. With one of my
favourites of a rewrite into plain English being the following piece
about an electronic toll system:
"Before:
Make sure that the account holder's name on the account is the same
as the name of the customer to whose account the transaction should
be attributed.
After:
Make sure that this account is for the right customer".
After reading much of the material directly on the site, I decided to
follow some of the suggested sites in order to see if I could find a
way to write the aforementioned paragraph in a much clearer way in
order that my translator could render it into understandable
Ukrainian.
Handbooks and the heavy hitters
-------------------------------
Upon visiting the site it became fairly clear who the heavy hitters
are in advocating the use of plain language; many of them are either
involved in education, the government, are lawyers or judges. In fact,
many governments have made it policy to provide materials written in
plain language. Some of the following handbooks are freely available
and are both informative and useful guidelines for writing in plain
language:
* A Plain English Handbook - How to create clear SEC disclosure
documents <http://www.sec.gov/pdf/handbook.pdf>
* Plain Language: A Handbook for Writers in the U.S. Federal
Government <http://www.lauchmangroup.com/PDFfiles/PLHandbook.PDF>
* How to write clearly from the European Commission's Translation
Service fight the FOG campaign
<http://europa.eu.int/comm/translation/en/ftfog/booklet/fog.pdf>
* Ten free guides prepared by the Plain English Campaign in the U.K.
<http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/guides.html>
While these handbooks are a great place to start, articles on the
topic are equally informative and thought-provoking. One of the
individuals who can convince anyone that plain language is the way all
documents should be written, is Professor Joseph Kimble. Many of his
works are available at <http://www.plainlanguagenetwork.org/kimble/>
and I have used many of his works convincing management at our firm to
provide a course on plain legal English for our lawyers. His works
often appear in the The Scribes Journal of Legal Writing
<http://www.scribes.org/publications.html#scribes>, a publication of
The American Association of Writers of Legal Subjects
<http://www.scribes.org>.
However, Professor Kimble is not the only one whose articles are great
guidelines: Judge Mark Painter not only contributes to Scribes but
many of his articles appeared in The Ohio Lawyer's Weekly in a column
entitled "The Legal Writer" and are available in full text in the
publications section of his website
<http://www.judgepainter.org/publications.htm>. Together with Professor
Kimble, Judge Painter and countless others have taken on a world where
writing remained archaic and, for the most part, incomprehensible. The
idea of writing is to communicate an idea, instruction, or explanation
to an intended audience clearly. While this is not intended to be a
complete listing of all the possible resources, on plain English,
these, together with the people involved in this movement, have
helped me understand the issue at hand and dozens of sites
are available at
<http://www.plainlanguagenetwork.org/Resources/websites.html>.
Clearing things up
------------------
After reading many of the articles in the resources provided above, I
was still not much further ahead than when I had started on my
quest. I thought I would head back to the web and continue my search
further. It was then that I came across Clarity, "a worldwide group of
lawyers and interested lay people." Its aim is "the use of good, clear
language by the legal profession". Their website at
<http://www.adler.demon.co.uk/clarity> provided yet another great
resource, but still no answer.
I have always advocated the view that the Internet is much more than
the resources made available via the WWW, it's really about the people
who are connected. So I went back to where I had started from at the
Plain Language Association's website, and hit the Feedback link. I
figured that within this network of people I was bound to find someone
who could help me with a re-write of the alphabet soup I was given by
one of our translators.
Well, I was right; within a relatively short time I received an
e-mail from someone at from Legal Secretaries International
<http://www.legalsecretaries.org/>, with a re-write of what I had
started with. As it turned out, the "mess" that I had was something
that looked like a "validity" clause to the person who had written to
me and a standard one could be worded as follows:
"Validity. If any provision of this Agreement is declared or
determined by any court to be illegal or invalid, the validity of the
remaining parts, terms, or provisions will not be affected and any
part, term, or provision so found to be illegal or invalid will be
deemed separate from and not a part of this Agreement".
Now that was a whole lot easier to understand. I sent it to my
translator whose reply was, "Now I can translate that! It's plain and
comprehensible!".
While the answer was not easily found on the resources above, they,
together with the people who contribute and advocate the use of plain
language, were of great assistance in tackling the problem at hand.
Besides, the question I had posed turned up a little surprise: someone
with the same family name as mine, located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, wrote
to me to see if we were somehow related. We still haven't figured it
out if there is a family connection, but we do know a lot of people in
common.
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Canadian Vasyl (Bill) Pawlowsky has spent the last six years in
Ukraine. Since January of 2003 he has headed Information Services at
the Kyiv-based Law Firm Magister & Partners
<http://www.magisters.com/>. During the first two years he consulted
on democracy development issues, and continues to consult for a number
of NGOs. Having worked in journalism for a year and a half, and being
well connected in various circles, he facilitated international media
during the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, and continues to act as a
media fixer whenever possible. Currently he is developing an
international music project, but can't tell us what it is yet.
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Related FreePint links:
* 'Publishing' articles in the FreePint Portal
<http://www.freepint.com/go/p121>
* Post a message to the author, Vasyl Pawlowsky, or suggest further
resources at the FreePint Bar <http://www.freepint.com/bar>
* Read this article online, with activated hyperlinks
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/280705.htm#tips>
* Access the entire archive of FreePint content
<http://www.freepint.com/portal/content/>
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FREEPINT BOOKSHELF
<http://www.freepint.com/bookshelf>
"Business Information Management:
Improving Performance Using Information Systems"
By Dave Chaffey & Steve Wood
Reviewed by Patricia Daze
'Business Information Management' is an undergraduate-level student
textbook.
When I first cracked open the cover, I was very impressed with the
book's design. An illustrated tour of the contents, multiple chapter
summarizations, topics linked to related areas in the book, the
colour-coding, and even the astute selection of chapter header
illustrations all contributed to ease of navigation and comfort in the
book's environment.
The intent of the text is to introduce current concepts and state-of-
the-art on managing information in all its views, not just technology.
The content is divided into four sections: Introduction; Strategy;
Implementation; Management.
Two chapters in the Introduction provide a broad overview of corporate
software and hardware. The Strategy section contains a chapter each on
Information Management Strategy, Knowledge Management Strategy and
Information Systems Strategy - outlining the relationships among them
and how they map into organizational strategy. The Implementation
section looks at Managing Information Systems Projects, Managing
Change, and Building an Information Architecture. The final section
explores Information Quality, Information Services Quality, and
Ethical and Business Issues.
The preface states that this text is useful for practicing business
managers as well as students, and it is with that point of view that I
read the book. The content is well anchored in today's business
reality, touching on every key area, with the scope and depth of
theory perfect to apply in the organization. For each topic, there is
a consistent and accurate focus on issues managers face. The list of
further resources and websites given in each chapter make it easy to
delve deeper into any topic of interest to the student. The Glossary
and Index are excellent. It was effortless for me to find content
relevant to my own work.
Case studies, "research insights", and activities provide real-world
examples and build on specific topics described in the text. The
activities are excellent distillations of questions that are
frequently encountered in the corporate context. The tasks to
summarize key concepts into a single sentence reflect what one might
need to do in a boardroom discussion or presentation.
The book's companion website, <http://www.booksites.net/chaffey>,
contains student resources for each chapter including multiple-choice
questions, flashcards, and web links from the book. Author Dave
Chaffey maintains a supporting blog with additional links to new
resources. The website includes the author's "Smarter Internet
Searching Guide", an introductory guide to using the web to find
information, with a strong endorsement of Google.
The book is UK-centric, as expected for a textbook written for a
specific market audience, with samples, models and frameworks
predominantly referencing the UK or European versions. This text is
worthy of expansion to an international edition.
Typos throughout the text and a small number of incorrect figure
labels detracted from the reader experience, especially on sections
about data quality! Something to remedy in the next edition.
Overall, this book is an excellent student textbook relevant to
today's Information Management landscape, and also valuable for
practitioners as a reference handbook of current standards,
frameworks, and models applied to Information Management.
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Patricia Daze works as a Business Systems Analyst and Project Manager
in the Information Management group of a network communications
company in Canada. Her previous experience includes work as a
corporate librarian. An avid reader of non-fiction, she can be
contacted at <pgdaze@yahoo.com>.
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FEATURE ARTICLE
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/280705.htm#feature>
"Local Search, The Search Engines and Yellow Pages"
By Duncan Parry
Back in April 2004 <http://www.freepint.com/issues/150404.htm#tips> I
wrote about the work of the search engines to develop local search
technology. This technology is maturing and beginning to offer useful
search results to the public and advertising opportunities for
businesses who serve a local area. In this article I'll outline some
of the local search tools available today, some of the advertising
opportunities and speculate on future developments.
Why The Search Engines Are Going Local
--------------------------------------
The idea of searching for local businesses online is nothing new;
Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs) websites like SuperPages.com
<http://www.superpages.com/> in the US and Yell.com
<http://www.yell.com/> in the UK has been around since the 1990s.
Unfortunately, the interfaces of many early IYP websites left a lot to
be desired, forcing users to browse through multiple pages to reach
business listings and lacking search boxes.
So why are the search engines investing time and money in local search
now? Three reasons: money, competition and technology.
Money
-----
The printed Yellow Pages market in the US is worth over USD 12 billion
(Simba Information, 2002) and increasingly consumers are searching
online for local businesses - up to 25% of commercial searches have a
local element according to a survey by The Kelsey Group
<http://www.kelseygroup.com/> and Bizrate.com
<http://www.bizrate.com/>.
In December 2003, The Kelsey Group estimated local search could be
worth USD 2.5 billion by 2008. The search engines have already
attracted thousands of national advertisers to the pay per click (PPC)
advertising that appears under the heading "Sponsored Results" or
similar. Now they want a share of the Yellow Pages advertising market
as budgets shift online. Unsurprisingly, this has spurred on the
traditional Yellow Pages companies to raise their online game,
offering new online advertising options, improving their websites and
in some cases partnering with the search engines.
Competition
-----------
Search engines have to innovate - they are involved in a two-way arms
race with their competitors and with unscrupulous website owners who
manipulate search results for commercial gain. The search engines must
produce better, more relevant results to compete for the loyalty of
the online public. If they stop, they die - before Google, AltaVista
was *the* search engine to use, but lost its way and focused on
providing every service on its own website (the infamous "portal"
strategy). They neglected the relevance of their search results and
Google entered the market with a clean website and better relevance.
The rest is history.
So if a search engine makes it easier to find local businesses, they
can please their existing users - and attract new ones. The engines
need to compete for advertisers too, and many national businesses are
already advertising with PPC networks, including: Google AdWords
<http://www.google.com/ads>, Overture (now called Yahoo Search
Marketing Solutions <http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/> in the USA)
and Miva <http://www.miva.com/> (formerly Espotting in Europe and
FindWhat in the USA). So the next source of advertiser dollars is
local businesses.
Technology
----------
A revolution has taken place driven by Overture, Miva and Google;
search, once viewed as a loss leader (a way of getting people to
search engines so they would click on banner adverts or pay for
services) has become a revenue stream in itself. And what a revenue
stream; Yahoo! bought Overture for USD 1.63 billion.
So the (pay per click) technology to 'monetise' search is already
available and the search engines know there are literally millions of
local business out there advertising in Yellow Pages directories.
Local search is one of their next big growth areas. So what local
search tools are there today?
Local Search Solutions and Advertising Opportunities
----------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! (it owns Overture, AllTheWeb, AltaVista and Inktomi)
Yahoo.com and Yahoo.co.uk have "Local" and "Business Finder" tabs on
their respective homepages. Click on these and search results are
displayed from a variety of sources that are focused on finding local
businesses.
In the US, results pages comprise PPC advertising results from
Overture, Yellow Pages business listings (some of this data is from
InfoUSA <http://www.infousa.com/>) and links to Yahoo! maps. Searchers
can rank listings based on how other searchers have rated the
businesses - these rankings and accompanying reviews are written by
Yahoo! users. More on these sorts of review services here
<http://www.payperclickanalyst.com/content/templates/?a=358&z=1>.
US businesses have three advertising opportunities in local search
results. Firstly, they can appear in sponsored listings powered by
Overture. Overture offer two PPC advertising programs in the US:
normal Overture listings
<http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/srch/index.php> that are distributed
across the web and Local Sponsored Search
<http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/local/index.php> which is focused on
delivering local search traffic. Exactly how these are employed on
Yahoo! Local isn't clear; the best approach is to advertise in both
programs to ensure coverage for all the relevant keywords for the
business being advertised. Both are charged on a pay-per-click basis
and distribute across other websites including MSN, AltaVista and ISP
and destination websites.
Businesses can also list themselves for free with a Basic Business
Listing <http://listings.local.yahoo.com/> or pay for a Local Enhanced
Listing <http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/local/ll.php> at USD 9.95 a
month.
In the UK, search results currently only show Yellow-Pages style
listings. The source of this data isn't clear and there are currently
no PPC listings and no links to maps. However Yahoo! Local is still a
work in progress and has yet to be fully rolled out across the world.
Expect to see PPC listings and map links on local search results
across the international Yahoo! websites in future.
Google
------
Google.com has a 'local' tab that displays search results from
AdWords, Google's PPC advertising program, Google maps showing
businesses listed in the search results and Yellow Pages business
listings; the sources of the latter vary and Google has not specified
exactly which companies it uses to populate these. Google Maps offers
a unique feature: satellite photos which you can zoom into. It's fun
to play with and sometimes useful for providing a different
perspective of where a business is located.
Google Earth <http://earth.google.com/> is even more fun. Built on
technology Google acquired with the purchase of KeyHole, Google Earth
is a free piece of software that displays satellite photos from around
the world and allows you to zoom in a location. The visual affects are
eye catching - zooming in from space down to (almost) street level is
impressive. Google's own website describes this as 'planet surfing'
(!). On a more practical level, the software includes the ability to
show local landmarks and businesses, view driving directions and view
some streets from street level - so you can see where landmarks should
be during your journey. Right now local business data is only
available for the US, but no doubt it will be extended to other
countries over time; the road data for the UK has already improved.
Businesses can get listed on Google Local via advertising in Google
AdWords on a PPC basis. Sadly, for the searches I have done, the Google
Ads shown are not targeted to the local area, only to the type of
service implied in the keyword. So a search for "car dealer Cape
Coral" and for "car dealer New York" triggered the same car dealer
adverts.
Google does have a local PPC advertising program. In the US,
advertisers can choose a DMA (Direct Marketing Area) to restrict their
advertisements to, or specify cities or latitude and longitude co-
ordinates. Hopefully Google will start to display these adverts on
Google Local instead of national ones.
Google.co.uk does not have a local search tab yet. Google have
introduced Google Maps UK <http://maps.google.co.uk/> which offers the
ability to plot local business on the map and search for businesses. A
good idea - sadly let down by the quality of the underlying data;
Google is crawling the web for business websites and lists of
businesses and trying to learn their location from this data.
Mistakes are common.
This attempt to take unstructured web data and structure it in a
similar way to Yellow Pages listings (which have human oversight) is
ambitious to say the least. The Scotsman newspaper
<http://news.scotsman.com/Edinburgh.cfm?id=533162005> recently
highlighted how a search for brothels in Edinburgh on Google Maps
listed local restaurants and shops as brothels. Google is also using
data from Yell.com to provide structure to listings - in my opinion,
they need to. A search for "accountant London", for example, lists the
British Quality Foundation as the top result at the time of writing
<http://digbig.com/4dyxa>. There are also driving directions at the site.
Advertising-wise, there are no PPC adverts on Google Maps (yet) and no
direct way for businesses to add their details; however, Google lists
the websites it has found businesses on next to some Google Maps
results - so getting your business listed on those sites and Yell.com
should help you achieve a listing in Google Maps. Hopefully, Google
will introduce a Google Local tab for the UK, with PPC results and the
ability to add your business details.
MSN
---
Microsoft started developing its own search technology in 2003 (it
was licensing results from Inktomi, whom rival Yahoo! bought). It
has started a trial of its own PPC advertising program, code-named
"Moonshot" in France and Singapore, and intends to introduce it across
the different MSN websites country by country.
I would not expect to see MSN PPC advertising replacing Overture
results on MSN websites until 2006 at the earliest, with a staggered
roll-out country-by-country - Microsoft needs to get the technology and
pricing model right, recruit staff for each country and sign up
advertisers.
So what does this mean for MSN local search? There is already a beta
of its local search results in the US which includes PPC results
(currently from Overture), maps, aerial photos, web results and
business listings (source unknown). You can choose to see business or
residential listings. An example is here for Cape Coral Car Dealers
<http://digbig.com/4dyxb>.
Hopefully, MSN will develop this further to show locally-targeted PPC
adverts (eventually from its own advertising program) and make clear
the source of the business listings, so you can add business details.
Until then, advertisers will have to make do with advertising via
Overture.
Local search results on MSN.co.uk are no different from those for a
normal search; Overture PPC results followed by MSN web results. No
doubt this will change over time.
Ask Jeeves
----------
The people at Ask Jeeves have been busy. They acquired Interactive
Search Holdings <http://www.interactivesearchholdings.com/> (who own
MyWay.com, MySearch.com, Excite.com, iWon and the MaxOnline
advertising network). Then they acquired Excite Europe from Tiscali.
Following that, InterActive Corp <http://www.iac.com/>, owners of
Excite.com, CitySearch.com and Match.com amongst others, announced
they were acquiring Ask Jeeves. Ask has bought Bloglines
<http://www.bloglines.com/>, a very useful RSS aggregator, too.
Amongst all this M&A activity Ask is also developing Ask Jeeves
Local <http://local.ask.com/local>. Results here feature PPC adverts
(there was only one for the search "car dealer Cape Coral"
<http://digbig.com/4dyxc>), business listings and a link to use to view
results on a map. There are also driving directions.
For advertisers there is no direct opportunity to advertise on local
listings - the PPC adverts are from Google and no indication of how to
get listed in the business listings. But this is a beta test; and once
InterActive Corp have acquired Ask Jeeves, it may add local search
results form CitySearch.com; these include PPC results powered by its
own technology. Less exposure for Google PPC advertisements, perhaps.
Ask.co.uk doesn't have a local tab yet; the maps and driving
directions tabs are fairly new, so hopefully this will follow. Local
search results currently include PPC adverts and sometimes links to
results provided by either business directory Thomson Local or its
PPC engine, WebFinder.com. Thomson is paying for this exposure by
buying advertising slots, so these results may not stay around for
long; the WebFinder results are more permanent, listed under
"Recommended results". Unfortunately, the relevance is poor; searching
for a car result in a town in the county of Surrey produced WebFinder
results for London car dealers.
Yellow Pages Online
-------------------
There are numerous Yellow Pages companies with websites (called IYPs,
Internet Yellow Pages); some are notably better than others and have
embraced search marketing. There isn't room here to look at them in
detail, so here is an overview of a few important players.
In the US, SuperPages.com offers PPC advertising to SME business who
don't have a website (they offer business profile pages) and have done
away with the hassle of keyword bidding by allowing advertisers to bid
for a position in the categories that describe their business (see
this review <http://digbig.com/4ecfg>). CitySearch.com also offers
local search PPC advertising which it powers with its own technology.
Interchange has developed ePilot Local Search aimed at Yellow Pages
publishers wanting to build a PPC local search platform. It is also
building its own local search site, Local.com. Advertisers can
sign up at ePilot.com for national and local PPC advertising.
PremierGuide <http://www.premierguide.com/> has developed a network of
partnerships with local newspaper and TV websites that individually
offer advertising on a flat fee basis; a review of this will soon
appear here <http://digbig.com/4ecfh>.
In the UK, the main IYPs are Yell.com and ThomsonLocal.com (including
its PPC engine, WebFinder.com). Yell publishes the free Yellow Pages
directory distributed across the UK, Thomson a similar blue book.
Online, Thomson is ahead of Yell in my opinion; Yell has no PPC
offering and no clear network of partners (although it does license
its listings out - see Google above) whilst Thomson conspicuously
builds a network of partners for both their business listings and for
their WebFinder PPC results, which are aimed at local traffic but
actually contain plenty of non-local searches. Other players include
192.com and Scoot.com.
The Future
----------
All the search engines will improve their local search results with
targeted local PPC adverts and hopefully make it clear how to add
business details. They will also cater for businesses without
websites; Yahoo! is already offering free websites to US SMEs whilst
SuperPages.com offers business profile pages.
A major development in search marketing, and especially in local
search, is 'pay per call'. These advertisements feature a telephone
number for the business in question; when consumers call it (via their
telephone or, as voice over IP becomes common, via their computer) the
business is charged for the call by the search engine, hence pay per
call. This development is aimed at businesses without a website,
including many SMEs and local businesses, as well as those that have
call centres and sales teams (e.g. mortgage brokers). Miva already
offers pay per call in the US and will soon offer it in the UK, too.
As more local businesses are listed online and the printed directory
is increasingly replaced by the search engines and IYP websites, so
consumer reviews of local businesses - e.g. restaurants, builders etc
- will become more common. This offers opportunities and threats for
local businesses. I've covered this more in "Social Networks, Customer
Reviews and Local Search: Rude Waiters Beware the Search Engines."
<http://digbig.com/4ecfj>. Local search results have started to spread
to mobile phones too - and as PDAs and mobiles merged into 'Smart
Phones' with web browsing abilities, these can only become more
common.
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Duncan Parry is Campaign Director of search engine marketing agency
Catalyst Online Media <http://www.catalyst-media.co.uk> and has
previously worked for UK search engines Espotting and Lycos. He
regularly writes about search engines and search marketing - you can
find links to articles and his contact details at
<http://www.duncanparry.co.uk>.
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