I haven't posted anything for a long time. I have been far to busy in my new job, however, I spotted this video from Borrell and Associates in preparation for their conference in New York and had to post it. In it, Mark Josephson, CEO of outside.in, discusses the company's local media strategy. A year ago, DataSphere made a big splash at Borrell's Local Online Advertising conference. This year, Outside.in is poised to get a lot of that attention. And their pitch sounds kinda familiar --
"The local advertising universe is incredibly fragmented. And our core competency since day one has been organizing fragmented sources of content and information by location. So, we spent the first part of our life doing that around content..... And we build hyper-local and neighborhood focused sections for lots of publishers across the country and we are now starting to do the same thing for local advertisers by bringing all of the disparate channels together in a way that makes conversion and success happen for those advertisers. "
The local space has gotten VERY crowded in that just the past year but that hasn't stopped Outside.in or DataSphere from continuing to forge ahead encroaching on the same space from slightly different directions.
Showing posts with label datasphere. Show all posts
Showing posts with label datasphere. Show all posts
KOMO Adds Hyper-Local Prompt, Topics Pages on Home
KomoNews.com rolled out some changes to their home page layout recently. One of the changes may signal some discomfort on their part with regard to traffic going to the hyper-local pages.
When I first visited the site this week I was prompted with an overlay that suggested I check out the local communities section. Obviously, they are looking to drive traffic into those hyperlocal community pages. The div is apparently frequency capped, so I only got it once. Could this suggest a little angst on their part with regard to traffic to those pages?
Also, they have added topics pages adjacent to content buckets/modules on the home page. This is typically a d strategy to drive users to longer-tail content and drive SEO. DataSphere powers topics pages and is most assuredly powering the new topics feature.
When I first visited the site this week I was prompted with an overlay that suggested I check out the local communities section. Obviously, they are looking to drive traffic into those hyperlocal community pages. The div is apparently frequency capped, so I only got it once. Could this suggest a little angst on their part with regard to traffic to those pages?
Also, they have added topics pages adjacent to content buckets/modules on the home page. This is typically a d strategy to drive users to longer-tail content and drive SEO. DataSphere powers topics pages and is most assuredly powering the new topics feature.
DataSphere Must Change or Risk Failure
Datasphere has been getting a lot of press for their hyper-local solution for media. So, I looked into it further. Their solution is a combination of sales and technology offered at no cost to local affiliates. As they explain it, they want to help local media establish a hyper-local footprint that they can build on over time. At the face of it, the solution presents an inviting opportunity to media. There is little risk to stations and good potential for upside because the cost for the platform is covered in a rev-share and DataSphere is bringing new SMB clients/revenue to the table that the stations are not willing or able to pursue.
With all of this said, I believe there are some serious flaws in their approach that will burn them later on.
- They are not actively using LAT/LON in their content. Everything is based on topics. Topics allows for efficient work-flow, SEO, and the ability to do natural language search. However, very soon they will need to build LAT/LON into everything. Without geo-tagging, the experience can't get micro-local and so monetization strategies are limited significantly especially in the mobile world. Without geo-tagging advertising can't be delivered based on very granular location information, such as where the consumer is located when doing the search/consumption and where that is in relation to an advertiser that may want to reach them at that moment.
- They are not doing any real aggregation.Without aggregation it is difficult to scale hyper-local. This where Outside.in has the advantage. Essentially, the local media cannot produce enough content, even with hired guns, to fill all the hyper-local slots with robust content. Aggregation is required to fill in the holes.
- The quality of content will suffer if editors are spread too thin. Editors covering too many communities won't be embedded in the community and so they will miss the gestalt of life in those communities.The user experience will suffer and so will traffic.
Roundup: Twitter Geo Live, FourSquare to Offer Biz Tools, Layar Relaunches, Hubbard Does DataSphere
Interest in Geo is accelerating. There was too much geo news to cover in individual posts, so here's a brief list:
- Technology Review covers challenges of determining physical location accurately and turning coordinates into meaningful information, and protecting users' privacy.
- ReadWriteWeb notes that Layar re-released its augmented reality iPhone app this time with Foursquare integration.
- The NY Times reports Foursquare, plans to "distribute a free analytics tool and dashboard in the coming weeks that will give business owners access to a range of information and statistics about visitors to their establishments."
- Twitter just turned on its geolocation today, according to TechCrunch. TC notes, "While Twitter’s geolocation feature has been live through its API since last November, there was no sign of integration into the main twitter.com site until now."
- CNET reports Google Maps is "set to provide a new option for getting around town: biking directions" during the National Bike Summit in Washington, D.C.
- DataSphere is back in the news, this time launching hyper-local sites with Hubbard Broadcasting.
- Everyone is reporting that Facebook location sharing is coming soon.
Outside.in and Datasphere on Collision Course
Outside.in and Datasphere are on a collision course. Outside.in just announced a new business model for partners where they actually sell the ads on the hyperlocal pages they provide to publisher sites. This was the last piece that needed to fall in place for Outside.in to provide a complete end-to-end hyper-local solution. DataSphere has rev-share model and they sell the ad inventory. Outside.in has free or license models and now they'll sell your inventory as well.
Of course, the two companies are different in their their approaches. DataSphere provides a platform for media to build local (semi-hyper-local) sites, while Outside.in is primarily an aggregator. However, there are ways in both solutions to do what the other offers.
In both cases, the hyper-local solution required the vendor to provide monetization services because local media doesn't know how to get it done on their own.
"We are starting to realize that a lot of publishers are struggling to generate healthy online revenues on their hyperlocal and local pages. So what we will do is power the entire local pages for the publisher, all within their brands.," head of business development Camilla Cho told Citizen Publishing.
Folks at DataSphere told me the same thing. They said KOMO had 70% remnant before they brought their solution to Seattle.
Of course, the two companies are different in their their approaches. DataSphere provides a platform for media to build local (semi-hyper-local) sites, while Outside.in is primarily an aggregator. However, there are ways in both solutions to do what the other offers.
In both cases, the hyper-local solution required the vendor to provide monetization services because local media doesn't know how to get it done on their own.
"We are starting to realize that a lot of publishers are struggling to generate healthy online revenues on their hyperlocal and local pages. So what we will do is power the entire local pages for the publisher, all within their brands.," head of business development Camilla Cho told Citizen Publishing.
Folks at DataSphere told me the same thing. They said KOMO had 70% remnant before they brought their solution to Seattle.
The Copying Begins - Raycom Does DataSphere
DataSphere is on a roll. They announced today that they did a deal with Raycom. For those of you that don't know, TV stations rarely have a truly new idea. They typically admit that fact. They are prone to watch cautiously and copy people (because they don't want to be the one that took the risk and blew it) who have a winning formula. Right now, Fischer Communications has the winning formula in the eyes of many local media looking to experiment in hyperlocal. >> Read the press release
Borrell 2010: Q&A Reveals Most Interesting Details
I made it to the Borrell Conference in NY this week. The opening panel was very good. Jeff Jarvis opened with his Hyper Local business model followed by a panel with ...
Keynote - Jeff Jarvis, Director, Interactive Journalism Program, City University of New York
Panel - Chris Hendricks, Vice President of Interactive Media, The McClatchy Company
Panel - Chris Jennewein, President, U.S. Local News Network
Panel - Troy McGuire, VP of News and General Manager, Fischer Interactive
Panel - Mark Potts, CEO and Co-Founder, GrowthSpur.com
A lot of the information was a repeat from blog posts and tweets about each initiative but the Q&A section revealed some interesting insights.Here are some notes I captured. I was most interested in the discussion around sales and what strategies are successful in supporting the HL strategies --
Fischer Interactive
Launched or partnered with 109 hyper local Web sites. Generated 400k uniques in seattle a month. They have 1,000 paying advertisers, most of which have never advertised on TV. Fischer claims their HL initiative is profitable. The use a company called DataSphere to power the hyper local sites (widely published partnership) and they have a tele-sales team (40 people) that sells the smaller packages to smaller SMBs. The use of a tele-sales team for going after SMBs was something I pitched to Gannett 5 years ago and was shot down. Fischer claims its very cost efficient and successful because it allows the traditional sales team to focus on the blue chip companies that capture higher revenue per package. One side note that I found interesting and should present a possible gold mine of story ideas for any newsroom -- Fischer claims that they find a lot of story ideas come from user comments.
USLNN
Building a network of HL sites. Started in San Diego and adding Orange County -- SDNN.com. The focus on blue chip advertisers in the local market. CPM is about $10. They focus on under-served suburbs. They really try to incentivize their AEs in the following way -- Relatively low base with 15% commision, 20% if you make quota, 25% if you go 15% over quota. Again, this approach is something I pitched to previous employers as a way to get young, inexpensive and aggressive sales people to sell Web-only. I believe the traditional media companies militate against this because (1) it means complicating something they have done the same way for many years increasing the work they must do for hiring and oversight, (2) it could create conflict with other AEs in the organization with different compensation structures, (3) ego. USLNN noted that a segment of advertisers want to have blogs on the core site (A kind of advertorial content) in order to deepen the relationship with their existing customers.
McClatchy Papers
Their hyper local strategy is pro-am strategy, a mix of both professionals and amateurs. Twelve sites are digging into it, including Charlotte and Miami and Raleigh. Raleigh is a success story. McClatchy is against outsourcing sales like Fischer did. Hendricks argued that it somehow undermined the brand having these other people sell. I've actually heard that before. McGuire vehemently disagreed. He said most of the advertisers don't care who is selling, they care about leads and results.Hendricks noted that not all bloggers update as often as a publisher might like. He suggested that they needed to be incented to help them get past the grind of repeated regular publishing which can tire them. They plan to pay blog partners and or share revenue, but they don't yet.
Keynote - Jeff Jarvis, Director, Interactive Journalism Program, City University of New York
Panel - Chris Hendricks, Vice President of Interactive Media, The McClatchy Company
Panel - Chris Jennewein, President, U.S. Local News Network
Panel - Troy McGuire, VP of News and General Manager, Fischer Interactive
Panel - Mark Potts, CEO and Co-Founder, GrowthSpur.com
A lot of the information was a repeat from blog posts and tweets about each initiative but the Q&A section revealed some interesting insights.Here are some notes I captured. I was most interested in the discussion around sales and what strategies are successful in supporting the HL strategies --
Fischer Interactive
Launched or partnered with 109 hyper local Web sites. Generated 400k uniques in seattle a month. They have 1,000 paying advertisers, most of which have never advertised on TV. Fischer claims their HL initiative is profitable. The use a company called DataSphere to power the hyper local sites (widely published partnership) and they have a tele-sales team (40 people) that sells the smaller packages to smaller SMBs. The use of a tele-sales team for going after SMBs was something I pitched to Gannett 5 years ago and was shot down. Fischer claims its very cost efficient and successful because it allows the traditional sales team to focus on the blue chip companies that capture higher revenue per package. One side note that I found interesting and should present a possible gold mine of story ideas for any newsroom -- Fischer claims that they find a lot of story ideas come from user comments.
USLNN
Building a network of HL sites. Started in San Diego and adding Orange County -- SDNN.com. The focus on blue chip advertisers in the local market. CPM is about $10. They focus on under-served suburbs. They really try to incentivize their AEs in the following way -- Relatively low base with 15% commision, 20% if you make quota, 25% if you go 15% over quota. Again, this approach is something I pitched to previous employers as a way to get young, inexpensive and aggressive sales people to sell Web-only. I believe the traditional media companies militate against this because (1) it means complicating something they have done the same way for many years increasing the work they must do for hiring and oversight, (2) it could create conflict with other AEs in the organization with different compensation structures, (3) ego. USLNN noted that a segment of advertisers want to have blogs on the core site (A kind of advertorial content) in order to deepen the relationship with their existing customers.
McClatchy Papers
Their hyper local strategy is pro-am strategy, a mix of both professionals and amateurs. Twelve sites are digging into it, including Charlotte and Miami and Raleigh. Raleigh is a success story. McClatchy is against outsourcing sales like Fischer did. Hendricks argued that it somehow undermined the brand having these other people sell. I've actually heard that before. McGuire vehemently disagreed. He said most of the advertisers don't care who is selling, they care about leads and results.Hendricks noted that not all bloggers update as often as a publisher might like. He suggested that they needed to be incented to help them get past the grind of repeated regular publishing which can tire them. They plan to pay blog partners and or share revenue, but they don't yet.
LR Tweeted About Media Companies Going Local in Seattle
Lost Remote reports two Seattle media companies created neighborhood news sites to build hyperlocal communities -- The Hearst-owned SeattlePI.com, launched InQueenAnne.com and KOMO TV, the Fisher-owned ABC affiliate, launched neighborhood sites.
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