Over the past two years, the most powerful broad trend in media is fragmentation and while mass media remains, it is becoming a smaller and smaller proportion of the overall media landscape. Audiences have become fragmented – and they have more choices in a fragmented media landscape. Today, our informed customers aren’t happy to blindly consume what mainstream media is feeding them. Instead they want: participation, openness, conversation, community, connectedness & all of that in real time!
The upcoming year we will see increasing opportunities because of this world of fragmentation and the proliferation of media channels. Along with the continuous technology advancements, LOCATION is becoming more important than ever. In 2010, I think there are 3 “hyperlocal” trends that will grow and re-shape the social & mobile business -
1. Local advertising becoming ubiquitous
WHY: Advertisers have been constantly evaluating and experimenting with new models to bring more relevancy and context to the online ad kingdom. After behavior-targeting & social-targeting getting their debut in 2009, location-targeting advertising models start to emerge. There is a future in hyperlocal, and advertising certainly is a big part of it.
WHAT TO EXPECT: New ad-generating application such as Place Local will get more traction as it automates the ad creation, sales and management. Since local restaurants, retail outlets and entertainment venues are the most popular search categories, we will see local business owners jumping on the bandwagon first. As more companies seeking to take advantage of the growth in local ad dollars, more widgets and apps will be available, creating location-based ads will be easier than ever.
2. Local media replacing big journalism
WHY: Traditional news organizations faced cutbacks or closures in 2009, by contrast, small and local publications are doing pretty well by serving niche markets. Although the market is smaller, the community is much tighter. Additionally, Twitter just bought Mixer Lab in an effort to pinpoint the locations of people posting messages on its service. Biz Stone believes that when current location is added to tweets, new and valuable services emerge – everything from breaking news to finding friends or local businesses can be dramatically enhanced.
WHAT TO EXPECT: Those who understand the fragmented media landscape and know how to reach customers cost-effectively will thrive. Highly entrepreneurial sites that are a blend of community-building and a focus on tech expertise such as Oakland Local will look to fill the gap in news content. On the Twitter side, location-aware tweets will simply be the main source of future breaking news. Remember how Twitter beat CNN on reporting the plane crash over Hudson River? Expect the real-time location-aware updates to substitute big journalism, very often.
3. Local on-the-go searches
WHY: As we know, the majority of smartphone owners in North America are the younger consumers. According to Forrester’s latest Technographic survey, Gen Yers and Gen Xers are 4-5 times more likely to perform local searches than Boomers and Seniors. Those GPS embedded devices have enhanced the mobile search experience tremendously.
WHAT TO EXPECT: In 2010, GPS embedded handsets will become a necessity while mobile-based local search process will continue to evolve. More web 2.0 sites will translate into the mobile channel; more mobile apps will incorporate maps/destination-search function to extend the usefulness of their core offering. More attention on the location-based social networks and mobile games Foursquare & Gowalla? You bet, their service is proving to be more useful by the day. The possibility is endless!
As the location-battle rages on, what you do you keep an eye on?
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