{"id":1080,"date":"2008-10-09T09:52:50","date_gmt":"2008-10-09T13:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/?p=1080"},"modified":"2008-10-09T12:20:43","modified_gmt":"2008-10-09T16:20:43","slug":"can-the-iyps-survive-and-thrive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/09\/can-the-iyps-survive-and-thrive\/","title":{"rendered":"Can the IYP’s survive and thrive?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day I noted<\/a> that “As I have pointed out before, it is my belief that the IYP\u2019s have already lost in this race. From my point of view they bring little of technical or marketing value to the space. Their core product, business listings have been commoditized to the point of being available for free and without significant innovation there is no reason for their survival going forward.<\/em>”<\/p>\n

But I had coffee with Ahmed Farooq<\/a> of iBegin on my way home from SMXEast and he pointed out that there was a path for them to success. Everybody these days has access to cheap or free YP listings. InsiderPages, Dex or Superpages no longer have exclusive listing data. What they do have is “feet on the street”.<\/p>\n

They have the sales staff and customer relations that could solve the remaining problem in Local. That is to gather all of the deep local data about real, extant businesses that people care about….not just hours, but brands, niche information, context and other details that will make Local truly useful and not just a broken Yellow Pages<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They have what Google, in their algorithmic approach to Local, will never have; conversations with real businesses on the other end of the phone. Unlike their upstart competitors, they have scale and capital. The IYP’s could once again provide unique data that is valuable and that could push local to the next level of accuracy and functionality.<\/p>\n

It would seem a so much more successful strategy to gaining links than their Payola approach<\/a>. It would create value to themselves and the greater internet, obviously a concept that they have yet to grasp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day I noted that “As I have pointed out before, it is my belief that the IYP\u2019s have already lost in this race. From my point of view they bring little of technical or marketing value to the space. Their core product, business listings have been commoditized to the point of being available …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t