The Kelsey Group wrote about something that was best left dead: the CueCat. In Quick Response Bar Codes Invade Yellow Pages the concept is that small bar codes can be inserted into print ads and scanned by mobile phones to link users to information over the Internet. The problem is that this has been tried and failed. I still have an old CueCat lying around the house. My former employer, Verizon Directories, actually participated in the CueCat debacle.
Archive for the ‘work’ Category
This Was Dumb When It Was Cue Cat and It’s Dumb Now
Tuesday, May 20th, 2008Looks Like Fairness Counts
Sunday, May 18th, 2008Slow Leadership discusses research out of Wharton about how treating partners fairly matters. No kidding. Any good business development person can tell you this. Yet many executives don’t get it. So here’s how it works: if your partner feels like you screwed them, then they won’t put any effort into the relationship and both parties end up losing. So the lesson for today is DON’T SCREW YOUR PARTNERS!
Biz Dev Tips
Sunday, May 11th, 2008Bernard Lunn on ReadWriteWeb gave a list of 11 Biz Dev 1.0 Tips. Of particular interest are items number 3 and 4:
3. Wait until you hear the screams. If you have a fire engine, you are not needed until the house is on fire. The best sales people wait until they see a real need before applying a lot of effort…
4. Two ears, one mouth. …People don’t buy products, they buy solutions to problems. Find the problem and show a solution based on your product…
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been sent after people to get a deal when there was no reason for them to want to work with us. It never works. We had nothing to offer. I can’t sell ice to an Eskimo. Nor can I tell you how many times I’ve been contacted by people with nothing to offer us but still wanting to do a deal. They either talk about the technology or, even worse, they expect me to come up with a way to work with them. My first question to everyone that calls is always – “What did you have in mind?” If they don’t have an answer, then we’re done.
Match.com and Me
Tuesday, January 16th, 2007I’ve been a Match.com user for years. I really enjoy the service and am a big believer in it (and the whole matchmaking segment in general). I’ve gone from being an evangelist for Match.com to an employee. I’ve resigned from my business development position at Verizon SuperPages.com and accepted a position at Match.com as Director of Business Development. I’m very excited. The matchmaking business is fascinating with a lot of exciting things going on.
Paul Levine, General Manager of Yahoo! Local
Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006Disclaimer – I work for Verizon SuperPages.com, so I compete with Yahoo! Local. These notes are my comments and not that of my employer.
Small Business Commando put together a teleconference today with Paul Levine of Yahoo! Local and Matt Booth of The Kelsey Group. The tagline for the conference was “Insider Secrets to Blow the Doors Off Your Competition using Local Online Marketing.” While the conference didn’t live up to the tagline, it was none-the-less very informative.
Matt started off saying that print yellow pages isn’t likely to go away anytime soon and that many of the major players are active in the local space online, in particular Verizon. He said that local search is growing at a faster rate than traditional IYP (Internet Yellow Pages) searches.
Paul says that they found most local searches to be commercial in nature. Yahoo’s local strategy follows along these lines:
- User Participation (as evidenced by their use of user reviews and the connection with Yahoo! 360)
- Integration with Mapping (believe that mapping can be an interface to local search)
- Encouraging Merchants to Participate (as evidenced by ability for merchants to add/update online listings for free)
Of special interest, though it’s already pretty obvious, is Paul’s statement that Yahoo plans to include social networking and user participation across all Yahoo products.
Mobile is a big part of the future of local, though the technology is not there yet. In particular, Paul said that mobile devices need more bandwidth, more memory, and carriers to provide more information about users’ locations. In the next few months Yahoo will allow merchants to participate in the mobile environment.
Paul went into detail on Yahoo’s local products – local listings (free), enhanced listings, and featured listings. The upcoming sponsored search platform will include the ability to geotarget.
Yahoo works with Dex, YellowPages.com, Leads.com, and Lawyers.com to take their local products to market in addition to direct sales from Yahoo’s web site.
Interesting stuff.
Here’s a summary from The Kelsey Group.
Verizon SuperPages.com joins Google AdWords
Monday, March 27th, 2006Nice to see something that I worked on come to fruition.
Verizon SuperPages.com Rolls Out Pay for Calls
Tuesday, August 9th, 2005It’s a sweet product and I’m proud to have worked on it. It has a unique distribution mechanism – both online and offline. The ads are also integrated with SuperPages’ PPC ads which means that it launched with significant distribution built in. Very cool.
