People, Places and Now With Retailigence, Things

November 13, 2010 · Posted in Companies · Comment 

So in the virtual world, what you may like to search for could be pretty damn near anything under the sun from the mating habits of the African tree frog, to “Google stalking” someone… anyone from an ex-girlfriend to a new potential employee.

And most people seem happy enough that the plumbing behind Google does a pretty good job of spinning all the relevant information from everywhere on the web around like a centrifuge, drawing the good stuff that we want to the top where we can easily get to it. 

But the Google centrifuge can only work its magic on the stuff that is present in the tube. And while there is a huge amount and diversity of information out there on the web to be spun, what tends to get put out there Read more

What Best Buy Could Do In Mobile and Location Marketing

February 4, 2010 · Posted in Companies · Comment 

I was going through my Twitter stream the other day and noticed a few tweets referencing Foursquare involving BestBuyCMO… Foursquare is undoubtedly getting a ton of press these days, and much of it for good reason… it’s new, interesting and fun, and has a lot of potential and implications for marketers… and did I mention it’s getting a lot of press these days.

As cool as FourSquare is, why stop there… Mr. Best Buy CMO, if you’re listening here is what I think would be a more comprehensive way to use mobile and location data in your business: Read more

Localeze + Bing versus Google + Yelp

January 28, 2010 · Posted in Companies · Comment 

I noticed an article from MediaPost this morning that talks about Microsoft signing a deeper relationship with Localeze recently for use in Bing’s local efforts. This is one of those fly under the radar types of news items that garners very little attention, unlike say the big fuss made over the potential Google – Yelp acquisition. It’s just another day to day type deal, so I suppose there is no reason for it to grab headlines but in my mind this type of deal between Microsoft and Localeze is much more interesting than Google and Yelp.

I love Yelp and use it frequently, and to a degree I get the rationale on why its a potentially attractive acquisition, particularly for someone like Google that is looking so aggressively at targeting the local brick and mortar businesses, and their advertising budget. Yelp has many of the right relationships with local advertisers and at the same time has a nice content creation tool and user base who rabidly create tons of local oriented content… all a very nice fit with what Google does and where they’re looking to grow.

 But the deal between Microsoft and Localeze in my mind directly tries to fix something that is currently wrong when you search for local businesses. Read more

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