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Local: The next disruptive online market
By Russell C. Horowitz | October 17, 2007
For those of us who have been part of the commercial Internet since its beginning in the 1990s, we have seen four major consumer- and/or merchant-focused movements that have created or transferred hundreds of billions of dollars of value.
First, there was communications. Businesses that primarily focused on the consumer, navigating online, email and messaging became fundamentally more efficient — and how we communicate with each other was forever transformed. Companies from AOL to Netscape to Yahoo and GeoCities were among the key players in driving this revolution.
Second came commerce, which massively impacted both consumer and merchant-driven markets. Ebay and Amazon forever transformed our purchasing habits and expanded our selection, while Expedia pioneered the way we plan and procure our travel.
Third was search, where first there was AltaVista, then eventually the phenomenon of Google, which has led to one of the greatest consumer-driven opportunities in the history of the technology industry, and exponentially expanded merchants’ ability to acquire customers more efficiently.
Fourth, and most recently, is social networking. Facebook and MySpace have become foundations for how we connect with friends and business associates, as well as meet new people with common interests. While we have yet to see how the model evolves, it is obvious that these businesses are impacting online consumer behavior.
Local will be the fifth – and it will impact consumers and merchants alike. Tools are already available to empower even the smallest business to market their products or services across a diverse set of relevant distribution options (customer acquisition points – e.g., search engines, vertical Web sites, shopping engines, etc.); and technology is facilitating the organization of local information in new, empowering ways that will help consumers locally more efficiently find the local businesses, resources and information they need or are interested in learning about. It has crossed a tipping point and it has the real potential to create and transfer as much value as any of the four movements that have come before it.
Each of these movements has created hundreds of billions of dollars of company value and Local will be at least as transforming. Local will not be winner take all and will be realized through the collaboration of many companies.
Topics: Local Advertisers, Local Search |
October 17th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
[…] C. Horowitz offers today that the Internet has… seen four major consumer- and/or merchant-focused movements that have […]
November 13th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
[…] Local: The next disruptive online market LocalPoint - Perspectives on the Local Internet Marchex’s local search blog, LocalPoint.com, points out” 4 Major Consumer/Merchant Movements” that have created/transferred hundreds of billions of dollars since the beginning of the commercial internet: […]