Local Search: Enormous Opportunity - Complex Solutions

I enjoyed the Yext presentation at TechCrunch50. The challenge in pitching a local solution is the enormity of the opportunity and complexity of the needed solutions. The panel’s questions demonstrated why pitching local search is so hard. Marc Andreessen didn’t seem to agree that local businesses want phone calls and not clicks. Marc asked about emails – seeming to question why any business would bother answering their phone when they could respond to email (btw Marc, many merchants do not answer the phone and that’s part of the problem). The questions rolled over to categories and again illustrated the unique challenges in local (2000+ categories)

I agree with Yext that leakage and dirty calls are a real problem with ppcall. My company, FastCall411 uses parallel dialing as one potential fix - not only to connect to multiple merchants but more so to capture connection rate data on multiple merchants. Find out who will answer the phone (and wants the lead) and each future call is more efficient. Yext is using analytics to examine key words. This is very clever and hopefully not too complicated (though I'd hate to try to explain it to a local merchant). Merchants want good clean calls and Yext is clearing the way for innovative solutions in this market.

BTW, The awesome use of the word awesome!

Redbeacon - New Entrant in Mobile Local Search

Redbeacon just launched at TC50. Given the breath and depth of the great ocean that is mobile local search, it is understanable that the TechCrunch comments are pretty mixed. Here's my take:

The Redbeacon team is impressive (all x-Google) but the stated strategy "without any phone calls" seems off target given this market. HelpHive in Seattle seemed to start with a similar strategy and deeply hid the merchant's phone number. They've since uncovered the number to appear in the listing. I've said many times that you can't route leads to SMBs without including phone calls. Will Redbeacon prove me wrong? (I am doubtful that Helphive's local number with extension will work either)

Back to Redbeacon, my experience with FastCall411, and prior, confirms that merchants want phone calls. I agree that availability is key in this market and have written on this topic many times. Getting the merchant to answer the call and show up for the appointment are the second and third biggest challenges in mobile local. The listing data is the first challenge. I am routing for Redbeacon and hope they can push the market forward.