Model of Excellence Award Winner
We're pleased to announce that NOZA has received a 2007 InfoCommerce Model of Excellence award for its NOZA product.
Labels: Noza, nozasearch.com
Everywhere and Nowhere
An impressive piece of detective work by blogger Mike Blumenthal details the existence of something called "mapspam." Mapspam is the practice of businesses misrepresenting their physical locations to artificially improve their search engine results rankings.
At first glance, mapspam looks like just one more example of the "one step forward, one step back" evolution of the web, where every new advance is quickly undone by spammers and those trying to game the system. But hold on a minute. Is this really new? And more importantly, is this really wrong?
The example used in the blog article was of a suburban florist listing itself in such a way that it appeared to be in the center of a large city nearby. The technique, creating a false address, was certainly sleazy, but again, does it matter?
Florists have several elaborate national networks that allow them to accept orders for prompt delivery anywhere in the country. The customer doesn't know who fulfilled the order at the distant end, and the customer doesn't care. What matters is that the specified goods were delivered in the specified timeframe to the specified recipient.
Further, the old-timers among us will recall the acronym "RCF" for Remote Call Forwarding, a well- established and entirely legitimate service long offered by the phone companies to allow companies to give the appearance of having a local presence in distant markets. For decades, this has been viewed as smart business, not deceptive business.
What seems most important is not the actual physical location of the retailer, but whether or not they can deliver on the promises they make to their customers. The florist business can do this. Auto body shops and pizza parlors can't, but there's no advantage to them misrepresenting themselves. A Los Angeles pizza parlor taking orders for delivery in New York City won't last very long.
What is simultaneously intriguing, ironic and problematic is that as increasing resources are being put against identifying, locating and classifying local businesses, growing numbers of these businesses are seeing that they can build national markets, and because of this they start to view their physical locations as more of a hindrance than an advantage. This phenomenon is no less true of larger companies that are rapidly becoming so diffuse that they actively avoid designating any physical location as their headquarters. And many web-based companies want only email or toll-free number contact, allowing them to never disclose even a hint of their physical location, if indeed they have one.
The bottom line issue for data publishers is to recognize that we are largely working with databases and tools based on business practices and norms that are rapidly evolving. There's no easy answer to mapspam or any of the related issues involving physical location. But those who will prosper will be those who reflect how business does business, rather than trying to dictate it.
Labels: local business, location, mapspam, mike blumenthal, RCF
A New Financial Industry Ratings Service
The latest online ratings service to enter the fold launched late last month. Financialjoe.com is an Internet platform that enables investors to collaboratively monitor the services they receive from financial advisors and their firms.
To collect the ratings information, financialjoe.com asks users to complete an online questionnaire containing 18 questions related to the service they receive by their financial advisors. This enables other investors who also work with those financial advisors to learn this feedback. Custom pages store specified advisor and firms for users to regularly monitor. If a client is treated in an unethical manner by an advisor, that client can access his "My Advisors" page and change the rating for his advisor. Investors who share that advisor are immediately notified through internal and external email.
Financialjoe.com is promoting the service as a new tool that enables individual investors to communicate with each other and expose financial advisors or brokerage firms that provide poor service or practice unethically.
With an influx of online ratings services on the Web, it's no surprise that a service would target financial advisors specifically. Nearly all services providers have been impacted by the existence of online ratings. Financialjoe.com is also taking advantage of another Internet-driven service, social networking, to drive its new launch, which is an innovative twist. However, as with all ratings services, the buyer must still be aware. Other users can't be absolutely convinced that all ratings are legitimate; that they haven't been created by friends of an advisor. So, users can't totally rely on the information they receive through financialjoe.com. It will be interesting to see if financialjoe.com can survive in the marketplace--it certainly needs a high-profile marketing campaign to promote its wares. If not, financialjoe.com could be an interesting offering for a finance-related organization that wants to offer financialjoe.com data as a value-added service. This tool should have a decent shelf life, regardless of who decides to use it.
Black Book Launches New Tool
Black Book, a publisher of vehicle appraisal guides, this week launched Finance Advance, a market driven value that establishes the appropriate base value for financial institutions to use as a basis for advancing funds. The value reflects the pre-owned vehicle industry's improvement in vehicle reconditioning standards, extended warranties, certified pre-owned vehicle programs and the overall quality of new vehicles.
Through an evaluation of the market, Black Book has created this single Finance Advance value that reflects the more typical front-line ready vehicles held for retail sale. The company expects the value to provide a more accurate baseline from which to lend.
Black Book has made Finance Advance available in all of the company's products, from printed guidebooks and PDAs to the Internet. The new offering also interfaces with Dealership Management Systems. Black Book's stable of vehicle appraisal guides is published by National Auto Research, a unit of Hearst Business Media. Customers include new and used car dealers, lenders, manufacturers, fleet remarketers and government agencies.
This particular offering represents a very clever variation on an established product line. It really helps solidify Black Book's position in the market and among its customers as an authority in the field. While this new tool brings together so many factors within the marketplace, the concept itself is relatively simple for potential customers to understand and recognize its value--and make a purchase.
A Hollywood Deal
Hollywood Media Corp., a provider of news, information and ticketing that served the entertainment and media industries, this week announced that it has sold its Source business to West World Media LLC for $23 million in cash. The Source segment includes the CinemaSource, EventSource and ExhibitorAds properties.
CinemaSource is a supplier of movie showtimes data as measured by market share in the U.S. and Canada. It also licenses movie showtime listings and other content to its customers, which include newspapers, wireless companies and other media outlets. EventSource compiles and licenses local listings of live events (such as concerts, sporting events, fairs and shows). The Exhibitor Ads part of the business provides movie exhibitors with newspaper advertising services and other exhibitor marketing services.
The deal ultimately returns the Source operations to their original owner. West World Media's Brett West founded the Source business in 1995 before selling it to Hollywood Media in 1999. West was president of Hollywood Media's Source business. As part of the deal, both companies have signed a multi-year data sharing agreement which calls for Hollywood Media and West World Media to continue providing each other with content, including West World Media's provision of movie showtimes and events data to Hollywood Media and Hollywood Media's provision of movie and entertainment-related content to West World Media.
Hollywood Media will continue to focus on its current stable of properties, which includes a Broadway Ticking division (Broadway.com, 1-800-Broadway, Theatre Direct International and London-based Theatre.com), and an Ad Sales division (Hollywood.com and U.K.-based CinemasOnline). Hollywood Media also owns Hollywood.com Television, a free VOD cable TV network and a minority interest in MovieTickets.com.
It seems like Hollywood Media hasn't completely closed the door on its Source properties, especially with the content-sharing deal it will maintain with West World Media. And maybe it shouldn't. If anything, this should make the transition back to West World ownership rather seamless. Yet it wouldn't be surprising if this particular facet of the sale remains in place even longer. Both companies' properties are certainly complementary and may be better suited to remain affiliated.