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Are
You Developing Domains With an Eye on Local Ad Revenue?
A Major Conference in L.A. This Week & Upcoming Free
Webinar Could Help Put Money in Your Pocket
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A
lot of domain developers,
especially those in the geodomain community,
are counting on local advertisers to provide
their revenue stream. If you are one of those
developers, you know that understanding the
local ad market and how to tap into it is
critical to your success. |
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Fortunately,
more and more sources of information on that
specific topic are becoming available. One of
the biggest ones, the annual BIA Kelsey Interactive
Local Media Conference (ILM09)
will be held at the Hyatt Century Plaza Hotel
in Los Angeles this week. The event gets
underway Wednesday (Dec. 9) and continues
through Friday. |
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BIA
Kelsey is one of the world's leading local media
research companies and the company's Co-Founder and
Chairman John Kelsey is already a familiar face
to many in the geodomain space, especially after he
delivered the keynote address at the 2008
GeoDomain Expo in Chicago.
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Hyatt
Century Plaza - Los Angeles
Site of the ILM09 conference this week |
BIA
Kelsey Senior VP Matt Booth, who is
the Program Director for the ILM09 conference,
said that the local media market is starting to
rebound in a big way. Booth said, "At last year's conference,
Neal Polachek (BIA Kelsey President) and I made the following prediction:
From this economic crisis the next set of remarkable companies will emerge that will come to define the local media market. The unparalleled downturn will cause consumers and advertisers to change and shift their behaviors. This shift will create the foundation and opportunities to build the next set of great
businesses." |
"Nearly every metric and survey we've collected since then makes us more confident in our
perspective," Booth said, adding "Evidently, the marketplace agrees because the huge attendance for
this week's conference will make it one of the three largest BIA/Kelsey events
ever. This is just one of the signs that the markets have
turned."
"In many ways, this conference was a harder one to organize because there are simply so many interesting businesses operating that we couldn't possible fit every one of them into a three-day
program,"
Both said. "Nevertheless, Mike Boland and Peter Krasilovsky have built what I believe is one of the more valuable conference programs around the topic
Monetizing the Local Opportunity." The
speakers, to name just a few, will include
Anamitra Banerji (Twitter), Meredith Papp
(Google), Tim Kendall (Facebook), Cyrus Krohn
(MSN Local, Microsoft), Lem Lloyd (Yahoo), Kara
Nortman (Citysearch) and Chris Spanos (AOL
Local).
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If
you can't make it to the conference BIA Kelsey
had another event coming up that you can
take part in from the comfort of your own home.
They have a free webinar called "Defining
the Local Media Landscape for 2010"
coming up Thursday, Dec. 17 at 2pm
(US Eastern time). The event will feature a
panel of six expert speakers and analysts who
will cover traditional media (radio, television
and newspaper) as well as online media
(interactive media, online classifieds and
mobile). In a roundtable discussion, they |
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will
review and analyze 2009 and look ahead to 2010 -
providing a selection of predictions that will
cover several categories of local media. You can
register
for the free webinar here. |
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A
couple of other notes today. Sedo
just unveiled a slick redesign of their
popular domain aftermarket website this morning.
The company said the major update is the
result of an extensive study involving Sedo
members, employees, consultants and focus |
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groups.
In addition to major site enhancements, Sedo
said they focused on making simple improvements
to the site to create a more engaging and
intuitive environment. As an example they cited
new navigation and login systems that allow
users to manage their Sedo accounts and navigate
the site more efficiently. The site tree
has also been streamlined so users can focus on
what’s most important to them. |
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While
we are on the subject of websites, we have to
tell you about an especially timely one,
just in time for Christmas - RecessionWreaths.com
- that has just been launched by Rob Grant (who
was the subject of our April 2008 Cover
Story).
The
faux ecommerce site touts a
"perennial favorite" - the Cut-Up
Credit Card Wreath - featuring maxed out
credit cards from the nations biggest banks. The
site says, "these cards, sporting 30%
interest rates and late penalty fees, are sliced
up into attractive snowflake patterns and add a
dash of color and fun to every wreath! These
wreaths also come with signed, angry letters
demanding immediate payment. (Please note that
we only accept cash for these specialty
wreaths)!" |
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In
keeping with the spirit of the site, it advises
you to save money by just printing out the
picture of the wreath and hanging it on your
door (thumb tack not included)! Grant told
us, |
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Rob
Grant |
"We
have people who actually want to buy
these wreaths." The problem is he only had four
made by some of the real estate agents in his Lake
Placid, New York office so he would have
something to photograph for his tongue in cheek
website. However, Grant thinks he may have
stumbled onto something here noting, "If
you're in real estate right now, you've got
a better shot at selling a wreath than
selling a house!"
"So
now we're inviting the public to
submit their own ideas to
RecessionWreaths.com (the most recent concept
was for a wreath shaped like a hangman's
noose). If we ever do get through this
recession, we have a sequel already lined
up (for better times that are just around the
corner) - FunnyWreaths.com - due to
launch sometime between 2012 and 2015!"
Grant said. |
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