While newspaper people are bickering over questionable (at best) schemes to find some way to get readers to pay for Web content, it turns out that Google has been working for at least a year on a project focusing on local advertising, in particular advertising on cell phones and other mobile devices.
High on the list: "Local Relevant." That's the idea of using local search results — local pizza parlors, for example — to provide links for "instant action" such as clicking on a number to call the restaurant, or on a business name to link to a map.
Are any newspapers thinking about offering services like this? Are they even working seriously on them (as opposed to paying them lip service or weakly outsourcing them to vendors)? Are they focused on finding new ways to bring local advertisers and audiences together on the Web, much less on cell phones? With only a couple of exceptions, alas, the answer is no. But we sure can spend a lot of cycles arguing about trying to extract a few pennies from readers.
According to the most recent statistics I've seen, newspapers–who historically have dominated the local print advertising market–are clinging to just over a quarter of local online ad spending, and even that share is declining. Who's taking it? Google and startups, who have focused on this market. Local online advertising is newspapers' to lose. Unless and until they get really serious about it, they're going to lose it.
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