"Shawn Riegsecker, the president of local media services firm Centro, disagrees. He believes content sites have no need to worry about portals dipping into their ad dollars, because they typically don't sell ads to traditional yellow pages advertisers. Content sites like local newspapers tend to attract advertisers from the real estate, jobs and autos categories, while yellow pages players rely on plumbers, restaurants and contractors, he said.
"There's no fear at all because [local media publishers] don't play in that game today in the offline world," said Reigsecker. As far as he is concerned, portal sites are "glorified yellow pages," providing listings as content rather than the more robust news and information provided by local newspaper sites and other local publishers."
I'd disaggree. For example directory sites would be better looking at agregating their content to the likes of google etc. Why? A partnership would better benefit both parties. In addition the rise of online travel (train/bus/airport) information would also be better served by aggregation. Perhaps directories should think of creating their own white page sites or better still their own localised RSS feeds. I feel that there still needs to be directory companies and although points of presence on the web (portals) will take revenue. The question is whether portals or directories offer something different. One of the most important things a consumer needs to know are things like opening hours, parking space etc. The power is with the directories. Their problem is one of adaptation and innovation to new media.
No comments:
Post a Comment