Feb. Podcast & Analysis Roundup - Near Media

Feb. Podcast & Analysis Roundup - Near Media
The deer in my back yard getting ready for spring & dreaming of eating my hostas come April

While it was a short month on the calendar, it was a long one in all the wrong ways. But here we are with winter soon ending and spring on the way.

Analysis

We finished up reporting on the FTC and through the marvels of a FOIA uncovered which review platforms the FTC sent "get in line" letters too, we spotted more Google astroturfing and Adam Dorfman wrote a great piece on Tik-Tok and local.

How Might TikTok Embrace Location-Based Marketing?
TikTok offers a multiple opportunities for local marketers of all sizes, provided you do your homework.
Google Automates SMB Emails to Congress to Plead Antitrust Case
Feeling nervous, Google is intensifying its anti-antitrust campaign, lobbying SMBs to “take action” and automating their emails.
The 10 Review Platforms Who Got FTC Warning Letters
Ten review management platforms were put on notice by the FTC. Here they are and what got them into trouble.

Podcasts

We managed to pass 50 weekly conversations and are on our way to many more. We enjoy them and hope you do as well. We particularly enjoyed our most recent conversation about recent Whitespark research on web core vitals and why it doesn't impact local.

Ep 53: For sale: Yelp reviews, Core Web Vitals & Local Rank, Google’s SEO training, Google in 10 years
Yelp Elite reviews for sale; Core Web Vitals: No impact on Local ranking, Google offering SEO training, What will Google be in 10 years?
Ep 52: Will Google make SEO superfluous? Is Android Sandbox Real or PR? Wix’s Q4 #s & how big is the SMB market?
Will Google’s new AI summary tool give SEO’s a better understanding of their content? Will it someday make SEO superfluous? Is Google’s Android Privacy Sandbox Real or Performative? What do Wix’s #’s say about how big the SMB market is?
Ep 51: Google spams Congress w/SMB emails, Amazon hits $31B in ad sales, Apple Tap to Pay available soon
Google takes astroturf SMB emails to the next level & spams congress for support in their anti antitrust fight; Amazon, breaking out advertising for the first time, did $31B in ads; Apple’s Tap to Pay turns every recent iPhone into a credit card terminal
Ep 50: Meta takes a dive, Yelp & Google take review high ground, FTC warns review platforms
Meta Messes Up But Blames Others; Yelp & Google claim they maintain review quality, & The FTC warns 10 review platforms to stop deceiving customers

Our Most Read Newsletter for the Month

In case you missed it....

Yelp Elites Bribed, SMBs Do SEO, What’s After Google?
Fake Reviews: Bribing Yelp Elites, Amazon Sues We’ve previously written about review fraud and the platforms’ inconsistent takedown efforts. Yelp is probably the most consistent, but it takes a blunt and arguably overbroad approach – nearly 30% of its results are “filtered” as untrustworthy, even th…

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