Meta Wants to Own the Next Platform Meta held its now annual VR event yesterday, featuring the announcement of a $1,500 Meta Quest Pro mixed-reality headset. It's

AI Assistant Super App If the Twitter deal happens, Elon Musk suggested he wants to turn it into an "everything app" or "super app" à la

Google: Review Gating Verboten   Google recently updated its review content guidelines to clarify the following are disallowed: "Discouraging or prohibiting negative reviews, or selectively soliciting positive reviews from customers.

Twitter Moderation Headache So Elon Musk is buying Twitter after all. One theory holds that Musk thought he would lose at trial. Assuming the deal actually happens, Musk will inherent

Gen Z: Google > TikTok Much in the same way that Google's fixation and fear of Facebook resulted in the ill-fated Google+, Google now seems to be similarly

Have We Reached 'Peak Reviews'? Consumer reviews are a major local ranking factor, with intense industry focus on review management. At the same time we may have reached

Google: 'Age of Visual Search' Is Here   Google just concluded its "Search On" event, showcasing search innovations. It was mostly a review or update of things

Instacart Goes After Amazon As consumers returned to grocery stores and restaurants, delivery companies have scrambled for continued revenue growth. Instacart has very imaginatively sought to transform itself into an

Google Kills 'Consumer Surveys' Google is in cost-cutting mode. The company will stop making laptops and discontinued half its "Area 120" projects. And just yesterday it

Paid Search Doubles in Three Years   Almost since its inception, paid search marketing has been the leading category of digital advertising. It has maintained that position even as other formats

Where's the (Local) Innovation? A few years ago I wrote an article entitled "Why is there so little innovation in local?" It decried the lack of

Search: Apple and Andi This week Apple finally released iOS 16. Among other changes and upgrades, Apple put its search box on the iPhone's homescreen. Before Apple'

Instacart's Platform Strategy Food Delivery services may be holding their own but they face intensifying pressures from investors, labor shortages, weakening consumer demand and regulatory scrutiny. Diversification and

Apple Ads Gain on 'Triopoly' The big Apple news this week surrounds its new devices. But an equally important story is Apple's ad business. Apple'

Is a Yahoo Comeback Possible? This week Yahoo acquired a company called The Factual. It's essentially a news-ranking algorithm that rates the credibility of sources. In my brief

We will not publish on Monday in honor of the US Labor Day holiday. We'll be back next Wednesday. Enjoy the weekend. Google 'Quick Read' Label

Kochava, Roomster Targeted by FTC   Reflecting a massive shift in attitudes toward data collection, Oracle was sued last week over its ID Graph with non-consensual profiles of "hundreds of

Google Takes Digital Ads 'Offline' Many years ago Google aspired to be a unified platform for all forms of advertising – digital and traditional, including radio and TV. To

Nextdoor Needs to Become More 'Useful' This past week Nextdoor announced the outcome of its 2022 "Neighborhood Favorites" contest. The winners, who receive badges on their

TikTok Testing 'Nearby' Feed TikTok confirmed it's testing a new "Nearby" feed (in Asia), intended to showcase locally relevant content to users. Another feature

Google's HCU to Make Landfall   Last week Google announced it would be rolling out a Panda-like algorithm update rewarding "content made by, and for, people." It&

Google to Punish 'SEO-first' Content Most B2B content today is for lead-gen purposes or designed to rank. So many B2B SERPs are a wasteland of thin content, pitches

Product Inventory = Local Visibility At one time, there were multiple startups chasing real-time product inventory. The methodologies were varied but almost all of them are now gone, just as Google

Ads Coming to Apple Maps More ads are coming to your iPhone. That's according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple's ad revenue is nearly $4

TikTok, BlenderBot and Search TikTok isn't going to replace Google. But among Gen Z users, it does appear to be gaining traction as a search alternative in selected

Nextdoor: Daily Users ~19 Million Nextdoor posted Q2 revenue yesterday of $55M, representing 19% year-over-year revenue growth. This was generally considered a slight miss. The company also lowered its full-year

Cox Buys Axios for Local News Axios, the digital news site delivering journalism via bulleted lists has sold itself to Cox Enterprises for $525 million. Axios' 2022 revenues are

Twitter 'Location Spotlight' Rolls Out Last April Twitter launched what amounts to a GMB/GBP profile on its platform for selected businesses with physical locations. Called "Location

Brand Beats Performance Marketing Whether or not we're in a recession, many marketers are acting like it. Tech companies are laying people off and marketing budgets are tightening.

The End of 'Location Intelligence'?   The era of precise mobile-location data, which spawned numerous "location intelligence" vendors (e.g., Foursquare) may be coming to a close.

Apple and Amazon Defy Gravity After two quarters of negative growth the US may be in a recession, although that's disputed. Whether or not it's technically

Earnings: Digital vs. E-Commerce Snap, Twitter, Microsoft and Google revenues have all disappointed Wall Street recently. (Meta reports today, Apple tomorrow.) Yesterday, Google missed on both the top and bottom

LSAs, 'Verified Reviews' and Liability A week ago Robin Dirksen discovered that Google was testing a "not verified" label for local reviews (see below). I assumed

Facebook Splits the Baby Facebook has broken its Feed in two. There will now be Home and Feeds tabs in the app. Feeds will feature "recent posts from your

Some Action on Fake Reviews Facebook groups are among the major sources of fake reviews across the internet. However, the company has shown little interest in shutting down the fraud

'TikTok Is My Search Engine' Last week's story about 40% of younger users abandoning Google Maps/Local for social media (triggered by a TechCrunch report) continues

Amazon: Prime Day 'Biggest Ever' In the weeks before Prime Day there was speculation that this year's event would disappoint. Amazon has now put out a

Google: 40% of Zoomers Shun Search, Maps Speaking at a recent conference, Google SVP Prabhakar Raghavan made a casual remark. "In our studies, something like almost 40% of young

What Will Happen to Twitter Now? Back in April, a lifetime ago, Elon Musk made his shock $44 billion offer for Twitter. He filed it formally on April 13. In

Review Extortion, Libel & Liability Review fraud is illegal and it's flourishing. Despite rising awareness of fake reviews, usage is up. An undisputed ranking signal, reviews are also

Google to Auto-Delete Location We keep writing about privacy because it's an issue that isn't going away and only becoming more important in the wake of

In observance of the US July 4th holiday we will not publish on Monday. We'll be back next Wednesday. Apple's Local Car Play Apple will soon

Google's Commerce Boss Heads to Pinterest Pinterest's co-founder and CEO, Ben Silbermann, is stepping down and will become executive chairman. Google Commerce boss Bill Ready will

Dobbs Creates Personal-Data Minefield   Following the demise of Roe, many companies announced they would pay for abortion-related employee travel: Apple, Google, Facebook, Salesforce, Yelp, Dicks Sporting Goods, Neflix and others.

Post-Roe: Data Privacy Now More Urgent Now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, data privacy becomes even more urgent for millions of women. Multiple states, perhaps even a majority,

Google Is Full of 'SEO Chum' There's a growing perception that Google is in decline or dying. This is happening even as its "back end&

Two-Factor Fake Review Fix Review bombing is becoming a bigger problem. It shows up with games and, more often, movies and TV. Typically, it's a loosely organized effort

1K Keywords: 34% Are Local Earlier this week we discussed the top 1,000 search keywords (desktop). Two things jumped out: the list is dominated by brand and local queries.

Brands, Local Dominate Top Searches Food near me and restaurants near me are the leading local queries in the top 1,000 keywords according to a recent analysis (using Ahrefs

Debating the Outlook for Facebook A number of speculative articles have recently appeared, some undoubtedly driven by schadenfreude, about whether Facebook/Meta is merely pivoting or foundering. For example, the

Amazon Eyeing 'Local Ads' Opportunity Earlier this week job listings for an Amazon Local Ads "startup business within Amazon Ads" appeared. One listing for a senior

Apple's WWDC Highlights Apple's developer conference, WWDC, happened this week. With the exception of a new MacBook Air, the announcements focused on software. We were struck

Yep It, Says Ahrefs Last week we discovered Yep, a new search engine from Ahrefs (that's right). It reportedly cost $60 million to build and has its own

Sheryl Sandberg Leaves the Building In the roughly 48 hours since Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg said she was leaving the company, there's been an outpouring of commentary about

Rumor: Apple Search Engine Next Week Next week Apple hosts its annual developer conference WWDC. Among the announcements will be a preview of iOS 16, but apparently no VR/AR

Note: Monday is Memorial Day in the US; we're taking the day off. We'll be back next Wednesday. Have a great weekend. Report: Ads Drive ~20%

New Google Ads: In-Store Goals, Video, AR Google I/O led with local and announced numerous changes, updates and improvements to search. Yesterday's Google Marketing Live was a

Google Shows 'Local Ad Pack' Because there can never be too many ads, Google appears to be testing a Local Pack consisting entirely of ads. It was discovered

New Apple, DDG Ads Market Privacy Two effective new ad campaigns market privacy and take aim at online tracking. One, from DuckDuckGo [https://twitter.com/duckduckgo/status/1526555252236988419?s=12&

Yelp's 'Request Call' Leads Option Yelp continues to build out new non-advertising lead-gen capabilities for businesses. The latest is "Request a Call [https://blog.yelp.

My Ad Center: Will People Use It? In Google's "100 things we announced at I/O" blog post [https://blog.google/technology/developers/io-2022-100-things/], My Ad

Google's 'Ambient Search' Vision When we collectively talk about "search," we typically focus on keywords entered in a search box (via typing or voice)

Apple Wants More Search Revenue Apple may stake much of its future growth on services and advertising rather than cool new devices. That’s according to a report from Business

Second Look at Traditional Media Traditional ads have been in decline for 20 years. However that may be changing somewhat, as a collection of digital challenges prompt a second look

E-Commerce Was Hot – Now Not E-commerce saw triple-digit growth in 2020; however growth has dramatically slowed, as stores have rebounded. A slew of new earnings reports illustrate the recent weakness.

Reaching SMBs: Search and Social A new survey [https://bredin.com/blog/2022/04/bredin-report-how-smbs-research-your-offerings-by-industry-and-age/] from Bredin asked 500 SMBs what "resources" they use to research products and

Instacart, Amazon and the Revenge of IRL Driven by consumer necessity during COVID, which isn't done, online shopping and food delivery grew massively in 2020 and for much

Dueling Metaverse Visions: Snap vs. Facebook Facebook parent Meta reported Q1 results [https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_news/Meta-Reports-First-Quarter-2022-Results-2022.pdf] Wednesday. Because they weren't a wipeout

Twitter: The 'Cesspool' Cometh? There's a frenzy of speculation going on about Twitter's future. The right is elated; the left is dejected [https://www.

Major Tech Defeat in New EU Law In a deal reached this weekend, European policymakers approved a sweeping piece of new legislation, the Digital Services Act (DSA) [https://ec.europa.

Report: Local Pack Winners 60X More Visible SOCi released [https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/soci-analyzes-12-9-billion-data-points-to-rank-digital-marketing-performance-of-multi-location-brands-301529757.html] its fourth annual Localized Marketing Benchmarking Report this week. ( Disclosure: I helped create the

What's Wrong with Netflix? The stock market was (briefly) shocked yesterday when Netflix announced [https://ir.netflix.net/financials/quarterly-earnings/default.aspx] that rather than adding 2.5

Stores Come Roaring Back During 2020 and the phenomenal growth of e-commerce, the question arose: has consumer shopping forever changed? The answer it turns out is yes and no. According

Who Should Control Twitter? As you already know, Elon Musk – the world's richest person – made a $43 billion all-cash offer for Twitter [https://www.wsj.com/articles/can-elon-musk-buy-twitter-11649949297?

Search Dominates Digital Advertising According to the 2021 IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report, [https://www.iab.com/news/digital-advertising-soared-35-to-189-billion-in-2021-according-to-the-iab-internet-advertising-revenue-report/] online ad revenue grew at the fastest pace since 2006, 35%

Image, Local and Product Search Convergence It seems like an acceleration is happening in search. Google has been rolling out many of its AI/ML-driven gains in visual search and

Google, Amazon Caught 'Astroturfing' Most of big tech companies use small businesses (SMBs) as a sword or a shield in advocating for or against regulations or public policies.

US Antitrust Law Closer to Passing Last week the European Parliament completed work [https://www.nearmedia.co/google-dr-booking-eu-gatekeeper-smackdown-1-fraud-claim/] on its Digital Markets Act. The legislation targets major US tech "

Streaming's Big Oscar Win Beyond "the slap" – actor Will Smith publicly smacked presenter Chris Rock on stage after Smith took umbrage at Rock's joke

Google's New 'Make a Dr. Appointment' Google's evolving mission is not simply to organize and present information but to make it actionable and drive

Take our 5-minute monetization survey. We'll love you for it. Start Survey [https://forms.gle/bEkdSQJZAnx9ESXS7] Snippets Not on Local Pack SERPs Moz has come out with a

Fresh: Amazon Taking Ads into Stores Last year we found out that Amazon's ad business is worth $31 billion [https://www.nearmedia.co/amazons-31b-ads-biz-review-theater-metas-downturn/]. For context, that'

Snap Takes Location-AR Global Snapchat is opening up AR experiences tied to places. In 2019, the company introduced Landmarkers [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNs9kdSAOCA], enabling users to tie

Amazon Now Controls Nearly 60% of E-commerce Analysts have estimated Amazon's US e-commerce share at between [https://www.emarketer.com/content/amazon-clobbers-competition-us-retail-ecommerce-sales-2021] 40% and 44% of total online

Google: 'Smaller Stores' vs. 'Nearby' I don't use Google Shopping very often. I therefore missed the addition of a "smaller stores" filter.

Instacart Launches in-Store Navigation Almost a decade ago, when Apple's iBeacon was a shiny new object, there was considerable anticipation of "search to shelf" experiences with

Suit: Google 'Deceived' Consumers with Online Ordering As part of the effort to make search more transactional, Google added an "order online" button in the GBP

Local Inventory Can Beat Amazon I've argued local inventory (online) can help divert consumers away from Amazon. But it's not inventory alone; it's inventory

Amazon Kills Bookstores for Grocery Biz Amazon's CEO Andy Jassy has made the decision [https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/exclusive-amazon-close-all-its-physical-bookstores-4-star-shops-2022-03-02/] to shutter most of the company'

Uber Hooks Up with Yelp for 'Explore' Uber launched a new feature [https://www.uber.com/newsroom/uber-explore/] in its flagship app that relies heavily on Yelp content

Ukraine: Tech in the Crossfire A major front in the war for Ukraine is online. Tech companies, especially social media, are being forced to choose sides. All the major US

Ukraine and Perpetual Cyberwar The tragedy of Russia's invasion of Ukraine is still unfolding. Roughly 50,000 people have fled the country with more to follow. Russia will

Fake Reviews: Bribing Yelp Elites, Amazon Sues We've previously written about review fraud [https://www.nearmedia.co/meh-ta-moment-fake-reviews-gmb-a-big-lead-driver/] and the platforms' inconsistent takedown efforts. Yelp is probably

Trust: Consumers' Top CX Priority Most companies think they're doing a better job of delivering positive customer experiences (CX) than they actually are, according to the new

Google Follows Apple Privacy Lead on Android Google is brining its "privacy sandbox" to Android devices and, in the process, will effectively get rid of its IDFA-like advertising

Super Bowl Ads: But Are They Worth It? Last year a 30 second Super Bowl spot cost $5.5 million. This year it was up to $6.5 million (or

Yelp: 60% of Revenue from 10% of Views Yelp reported [https://www.yelp-ir.com/] Q4 and full year 2021 revenues this week, beating analyst estimates. Growth has come despite a

Apple Taps into Pay Apple just introduced [https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/02/apple-unveils-contactless-payments-via-tap-to-pay-on-iphone/] a way to turn the iPhone into a point-of-sale (POS) terminal for merchants. Called Tap

Angi Hopes Walmart Delivers Cheaper Acquisition Seeking to further diversify its customer acquisition strategy, Angi (formerly Angie's List) partnered with Walmart. The deal, announced [https://ir.angi.com/

Take Our Reader Survey [https://www.nearmedia.co/please-take-our-survey/] Facebook's Q4 'Wipeout': Dip or Beginning of the End? This week Meta reported [https://investor.fb.com/

Google Delivers Another Huge Q: $75B Google once again beat analyst expectations [https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/01/alphabet-googl-q4-2021-earnings.html] (.pdf [https://abc.xyz/investor/static/pdf/2021Q4_alphabet_

Spotify: Revenue vs. 'Responsibility' Controversial podcaster Joe Rogan has almost 4x the audience [https://twitter.com/APompliano/status/1478059547688374281] of right-wing pundit and vaccine disinformation purveyor Tucker Carlson.

Yelp: Local Business Back to Normal – Almost US GDP increased at 6.9% percent in Q4, much better than expected. Yet inflation concerns have overshadowed the strong performance of the

Review Gating Is Dead Review gating is the practice of routing satisfied and dissatisfied customers down different pathways. The happy customer is asked to write a review, the grumpy customer

Is Promoting Competition the Enemy of CX? The anti-tech lawsuits [https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/24/google-sued-by-4-attorneys-general-over-location-tracking.html?] and legislation [https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/2992/text]

Amazon Style: The Future of the Store As you've heard, Amazon is opening a new retail store in LA [https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/retail/amazon-reimagines-in-store-shopping-with-amazon-style] : [Amazon] Style.

PlaceIQ Bought by PE-Backed Precisely Precisely, a company that calls itself "a global leader in data integrity software," has acquired [https://www.placeiq.com/2022/01/a-big-milestone-on-the-placeiq-journey/] the

Shopify: Omnichannel for the Win Shopify is out with another interesting (and massive) report, "The Future of Commerce in 2022 [https://www.shopify.com/research/future-of-commerce]." It'

DDG Crosses 1B Searches, Neeva Sets Pricing DuckDuckGo, which has seen meaningful growth over the past few years, said it has now exceeded 1 billion queries [https://duckduckgo.com/traffic]

Metasuit: FTC Lives to Fight Another Day When the FTC brought its antitrust suit against Facebook/Meta in June of last year, the court dismissed it [https://www.nearmedia.co/

Yes, the iPhone Is 15 Yesterday the iPhone officially had its 15th birthday. Does that make you feel old? In 2007, when it was introduced, Steve Jobs called it a

Privacy Driving DuckDuckGo and Brave Growth For the longest time it seemed like search engines and browsers built around privacy would have almost no impact, unable to wrest meaningful share

Why Google Lost the Product Search Battle For at least five years consumer surveys have repeatedly told us that Amazon dominates product search. Different surveys have different numbers: the range

Holiday Spending Grows, E-commerce 21% Despite a resurgent pandemic, US consumers still shopped a lot in the run up to Xmas. According to data [ https://www.mastercard.com/news/press/

Thank you for joining us for the first year of Near Media. Despite it being a hard year, we relished the opportunity to appear in your inbox and hope that

Google's Local Algo Update Fallout Google recently confirmed [https://twitter.com/googlesearchc/status/1471546117125029889] that it completed a local algorithm update, between November 30 and December 8. Many

Google Local Guides: More Volume, Shorter Reviews A new SOCi analysis [https://streetfightmag.com/2021/12/15/soci-study-finds-62-of-google-reviews-are-written-by-local-guides/] of nearly 170 million Google reviews across 1.1 million business locations