SGE: The New Local Pack Google opened the gates to its AI Search Generative Experience (SGE). There's much to say and we'll provide more analysis soon. Here are some quick

Google Ads: AI Everywhere All at Once The subtext of Google I/O was about convincing investors the company wasn't going to be bested by AI competitors. Search-related announcements focused

Was Neeva Doomed from the Start? Neeva is shutting down its search engine. The news came out this weekend in an email and blog post from founders Sridhar Ramaswamy and

LocalGPT Is No Google Killer  Earlier this week I gained access to ChatGPT beta features web browsing and plug-ins. Plug-ins are like Chrome extensions and bring their full datasets (presumably)

Disappearing Local Pack Appearances of the Local Pack again seem to be in decline. We've written about this in the past but local SEOs continue to raise the issue. Joy

84% Wary of Amazon Reviews There's an unacknowledged trust crisis online and one manifestation is fake reviews. We've been tracking growing skepticism about reviews, which is reinforced in a recent

New Twitter CEO Is a 'WEF' Twitter's new CEO is Linda Yaccarino. Until this week, she was chair of global advertising at NBCU. She appears to be a highly regarded

Where's 'Dogpile for AI'? Remember "metasearch" from the late '90s? Sites like Dogpile and Metacrawler displayed results for the same query from multiple search engines, typically side-by-side. The pitch to

Google's 'Snackable' Magi   Google's I/O developer conference starts Wednesday. It will be chock-a-block with AI-related announcements. Among them, it's anticipated that Google will reveal "Magi," its search-chat integration. According

Bing Beating Google Never mind the fact that Bing's revival is entirely based on third party technology, Microsoft is now out-innovating Google in search. And while Bing has less to

AI's Impact on Jobs A week ago Box CEO Drew Houston announced the company was laying off 500 employees as it frees up headcount for AI hires. This was the

Content Farms: The Next Generation NewsGuard, a site that rates the credibility of information websites, found a range of publications (49) in multiple languages producing content "entirely or mostly generated

Social Traffic Mislabeled "Direct" A new study by SparkToro concludes that a considerable percentage of website traffic coming from social media sites is often mischaracterized as "direct" in Google Analytics.

Search + AI Drive Google, MSFT Earnings Both Google and Microsoft reported positive earnings yesterday. Microsoft beat expectations with ~$53B, while Google posted $69.8B in total revenue. For Microsoft, overall

Amazon F(ai)ke Reviews One of the primary use cases for Amazon has been product reviews. This is well established by consumer surveys. And reviews are obviously a major

Peak SMB for GBP? Like other large tech companies publishing "economic impact" reports, Google's is mostly PR. Published annually since 2009, it argues the company's activity and services "helped provide

SanFranciscoGPT At Near Media, we don't equally agree on how disruptive AI will be to local search. I'm probably the most bullish of the three of us on GPT-style interfaces

'Panicked' Google Readies Magi By now you've read or read coverage of the NY Times article yesterday that says Google is "panicking" over AI and its potential impact on the

Google Throttling Local Packs? What's happening with the Local Pack? Last year, Moz and LocalSEOGuide noticed a drop Local Pack frequency, from 40% and 42% of SERPs to 24% and

Bargle Uses Yelp for Local Results Miriam Ellis at Moz compares local results from Google and Bard and finds Bard wanting. Beyond critiquing the quality of results, her article is

Google's Post-Cookie Manifesto Victor Wong is sincere when he says that Google's Privacy Sandbox initiative is trying to solve the cookie problem for publishers, consumers and advertisers. The founder of

Just Bargle It Google + Bard = Bargle. Google will be integrating Bard into the SERP. That's according to an interview of CEO Sundar Pichai in the WSJ, part of his media

Search Movement Afoot There's some evidence that Bing has grown usage modestly since the introduction of BingGPT. However its share vs. Google appears largely unchanged according to other data. I

Bard, Google Assistant to Merge Google's tentative rollout of Bard hurt the perception of Google's technology leadership. So CEO Sundar Pichai is now doing PR interviews. He spoke recently to

Google: 20% More Fake Reviews in 2022 Earlier this week we discussed how review attacks are becoming more creative. Jason Brown is documenting many of these cases, including how hotels

Fake Positive Review Attacks? Ever heard of a "5-star review attack"? A hostile party posts obviously fake 5-star reviews -- in order to make a business look bad? Seems counter-intuitive

Google 'Online Conversion Local Ads' Michel Van Luijtelaar of GMBapi.com brought our attention to what he/Google is calling "online-conversion Local Ads." These units can appear in a few

Local Ranking Factors 2023 Whitespark just published the 2023 version of the Local Search Ranking Factors study (LSRF). There's a lot there to digest. We'll discuss further in a separate

AI Everywhere All at Once   Microsoft is all-in on AI. Seemingly, it's everywhere, all at once. This week Adobe introduced Firefly, a set of generative AI tools for its creative

Whither the Local Pack? After the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) passed a year ago, we began to speculate about the impact it could have on Google local results. Among

TikTok Ban: What Happens Now? Roughly two years of negotiations between the US government and TikTok have come to an impasse. The US is (again) demanding divestiture but China is

ChatGPT-4 Est Arrivé Yesterday OpenAI released ChatGPT-4, which represents a leap ahead compared to version 3.5. It's multimodal, meaning it can understand and produce images and video as well

GoWalla Take Two Local social networking (or social cityguide) app GoWalla is back. GoWalla was originally Foursquare's primary competitor. Both launched in 2009. Foursquare survives today, albeit in very different

MSFT: BingGPT Is Working It's been roughly a month since the introduction of BingGPT. And this week Microsoft's Yusuf Mehdi announced that the search engine had reached 100 million daily

Her Is Here An Israeli start-up Chat.D-ID has combined ChatGPT with an AI avatar that you can actually talk to and who will talk back. Pictured below, it is

Ask Jeeves, Gist & Phind The "conversational search" model embodied by Ask Jeeves in its early days may represent the future of search/discovery. Rather than indexing documents, Ask Jeeves saw

How AI Changes Local Listings & Rep Management Every major listings and reputation management company is now adding or will add AI capabilities. At the risk of leaving someone out, SOCi,

BingGPT Not a 'Google Killer'   You've seen the conjecture that ChatGPT will render Google obsolete within two years. After finally gaining access and testing out BingGPT, I'm confident that prediction

ChatGPT: They Like Me! There's been an abundance of "insider" debate about ChatGPT. But what do consumers think? The first survey we've seen comes from Kevin Indig and Appinio (n=

Beyond Search Engines User behavior is changing. Here are three macro-trends: 1) AI-assisted discovery, 2) searching beyond search, 3) shifting social media engagement. As we all know, AI is potentially

Why Apple Holds Back in Search Most of the discussion this past week in search has again been about BingGPT, its alter-ego Syndey and how Microsoft is trying to minimize

Will GPT-Search Get Sued?   We've written before about the upcoming SCOTUS case Gonzalez v. Google. The central question is whether algorithmic recommendations are entitled to protection under Section 230 of

GPT: Shiny Object Syndrome Exactly one week ago was Google's Paris event, followed by a $100 billion investor sell-off. That was attributed to a factual error in Google's Bard demo.

Do Super Bowl Ads Matter? It was a great game, but what about the ads? This year they cost ~$7 million for 30 seconds. Do they deliver value? That's the

BingGPT: Will People Care? The BingGPT vs. Google Bard story is everywhere. I understand why; it's the first really exciting thing to happen in search for a long time and

Google Underwhelms in Paris Google is arguably the most powerful AI company in the world. However that wasn't really on display in today's "Live from Paris" event that was intended

Google Teases Bard This Wednesday in Paris, Google will preview its answer to ChatGPT (Bard) at an event entitled "Search, Maps and Beyond." In many ways this has been forced

AI-Generated (Fake) Reviews TripAdvisor's top-rated restaurant in Montreal doesn't actually exist. Its creation was a prank by a Canadian comedian to prove that review platforms don't effectively police their content.

Yahoo Ready to Climb 'Search Mountain' Yahoo really is going to reinvest in search. The company has been teasing this on Twitter over the past couple of weeks. In honor

Yandex & Google Ranking Factors Since Russian search engine Yandex's ranking algorithm was "leaked" or hacked last week, SEOs have been pouring over it for insights about Google's algorithm. Yandex's was

Subsidize Local Ads to Save News A new coalition of groups called Rebuild Local News has proposed a dramatic tax-based solution to the problem of collapsing local journalism, which is

DOJ: Break Up Google Ad Manager The US Justice Department (DOJ) has now filed two antitrust lawsuits against Google. The first, in 2020, covers search and paid search. That will

Google's AI Store Inventory Google recently announced several new AI-based tools for retailers. Some are focused on e-commerce, offering improved personalization and recommendations for retailer websites. More interesting for our

Will AI Deliver for SMBs? While there's been considerable discussion about how AI will revolutionize digital marketing for brands and agencies, I haven't seen much on how AI might be

AI Content: Proceed with Caution AI is the industry's shiny new object, which has undeniable momentum. Google's DeepMind appears poised to introduce a ChatGPT competitor. One of its differentiators will

The Death of Recommendations? Most people aren't following the forthcoming SCOTUS case Gonzalez v. Google. Arguments will be heard in February. To recap the facts: US citizen Nohemi Gonzalez was

Apple Means Business Connect Don't call it "Apple My Business." Today the company announced Apple Business Connect (not Apple Maps Connect). Not unlike GBP, it's a tool that enables SMBs

Apple XR Headset the New Google Glass? Following CES, there are reports that Apple will announce its long-awaited mixed-reality headset at the WWDC conference this year. The company is reportedly

Search: AI-Results a Giant Snippet Neeva and You.com have started showing AI-generated results in their SERPs. This follows news that Microsoft is planning to add AI-chat to Bing to

Can Bing Beat Google with AI Chat? There's already been enormous coverage and speculation about the potential impact of AI chat on search and Google in particular. You may have

Our most popular articles and podcasts of 2022.

Musk Looking for Way Out To say that Elon Musk's short tenure as Twitter CEO has been disastrous is an understatement. We could recount the "parade of horribles" but you

Anti-Google Maps Coalition Amazon (AWS), Meta, Microsoft and TomTom have joined forces with The Linux Foundation to form the Overture Maps Foundation. The project is very similar in principle to

Local Guide Reviews Favored Sterling Sky recently published a case study examining the impact of different review features and characteristics on what we might call "review longevity" – how long a

ChatGPT: Google's 'Innovator's Dilemma' ChatGPT explainer videos are all over TikTok. And this morning, ChatGPT servers were crashing under the weight of all the curious lookie-loos. There are two main

AI Content Threat to Google Looking back, 2022 will be remembered as a breakthrough year for AI. Between AI-image generators such as DALL-E and Lensa and ChatGPT, marketers and the

Google 'Getting Worse' – Again Months ago a popular discussion topic was: Google ain't what it used to be. The Freakonomics radio show last week revisited the issue of search results

ChatGPT and Local Search Like a lot of people, I've been playing with OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot. It's "early days" and it makes plenty of mistakes, but the tool is still

Users Want Review Transparency The state of reviews is fraught. Reviews remain highly influential but consumers are more skeptical and generating fewer of them now. In addition, Google is using

Due to a technical issue, many subscribers did not receive our newsletter yesterday. Apologies if this is a duplicate in your inbox. Survey: 74% Buying Links A recent survey of

Cyber Weekend Boom Going into "cyber weekend" retail prognosticators were unsure whether consumers would open their wallets. But according to Adobe data, online sales were up between 2% and 3%

We will be taking the remainder of the week off for the US Thanksgiving holiday. Amid the problems and challenges we all face, there's still a lot to be grateful

Google 'Search On' Features Roll Out Google is now introducing the many visual search, shopping and Maps features announced in September at its Search On event. Among them are Google's

Holiday: Big Retailers Sweat, SMBs Cocky Holiday shopping this year is shaping up to be pretty unpredictable. Driven by early promotions, data show many consumers have already started, which could

Google's $392M Location Privacy Settlement Google has agreed to pay almost $400 million to settle a location-tracking lawsuit brought by 40 state attorneys general. Being called "the largest attorney general-led

Local Reviews Have Peaked This week I received a review-solicitation from Tripadvisor. It asked me to write reviews, not review a specific businesses. The headline was "one review does a

Local Packs: 36.2% of Queries Local Packs aren't exactly disappearing but they're not showing up as often either. A week ago a number of reports from Moz, Rank Ranger

AirBnB: Brand Not SEM Most internet companies pay lip service to brand building but continue to favor short-term performance marketing. That typically means paid-search and paid social. AirBnB offers an

TikTok's SMB Opportunity TikTok is getting more local. Beyond isolated but dramatic SMB success stories (e.g., Nerdy Nuts) or experimental features (e.g., TikTok Nearby), I'm seeing more local

Rewind: A 'Backward' Search Engine Inspired by founder Dan Siroker's experiences with hearing loss, Rewind is a new Mac OS search engine that captures every piece of content on your

Twitter Purge Begins If you're still on Twitter, you probably fall into one of three camps: the boosters, the haters or those who want to wait and see. But "Chief

Google Local Pack Decline There's evidence that Google is reducing the frequency of Local Packs. Barry Schwartz has compiled data from Moz, Rank Ranger and Semrush that show a decline

Study: Zero-Clicks Only 25% A much-cited, 2020 study from Rand Fishkin's SparkToro and SimilarWeb argued that 65% of searches on Google were "zero-click." In other words, two-thirds of queries didn't

More In-Store Shopping than Pre-COVID Despite hand-wringing over inflation, consumer spending has remained relatively strong. We'll have to see how that plays out during holiday shopping. But retailers are leaving

Google MAC Rollout Announced this year at Google I/O, My Ad Center (MAC) is starting to roll out. The new controls will give users the ability to influence ads

Meta Forced to Divest Giphy Facebook parent Meta said yesterday that it would sell Giphy. This is the first time Meta has been forced to divest a completed acquisition and

Fake Reviews: New Rules Coming The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been focusing more energy and resources on online review and endorsement fraud. Early this year the agency killed review

Google's New Ad-Favicons Google is seeking to boost brand visibility in mobile search ads. Provided marketers qualify, the business name and logo will be shown on the ad by default,

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 reportedly a

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 WeChat. That's a bold

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." This

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 focused on TikTok

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 a turning

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 previously presented at Google

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 notified Google Consumer Surveys

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 interesting new local consumer

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's June developer conference

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 expansion are

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's opt-in ATT launched in Q1

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 experience with

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 – Why? Earlier this week

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 millions

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 that end,

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 profiles and $500 in

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 reportedly being tested would allow content

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's designed to respond to

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 and listicles

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 billion today and the company wants

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 categories (restaurants,

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 projected

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 Spotlight," it's now

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. However, a

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. For the past decade

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 so, tech companies are

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 it was a "CYA"

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 friends,

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 to intrigue, with Insider

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 press release saying instead

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 people,

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 a top conversion

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 the disastrous SCOTUS Dobbs

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 enable users to buy

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 take over the reins

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" is becoming much more sophisticated.

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 driven by

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 BD manager reads, "This

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 by Continuity Camera, which

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 index (rather

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 her departure

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% of US Economy Advertising

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 kind of

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 last week

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.com/news/yelp-launches-request-a-call-to-help-consumers-connect-quickly-and-seamlessly-with-services-businesses/] ." It's an

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 Center is number 90.

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) and the corresponding SERP (desktop or

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 services. The

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 of 2021.

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 (like Q4

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.wsj.com/livecoverage/twitter-elon-musk-latest-news/card/republicans-cheer-musk-s-twitter-deal-while-democrats-see-perils-D33ENTKonJGOWghSjpio]

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 million subscribers,

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?], after becoming

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. That also

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 "gatekeepers"

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 about his wife – the big story

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 transactions ("get things done [https://searchengineland.

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 report [https:

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's 8X larger than

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 sales (2019

Google: 'Smaller Stores' vs. 'Nearby' I don't use Google Shopping very often. I therefore missed the addition of a "smaller stores" filter. It may have been added last year but

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 in-store navigation. A number

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 for restaurants in May,

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 + convenience. And that inventory must also

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's brick and mortar

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 and reviews:

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 likely be

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 the most consistent,

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 CX IQ Index

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 ID [https:

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/news-releases/news-release-details/

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/investor-news/press-release-details/2022/Meta-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2021-Results/

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. Spotify paid

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. It's a

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 original location-intelligence

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's draws from customer

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