The $31 billion local search and ad market

Local search and ad dollars are running away from local media.  Google would seem to be the logical benefactor of that shift.  However, AskCity wants to change all of that.  The LA Times states, "For now, Ask's main strategy is to gain market share by persuading its current users to do a few more searches each month. In October, 23% of U.S. Web searchers did at least one search with Ask, compared with 65% at Google and 53% at Yahoo, according to ComScore."

Om Malik interviewed AskCity CEO, Jim Lanzone recently.

"OM: So why should I care about this launch. I can find a lot of information from other sites.

JL: You should care because search engines are the #1 online most-used resource for local information, ahead of yellow pages and local newspaper sites, and local searches account for about 10% of all searches on major search engines. Yet local is the category with the lowest user satisfaction in search. So there is this gaping need for better local search. We think we’ve got it."

Local media companies are not ready to capitulate and are struggling to adopt new production methods like Mojos and new local product offerings like Metro New York.

Pillars of Google's Strategy

Christopher Carfi posts notes from Marissa Mayer's discussion of Google's strategy at the Harvard's CyberWest symposium. In short, the four key pillars of Google's strategy:

• More content
• Easier computing
• Personalization
• Better search

In a reversal on the old "what's good for GM is good for America" chestnut, Google's strategy appears to be to be in enough places that internet growth and evolution floats their boat more quickly than those with fewer bets on the table. Fair enough.

I've said before that Google's business actually appears to be innovation followed by relentless monetization, not strictly search or even advertising. It's interesting to not that for all the heat and light about YouTube's possible impacts on Google, not many are commenting on Google's potential  to take YouTube to a place we pundits can't imagine. Google is clearly an internally-driven organization, and doesn't need our input, really, about where they should go... and who can argue with the success so far?