Yes...it always happens, even to the most innocent of us. Our web sites finally grow to the point where the kitchen table is no longer the best platform to operate a regional community resource.
So for the next 24 hours or so, FindItByMe.com will be in transit to new facilities that are hosted by the wonderful folks at Time Warner Cable San Diego.
We now have over 12,570 active listings that cover four communities in North San Diego County: Fallbrook, Bonsall, Vista and Temecula. In the next few weeks we'll be integrating listings we have for the balance of San Diego County and cities into our active database, which will give us around 119,000 active listings.
As I have indicated before, the difference between FindItByMe.com's efforts and everyone else's is that our goal is to make our listings 100% authoritative. Yes that means hand verification of all listings by a real person. Yes it is a lot of work. Yes it is worth it. We don't publish millions of pages of inaccurate data so our indexing and link stats look impressive. Statistics for our site will NEVER look impressive to machine generated analytics.
So with that in mind I am proud to announce that our roving photographer Randy Hetrick has almost completely photographed everything in the greater Fallbrook/Bonsall area. He's clicked off over 1,500 pictures to bring our total photographic coverage to over 6,700 images. While he was clicking pictures he was also recording the exact latitude and longitude of each picture, so we now have recorded the EXACT latitude/longitude of each correlated listing in our system. When we introduce our mapping and routing application in the coming quarter, we will route you exactly to the listing's location, not to the middle of an empty lot. We will introduce some other really INCREDIBLE features at the same time, but you'll have to wait to see because they are so groundbreaking we have to keep them top secret right now.
There are new people working with us on new aspects of our business that are themselves so groundbreaking that again I cannot reveal everything right now. All our lines of business and technology are for one purpose only: to connect the public with the things around them they need.
Stay tuned and you'll be glad you did.
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Friday, May 1, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Local Search 100 (101 is for next time)...
This article concerns what I have observed about local search engines which now number in the low fifties. As I mentioned in my last blog, it's not local search if it's not authoritative. There are three reasons why no one (except FindItByMe.com) is very happy to carry unverified data:
- Web statistics = sales potential for web-only advertisers.
- Non-paying business owners have no leverage against social networkers who can torpedo and sand bag at will for which the business owner has no recourse (except in a limited way by Yelp).
- The public has grown accustomed to putting up with outdated, inaccurate and unreliable data.
Web statistics are the great lever against which a local search engine can exercise price points for advertisers looking for a lot of page views. The more page views, the more money the Typical Local Search Engine gets. There is no real business reason to ever clean up your data. You can act concerned and put a "Claim This Listing" button next to each business you display, but this is meaningless in practice. The more page views you can mislead someone into viewing in their vain attempt to find what they were looking for, the better it is for you and the web-only advertisers.
The social networking craze has made it even better for the Typical Local Search Engine by allowing reviews and ratings to be applied to any and all local businesses. Now the humble searcher of local establishments is treated to a shouting contest between a businesses' supporters and detractors. Even if a business could "Claim This Listing" and post replies to refute the negative comments, the comments are picked up by search engines and are part of the record forever. In any case, social networking means more page views which means more advertising banners and links for web-only/non-local advertisers.
The public's acceptance of inaccurate and misleading information is the biggest tragedy. It allows the Typical Local Search Engine to continue on their path of page views = $$$ with no regard to real local search whatsoever.
A business owner always has a large personal, financial and physical investment in the success of their business. Bad comments and negative press are sometimes warranted, but only if a sincere effort has been made to bring the matter to the attention of the business owner and there is no recourse left. I lay the blame squarely at the foot of the "free" search engine which uses unverified data to drive traffic to their sites and then sell ad space based on the statistics.
Business owners should not be tempted to find all these various search engines and submit their current information. It only helps drive business to other advertisers and allows you to be a target for malicious social networkers. Regrettably, the folks who post good comments can never override the effects of the negative ones.
In my next blog, I'll demonstrate clearly how to avoid this trap and be properly represented.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
It's Not Local Search if It's Not Authoritative
I just found another local search engine that says it has 13 million listings for the US. In fact, you can buy a list for a state for a flat fee. I was tempted, but then I tried to see how the good the data is. I did a search for "avocado" for Fallbrook, CA and it came back with no results found. I also tried some business names which I know to exist, but nothing found. I did some category searches for restaurants, and two of them have been out of business for over two years. Another replay of roll-your-own search.
What I don't get about all these people is how they expect a local business person who has never heard of them to log into their web site and then authenticate their listing. That might work for a business that does exist and the owner just "happens" to find every possible search engine in existence that would allow them to log in and correct their information. But what if a business moves or ceases operation? Do you think the owner of the now defunct operation will go to all the trouble to update every single search entity with the fact that he no longer exists? This expectation is silly at best and tragic at worst.
There is still only one way for this to work, and that there has to be people on the ground in each locale that is responsible for keeping the database accurate. I really can't understand how it can be any other way. You can dress up functionality on the site any way you want, but without authoritative data, it really is useless. And that goes not only for listing data, but GIS data as well. Not keeping up with street re-alignments and other surface changes is absolutely essential to a well-kept search engine. If anybody in search land disagrees with me, please give me a convincing argument for not having accurate data. I'm really anxious to hear it.
What I don't get about all these people is how they expect a local business person who has never heard of them to log into their web site and then authenticate their listing. That might work for a business that does exist and the owner just "happens" to find every possible search engine in existence that would allow them to log in and correct their information. But what if a business moves or ceases operation? Do you think the owner of the now defunct operation will go to all the trouble to update every single search entity with the fact that he no longer exists? This expectation is silly at best and tragic at worst.
There is still only one way for this to work, and that there has to be people on the ground in each locale that is responsible for keeping the database accurate. I really can't understand how it can be any other way. You can dress up functionality on the site any way you want, but without authoritative data, it really is useless. And that goes not only for listing data, but GIS data as well. Not keeping up with street re-alignments and other surface changes is absolutely essential to a well-kept search engine. If anybody in search land disagrees with me, please give me a convincing argument for not having accurate data. I'm really anxious to hear it.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Beast Almost Slain
Yikes!
Category search is almost done, folks. I'm engineering in some pretty cool stuff, like "abc" and "def". I'll explain later when it works. But it will be like the system will give you choices if you enter an ambiguous term. It will also split street searches into logical segments like East/West/North/South. And maybe soon I'll throw in landmarks. You'll see!
FindItByMe.com's web hits are up 5,000 this week alone. So let the good times roll. And this is still on the old web site. So wait until the new release is done. Enough for now, this is just a quick update.
Category search is almost done, folks. I'm engineering in some pretty cool stuff, like "abc" and "def". I'll explain later when it works. But it will be like the system will give you choices if you enter an ambiguous term. It will also split street searches into logical segments like East/West/North/South. And maybe soon I'll throw in landmarks. You'll see!
FindItByMe.com's web hits are up 5,000 this week alone. So let the good times roll. And this is still on the old web site. So wait until the new release is done. Enough for now, this is just a quick update.
Monday, March 23, 2009
My God! It's full of stars!
We have a year to go before Jupiter turns into a star. But before that, I can promise you that maybe even this week, the new and improved FindItByMe.com will debut. It will have easy and fun category drill-down, and much more to follow. If you would like to be the first to know about it, watch the site, join my email list John (dot) Graffio (at) FindItByMe (dot) com, or just watch the blog.
Soon!
Soon!
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Rooster Time
Ok, I just had to let everyone know about my web site showcase that is being referenced all over the place. First of all, there is the actual case study on the GIZMOX web site and you can read it here: FindItByMe Article.
Next, here is an article published by Marissa Levy of www.sys-con.com. Thanks Marissa!!! And here is an article on weblogs.asp.net. Not to be outdone, here is an article on www.ajaxeconomy.com.
The folks at GIZMOX will be submitting my case study to IT World. So when that happens the rooster will come back out.
The next major release is still in the works, and it will be even easier to use and feature the ability to do more granular local searches. New press release when that is out. Thanks to all the people all over the world who have visited the site.
Next, here is an article published by Marissa Levy of www.sys-con.com. Thanks Marissa!!! And here is an article on weblogs.asp.net. Not to be outdone, here is an article on www.ajaxeconomy.com.
The folks at GIZMOX will be submitting my case study to IT World. So when that happens the rooster will come back out.
The next major release is still in the works, and it will be even easier to use and feature the ability to do more granular local searches. New press release when that is out. Thanks to all the people all over the world who have visited the site.
Encyclopedia Blogtannica
Remember the old days when the Encyclopedia Britannica was the authority on everything, and every family had a set of these important books? No? Ok, I'll take you back down memory lane. It used to be that during the golden age of door-to-door salesmen, the Encyclopedia Britannica was guaranteed to get a sale in almost every home he visited. Parents wanted their kids to have access to the most authoritative source of information available. This was really key when doing homework assignments and they were fun for general reading also.
Now for the new days of the Wikipedia and the World Wide Web in general. I give credit to the Wikipedia in terms of concept, if not for the drawbacks of the implementation. Anyway, the crux of the matter is that all the web sites that all the Big Searchers do such a good job of indexing is nothing more than a giant bulletin board of unverified information. The "machines" don't know a fact from an opinion. In fact, I can create a web site that appears to offer authoritative information, but could in fact be completely bogus.
So here is what we are reduced to in the World Wide Web Space: finding people who are as confused or as eccentric as we are. Yes, it all just becomes a social interaction club. I know in the hiearchy of knowledge that the World Wide Web will never equal the authoritative content of the old encyclopedia products. I know that when I do a search for something, I have to apply my "junk content" filter to everything that comes up. I know that what comes up first is the result of SEO scamming. I have to apply inverse-SEO logic go my queries so I can find something that is exactly what I want.
Is there an easy way out? No. When you listen to the news, you know you are being talked to by a producer who is crass, sensationalistic, panders to sexual urges and whose interest in the context of an event and other sides to the issue comes in dead last in its presentation. Remember when you used to think Walter Cronkite was authoritative? Now I have a ditsy little 23 year old college graduate whose vocabulary tops 1,000 words with great makeup and incredible cleavage explaining complex world issues to me in three sentences.
So it is natural to turn to the web because you free from a news broadcast that forces you to watch twenty-seven minutes of commercials to see ten minutes worth of news which you have to wait until the very end of the broadcast to see. I refuse to let these idiots waste my time. So when I go to the web, I expect to get more content. I do. But I also found that most news outlets filter the news in such a way that I know for sure politics is the main influence. So now that I know I'm being scammed here too, I end up looking at opinions in people's blogs, because a blog is a personal sharing (usually). And someone sharing a personal opinion is already not claiming to be authoritative, but as a word-of-mouth source, we give them great weight. So that is why blogs are the number one source of information on the Internet today.
Those who we consider methodical and put forward well reasoned arguments become authoritative in our minds. And in each case, we follow those blogs which provide us with the information we value or which entertain us. So I conclude the following, that the Encyclopedia Britannica has been supplanted by the Encyclopedia Blogtannica. Are we better off now than we were before? I don't know...I'll let you know when we get there.
Now for the new days of the Wikipedia and the World Wide Web in general. I give credit to the Wikipedia in terms of concept, if not for the drawbacks of the implementation. Anyway, the crux of the matter is that all the web sites that all the Big Searchers do such a good job of indexing is nothing more than a giant bulletin board of unverified information. The "machines" don't know a fact from an opinion. In fact, I can create a web site that appears to offer authoritative information, but could in fact be completely bogus.
So here is what we are reduced to in the World Wide Web Space: finding people who are as confused or as eccentric as we are. Yes, it all just becomes a social interaction club. I know in the hiearchy of knowledge that the World Wide Web will never equal the authoritative content of the old encyclopedia products. I know that when I do a search for something, I have to apply my "junk content" filter to everything that comes up. I know that what comes up first is the result of SEO scamming. I have to apply inverse-SEO logic go my queries so I can find something that is exactly what I want.
Is there an easy way out? No. When you listen to the news, you know you are being talked to by a producer who is crass, sensationalistic, panders to sexual urges and whose interest in the context of an event and other sides to the issue comes in dead last in its presentation. Remember when you used to think Walter Cronkite was authoritative? Now I have a ditsy little 23 year old college graduate whose vocabulary tops 1,000 words with great makeup and incredible cleavage explaining complex world issues to me in three sentences.
So it is natural to turn to the web because you free from a news broadcast that forces you to watch twenty-seven minutes of commercials to see ten minutes worth of news which you have to wait until the very end of the broadcast to see. I refuse to let these idiots waste my time. So when I go to the web, I expect to get more content. I do. But I also found that most news outlets filter the news in such a way that I know for sure politics is the main influence. So now that I know I'm being scammed here too, I end up looking at opinions in people's blogs, because a blog is a personal sharing (usually). And someone sharing a personal opinion is already not claiming to be authoritative, but as a word-of-mouth source, we give them great weight. So that is why blogs are the number one source of information on the Internet today.
Those who we consider methodical and put forward well reasoned arguments become authoritative in our minds. And in each case, we follow those blogs which provide us with the information we value or which entertain us. So I conclude the following, that the Encyclopedia Britannica has been supplanted by the Encyclopedia Blogtannica. Are we better off now than we were before? I don't know...I'll let you know when we get there.
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