Local Search - keeps looking for a business model

It's a moving feast: http://www.infospace.com/ was worth $31 billion in March 2000 and seemed about to dominate the market for local online advertising. Today, the company’s share of the search industry does not even reach 1 percent. Last year, it sold off its directory businesses for $225 million to Idearc http://www.idearc.com/ , a spinoff of Verizon. It bought the unit for $108 million in 2004. InfoSpace says it is now focused on its “metasearch” services. Those services combine results from other search engines, like Google, Yahoo and Ask.com. and advertising sales rose 18 percent in the first quarter, however on an operating basis, the company lost money in 2007.

Lots of VC money has been invested and lost in the "local search" space. Too many optimistic internet entrepreneurs figure if you can get a few dollars from each of the multitude of small businesses - you can make millions.

We believe that this is the wrong model. Webs 2.0 is all about wiki content and advertiser supported business models. USA Local Search and Business Directory is built on these principles.

Enjoy

MF Huebsch - aka the Google Guru

Projections for local search advertising growth

According to the Kelsey Group, http://www.kelseygroup.com/ , local search, will grow from US$33 USD billion in 2007 to US$41 USD billion globally in 2012.

Interactive segments will drive much of the industry's growth.

Print will be an important source of leads for small businesses, but a multiplatform business model is emerging and the historically print based industry is now immersed in the new media revolution.

At USA-Local-Search.com we monetise the site using Google's AdSense. Our revenue grows in a direct proportion to the amount of users to the site. As the user population grows, so does our revenue. This is a sustainable and obvious approach in the web 2.0 environment.

Monte Huebsch CEO and aka "the Google Guru".