Speaking Sensis

Sensis’ recent move to open up its advertiser listings to search engines poses a question about the relationship between search engines and local search directories. Are they friends? Foes? Just dating? Not all is as it seems.

Right now, as we speak, the yellow.com.au web site is being vigorously ‘crawled’.

Now, let me just say, before the image of bug armies and full body rashes takes hold and you’re rushing out for a trusty bottle of Calamine Lotion, this is good news.

Recently, yellow.com.au opened up its advertiser pages. That means search engines, like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Live can ‘crawl’ and ‘index’ those pages. In other words, find the pages and include them in their search listings.

The net effect of this is that references to Yellow™ ads will begin to appear in the organic listings on search engines.

That’s a big step, and this move has created a pretty fair buzz around the search industry.

More importantly, it adds even greater muscle to the potential reach of Yellow™ advertising. In just the first month, these search engine listings have driven over 500,000 references into yellow.com.au.

But this move also raises a question. As Julian Bajkowski commented in the Financial Review on 24 July,

“… the decision to expose about 2 million directory advertiser listings to search engines has put a question mark over the future of relationships between search companies and content providers”.

Over the next few weeks, I want to explore this relationship, because not all is as it seems.

For years now search engines and local search directories, have been seen as competitors.

But it’s really not that simple. In reality, these so-called competitive services are very complementary.

Having search engines and local search working together can potentially produce a greater outcome for advertisers than taking an ‘us vs them’ view.

The trick to appreciating how comes from an understanding of what makes search and local search unique – both to each other and to all other forms of advertising.

Which we’ll start digging into next time.

We all have our skeletons. Those little secrets we keep in the darkest recesses of our minds.

Some of us love to binge out on chocolates, pizzas or (in my case) Savoury Shapes when no-one”’’s looking.

Many of us have even more ””exotic”” tastes. Probably time to press the ””too much information”” button about now.

Well, I””m going to stand up and proudly reveal one of my own deep dark mysteries to the world.

I love the 1234 sock puppet.

Seriously – and all the ””I work for Sensis”” bias aside – I think he”’’s (???) one of the most amusing advertising characters in years.

And here”’’s his latest ad, called ””Rash”” (eewwww!).

P.S. When”’’s the series coming? If they could make a successful sitcom out of a fluffy alien called Alf, the sock puppet should be a cinch.

So, you think the advertising industry is changing? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

There used to be two certainties in life – death and taxes.

Now, thanks to technology, there’s a third – change. Sweeping, relentless, accelerating change.

A couple of years ago, I came across a New Scientist article that put today’s evolving advertising industry into sobering perspective.

In “Human 2.0”¹, the celebrated inventor and writer Ray Kurzweil² mapped the evolution of computer power against good ol’ grey matter. He found that, in the 110 years since the first electromechanical ‘computers’, all we’ve done is make your garden variety PC slightly faster than an insect’s brain³.

When you put it that way, it hardly seems inspiring stuff, with all due respect to the computer industry (and insects).

But it’s what Kurzweil points to in the future that really makes you stop and think.

“We won’t experience 100 years of technological advance in the 21st century; we will witness… about 1000 times that achieved in the 20th century.⁴”

Kurzweil’s point is that technology evolves exponentially. Computers are now advancing so rapidly that by 2020, US$1,000 will buy you processing power about as fast as a human’s brain.

And a few decades later, that US$1,000 will get you the same number of operations per second as every human brain on the planet.

So, what’s this got to do with advertising?

Everything.

In recent times, technology has driven unprecedented changes in advertising.

A decade ago, who would have picked that more than nine million Australians would be so reliant on the web that they now use it every day⁵?

And who (Dick Tracy aside) would have picked we’d be advertising on video-enabled mobile phones smaller than your palm and as powerful as a Pentium computer?

But these are just baby steps; taken on the back of computers as fast as insects, dial-up modems and an industry that’s still coming to grips with what is possible.

The upshot is this. In the next decade, consumers will begin doing things with media we couldn’t possibly conceive today.

Which means advertisers will too.

So, for now, a closing thought.

If you’re thinking of slowing down sometime soon, forget it.

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1. Ray Kurzweil, “Human 2.0”, New Scientist, 24 September 2005, pp 32
2. For more information, go to www.kurzweilai.net
3. Ray Kurzweil mapped the number of operations per second performed by US$1,000 of computing power (based on 1999 dollars).
4. Ray Kurzweil, “Human 2.0”, New Scientist, 24 September 2005, pp 37
5. Roy Morgan, Single Source Australia, April 2007 – March 2008. Base: Australians 14+.