Category Archives: Competitors

MojoPages: Early impressions

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Before I start: Why am I even reviewing competitors of Loladex?

Because I need to gauge their strength; writing is how I think, and a review helps focus my mind.

Also, I believe that the local/social movement is, to paraphrase Ah-nuld, a learning computer. I toss my praise & criticism into the mix with an expectation that it’ll help raise quality across the category.

(In other words, I’m not doing this just to slam competitors — honest.)

So anyway, MojoPages is another “Local 2.0″ rate-and-review site that has launched lately with the de rigeur beta label and a stated goal of being “the evolution of the Yellow Pages.” It doesn’t seem to have gotten any traction so far, but the Great Mentioner insists it’s a contender.

MojoPages certainly is an ambitious site. It launched with a whole mess of social-networking features: Friends, lists, groups, questions, small talk (suggested topic: “How is your day going?”), an e-mail system, and more. Its raw functionality builds on, and I guess trumps, the standard suite established by sites like Yelp.

Its general approach is post-Yelpy, too, with plenty of attaboys and “First to Review” labels.

MojoPages tries to distinguish itself, however, with a focus on video and a more structured & granular take on reviews: Rather than giving a business a single rating, for instance, you give it a Zagat-like three ratings — for value, service and quality. And rather than a single text blob, you can fill out CitySearch-like “pros” and “cons” sections.

There are some things to like about MojoPages.

First off, the logo icon is clever and communicates the value proposition: The classic Yellow Pages icon, except with a thumbs-up instead of walking fingers. I like it.

And the focus on video, while it hasn’t been rewarded with much non-staff participation, could be worthwhile if they can get users to play along.

[Aside: I think they're wrong to ask for "video reviews." Postable video reviews are too much work to produce, duplicative of the written reviews, and generally low quality. Meanwhile, a simple pan around a restaurant with minimal (or no) narration, using a camera phone, can be immensely useful — as demonstrated on some of the MojoPages reviews.This is how I think user-generated video will flourish in local: As supplemental material, like photos, rather than as an alternative to text reviews. Some users will do complete video reviews, as several MojoPages staffers attempt, and companies like TurnHere will distribute professional video, but they'll be a minority.]

Meanwhile, the business listings on MojoPages have some nice features, such as a business-specific link to the Better Business Bureau.

Alas, in almost every case the BBB link produces no result because there’s no matching BBB report. They should write a little spider that helps them remove all but the productive links, or see if the BBB will give them a feed.

Beyond these positives, I found the site to be cluttered with redundant features. The profusion of social tools is serious overkill, and unfortunately emphasizes how little participation they’re getting. (Class? Anyone? Anyone?)

I’m not sure whether transparency is a good idea at startup, but the site allows us see how many people have joined lately (anywhere from 0 to 10 daily) and guess at how many have joined in total (hundreds but not thousands). They’re probably not helped by an architecture that seems unfriendly to search engines.

Launching with a site that seems deserted is an occupational hazard of Web 2.0, but MojoPages has been up for a few months now and doesn’t seem to be building steam.

The result is a “Small Talk” section that shows only one post in the last month — and that from a staffer. The feature is one of several that MojoPages should simply shut down, if only to clarify where they want users to start.

MojoPages also has the typical range of beta issues, from misspellings to confusing navigation. Mainly, though, it’s trying to be too many things at the same time: Yelp and Facebook and YouTube, all in a muddle.

It’s early days, and I’m sure MojoPages will sharpen its focus. Its founders, whom I don’t know, seem to be enthusiastic. But for now, the overall effect is to make me appreciate what Yelp has achieved.

YellowBot: Early impressions

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While earlier Web 2.0-ish local sites have been dealing with shifting sands, new sites continue to appear. YellowBot is among the latter, and appears to be hanging its hat on tags.

What’s to like about YellowBot? Here are a few things:

  1. Tags are generally a good idea
  2. YellowBot has bought nationwide base data from Localeze, which means I don’t have to wait for users to build the site
  3. It has pre-seeded the tags
  4. Its location input box has a “suggest” feature that finds matching street addresses in real time, which I haven’t seen before

What’s not to like?

  1. The pre-seeded tags are a bit hinky, which makes them less useful. In fact, the site’s data seems shaky overall. More on this below.
  2. Despite the somewhat cool street-address feature, the location “suggestions” work rather weirdly. (Try typing in an address.)
  3. The site has virtually no user content, even in places where I’d imagine it should, such as its hometown of LA. It has imported some reviews from CitySearch, Zagat and possibly elsewhere, but this seems inconsistent.
  4. The editorial tone of the site is exclusionary, or possibly just dumb.

The tone is a problem because it’s grating and counterproductive. Maybe I’m getting too old, but I refuse on principle to rate anything as either “rank” (1 star) or “off the heezy” (5 stars):

This tone is echoed in the FAQ:

Tags are the flava … of YellowBot.

Mmmm-hmmm.

Is it possible that some people think this is cool? I suppose so, but I can’t imagine YellowBot will get lots of reviews of lawyers and lawn-care services (both of which it touts on its home page today) from such an audience.

Other things will be harder to change. There’s the whole chicken/egg problem of sparse user content; I’ll post soon about that general issue.

And then there’s the data, especially as reflected by tags. I suspect that YellowBot bought its pre-seeded tag content, and the UI really plays it up. Some of it is useful, the rest … not so much.

As a minor example, my brother John runs a hot-dog joint on Hollywood Boulevard in LA. Skooby’s is famous for its hot dogs. YellowBot’s tags for the place, none of which appear to have been contributed by users, are as follows:

Bar Food – Burgers – dining – food – Pizza – restaurant

OK, I forgive the absence of “hot dogs.” But “burgers” and “pizza” are actively wrong. John serves burgers in his quasi-nearby Hermosa Beach location, but YellowBot doesn’t have that listing at all. He doesn’t serve pizza anywhere. If I search for “pizza” and get directed to Skooby’s, I’m being misled.

(I’ll find lasting consolation in LA’s best hot dog, fries and lemonade, of course.)

Some of the YellowBot tags appear to have been entered from Yellow Pages ads. Others are just a mystery. Here’s one medical place in Leesburg, VA:

And another:

It’s not just tags. The number-two result for a search on “doctor” in Leesburg, VA, is listed as follows:

Jackson River Orthopedics PC
I-64 Exit 21
Leesburg, VA

This business isn’t in Leesburg. I-64 goes nowhere near here.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have to look very hard for examples like this. I’m hoping that YellowBot will work out these kinks before long.

The pernicious influence of Google Maps

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Now don’t get me wrong: Maps are an important element of local search. What’s more, Google Maps was a force for good when it launched, and possibly still is.

But when it merged its mapping and local products, Google cemented a meme that’s been pushing local search into too narrow a channel, both for Google itself and for the competitors it influences.

The meme, in short: Local = map.

Or worse, local = big honking map.

Here’s a (shrunken) screengrab from Google Maps for my classic sample query, [ Pizza ] near [ Leesburg, VA ]:

Presumably Google thinks the map is the most important thing on this page. On my screen it takes up ~75% of the space, and it expands along with my browser window.

By contrast, the results column on the left — the actual most important thing on the page — is constrained to 300 pixels. Even if I make my window bigger, it won’t get any larger.

Now compare the information that’s available from each of these two elements — the immediate payoff. The results column is information-rich, and is meaningful as a standalone element. That’s a high payoff. But the map is meaningless without either (a) looking at the left column; or (b) clicking on one of the stick pins.

Furthermore, the map can’t simultaneously display all of the information that’s being shown in the results column. I’d need to click the map ten times to expose it all — if the stick pins were all clickable, that is, and not stacked on top of each other.

And of course, a map might not even be relevant to my results. When I search for “pizza,” I may be interested in the exact location of each matching business. But when I search for “plumber,” or even “pizza delivery,” I’m probably not — what matters is service area, which is only roughly related.

In other words, Google’s map may seem like a strong visual summary, because that’s how we usually think of maps, but it’s actually very ineffective. It looks nice, to be sure, but it’s a terrible waste of space.

Black it out, and what have you lost?

Very little, I’d argue. The same can’t be said about the results column:

This doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be a map on the page, of course. I don’t even object to the size of the map, per se. The problem is that Google has left only 300 pixels in which to do everything else — which, as a practical matter, means it can’t do much.

Take Google’s new “My Maps” functionality, which launched the other day. It’s kinda interesting and philosophically in sync with Loladex. But of necessity it’s hidden behind a tab in the left column, where I can’t imagine it’ll have a chance to flourish.

That’s a real shame (except maybe for Loladex).

Indeed, Google can’t fit much except names and addresses in 300 pixels, which seriously limits the evolution of its product.

It can innovate within the map, I suppose, but IMO a map simply isn’t a good vehicle for displaying a result set in which the content of individual results is neither uniform nor already known by the user.

Supplementing or illustrating such a result set, yes — but not displaying it.

Not all of Google’s competitors are quite so constrained by their own maps, but it’s just a matter of degree. Google has framed the debate, as it so often does, and now any product without a huge map on the results page seems somehow … suspect.

Needless to say, Loladex won’t have a results page that’s overwhelmed by a map. Maps will enrich our site, but they won’t determine its shape.