The launch of Facebook Places has been causing quite a media buzz recently, and I think this article in PC World sums it up nicely:
If your business is a brick and mortar location that customers visit in person, odds are good that it will end up in Facebook Places whether you put it there or not. Even if you don’t choose to take advantage of Facebook Places to promote business, you should still claim ownership of your place to ensure the information is accurate.
Granted, the same could have already been said for Foursquare or Gowalla, although the size and scope of Facebook certainly amplifies the market for geo-location online services. I recently wrote a piece on why Hosters Should Care About Foursquare, and the same could also be said for Facebook Places. In a nutshell, your customers – small businesses – will care. In a sense, there is a parallel that can be drawn to the Yellow Pages. In past decades, a small business would always be in the Yellow Pages. It’s likely that in future decades, a small business will always be featured in a geo-location service (if they are not already).
At a minimum, as the PC World article notes, “claiming your (Facebook) Place requires some supporting evidence” like the FEIN, Articles of Incorporation and/or BBB accreditation to prevent anyone pretending to own your location. More progressive businesses will look to geo-location services as new channels in which they can build loyalty programs and improve yield with upsell and cross-sell promotions.
While none of these services have a channel program (yet), they do have open APIs so any Hoster that can bundle this type of service into their offering will have a differentiated and strategic advantage. But why? The reason is because geo-location services are at the intersection of a (brick and mortar) small business’ presence. Below is a diagram to help illustrate this point.
Ultimately, Hosters that can provide the most robust and turn-key services to create and promote their customers’ presence will win in the long run. Many hosters offer business incorporation services and/or logo creation services. Managed geo-location services represent a natural extension and will deepen the relationship between Hoster and their small business customers.
About Joshua Beil
Joshua Beil (@joshbeil) is the Director of Market Strategy and Research for Parallels, the leading provider of automation and virtualization software to the web hosting community. Previously, Josh was the Director of Social Media & Technology at a Level 3 Communications [Nasdaq: LVLT] where he provided strategic and tactical sales support. Before that, Josh was CEO and cofounder of Skywave Broadband, Inc, the largest commercial WiFi service provider in Hawaii. He was named one of Pacific Business News' Forty Under 40 for 2006, and in 2005, he was named a High Tech Leader by the Pacific Technology Foundation. Before co-founding Skywave, Mr. Beil was VP of Research and Development for the market research boutique, Tier 1 Research, where he covered the Internet infrastructure sector as an analyst, and negotiated and sold subscriptions to Tier 1's research services. Josh has also previously served as the Senior Analyst for Exodus Communications as well as the internationally known market research firm, IDC. He holds a Certificate in E-Business from UCSC Extension, and he graduated with honors from the University of California at Santa Cruz with a major in Psychology.
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