Challenges of the Local Search - The Good, The Bad, and The Disconnected

I have borrowed this sound bite line (with some modifications) from an article I read recently - "Left in the dark: How search fails at mobile local".

The author set out to buy a new headlight bulb for his BMW, and used the mobile local search applications from Google, MSN and Yahoo to find a store to buy it from. Needless to say, his experience was less than great. Stores found were not the closest ones, phones were disconnected, and many stores that he knew carry the product were not listed in search results.

In the post-iPhone (and Android, Blackberry, and soon Palm Pre) world with numerous free location-based applications with cool UI we tend to forget the two key aspects of a great search: rich data and their structure and sophisticated algorithms to find them.

Existing businesses are missing and closed ones are showing up as in operation. This is of course the nature of the beast - small businesses are being started and shut down so fast, especially in this economically challenging period and keeping up with that is not easy.

But even when the base data are up-to-date, there is simply only limited information to start with. Examples of missing data for up-to-date POIs include lists of services and products provided, operating hours for the business and for its specific services (when is the breakfast served?), and other characteristics like whether my kids will be welcome at that particular place.

The second challenge is creating an efficient way to organize all these data so they can be searched and found. Leading local search services may license a lot of data but they are likely in the format that is not searchable by consumers and to zero in on the target information is very laborious.

Until those issues are resolved, local search will remain a haphazard and often frustrating experience. Which is another way of saying that there is an opportunity for those who can solve these challenges.

Peter Braun