The way to manage Celiac’s is to go on a strick Gluten-Free diet (or the removal of all wheat product from your diet). If my friend eats food with gluten in it, it can put her in bed for a couple of days and can be quite painful. On a personal note, I have also moved to a gluten-free reduced diet with my wife since the fall of last year.

Since my wife and I started our gluten-free reduces lifestyle we find the web is a pretty good place to go for generic information on going gluten-free. One of the challenges is looking for for gluten-free restaurants in cities. Not saying that it does not work but here are my specific issues with using the web.

Try – “gluten-free in XXXXX” where XXXXX is any city. You will usually end up with links to information sources on celiac’s or gluten-free and some resources of Gluten-Free restaurants. Some local businesses who have done a good job of optimizing for this keyword will rise to the top, but in a lot of cases, I notice businesses who say they have gluten-free options which does not mean they have a specific gluten-free menu. As my friend pointed out, it can be extremely frustrating to find details on either gluten-free menu’s or restaurants that cater to people with Celiac’s (which BTW cross-contamination can be a big issue).

So my specific issue with the web:

1) results for a city are usually a hodgepodge or results of “information” sites and some local sites

2) some of the directories have way to many restaurants come up under gluten-free but there is no information as to specific gluten-free menus or how they prevent cross-contamination. Net effect, not really relevant.

3) I need to be in front of computer. This can be a real challenge when you are on the go to have to boot up your computer. My mobile phone is always on me and trying to surf the web on a mobile phone can be challenging at best.

I have recently discovered a really cool application for my iPhone called Celiac Feed. In a nutshell; a user generated application that works based on the location of your iPhone to provide you with a list of restaurants/bakeries in your area that provide gluten-free options. The locations only make the list when one of the users recommends. In the Celiac world I have found out that people love to share information and really support each other. Therefore, the level of trust from these recommendations goes way up.

This application was probably one reason why my friend decided to purchase her iPhone as opposed to a Blackberry. She was on the fence for awhile in terms of which one she would buy. After I showed her this application (and although the information in Canada is limited) and the user base seems pretty small at this point, she decided on the iPhone and has been active on this application every since.

This got me thinking about the major shift that is happening to mobile. Was this one case where the application drove a sale of hardware and how many times a day is this happening now? Not sure if you agree this is a profound as I think it is, but I find it very interesting that a tiny niche application can drive a $500+ sale. For me, this is transformative as more and more devices become ubiquitous, it will be the utility of the device that will drive sales.

For niche local based applications, smart phones are far more superior than trying to search on the web. As an example, this morning at the Bed and Breakfast we are staying in (The Cottage in Qualicum Beach, BC) the owners knew we had people coming with a gluten-free intolerance and actually went out and purchased Gluten-Free bread for us. The bread itself was amazing, it actually tasted like real bread. They bought it at a place called Village Bulk Foods that has in it a Silly-Yak Bakery (a gluten-free kitchen) where they make breads, muffins and more.

So I immediately added this a recommendation to Celiac Feed along with my comments for everybody in this community. This was easier that trying to go to the web to post and is now immediately available to this mobile community.

If you have a gluten-free intolerance and an iPhone, I strongly recommend you download and Celiac Feed application it works well. More people need to use and contribute to it to make it really rock in Canada.

Here are some screenshots of the application from my location in Qualicum Beach, BC.

Have you tried other gluten-free applications for your smart phone? Please comment below with your experiences in using mobile in a niche way.

Related posts:

1. Which is the Best Canadian ‘Mobile Web’ Local Search Product for the iPhone?
2. My Blog is Fully iPhone Compatible – Thanks to WPtouch: Mobile Plugin
3. Local Search in Canada Using the Apple iPhone – a Visual Comparision

– Twitter has 105,779,710 Registered Users, Adding 300K A Day
- Twitter Adds Places To Its Geo-Tweets, Just Don’t Call It A Check-In
- Live From Chirp: Twitter’s Platform Roadmap
- Ev Explains Twitter’s Move Into Mobile Apps: “Otherwise We Are Failing Users”

So enough about Chirp, this has been covered extensively this week.

While I am waiting for my wife I was playing with my iPhone, actually wishing I had an iPad (after the Chirp conference and speaking to a number of people about their iPads, I am convinced that I need to buy one, but that for another day). Back to my iPhone – I was playing with Mobile Web, not iPhone applications and I got to wondering about the Mobile Web experiences for Canadians?

So here is what I did.

I visited the following sites through my Safari browser on my phone. Google.ca, YellowPages.ca, Yahoo.ca, and 411.ca. I tried to visit yelp.ca, but it gave me their actual website, not their mobile enhanced so they are not included.

I then entered the exact search term “restaurants toronto” for each site and was presented with their results. The screenshots below are the results page for each of the above websites. Check them out yourself.

So here is what I want to know? Based on the screenshots below for the search “restaurants toronto” and nothing but the screenshots below, which mobile application provides the best results? I am going to leave it as best results, you decide whether best results mean content, look and feel or brand loyalty.

In alphabetical order:

411.ca

Google Web

Yahoo Web

YellowPages.ca

One more screenshot from an application that I am testing on my iPhone (it is not available to the general public yet) called Urbanizer, mood based searching. This application is going to rock. You can subscribe to get notified when it is available in the app store.

Urbanizer

If we are missing your favorite mobile web application, put the URL in the comments, I would be happy to add it to this post.

Related posts:

1. Mobile Applications Bring Local Relevancy to Gluten-Free Restaurants and Drive iPhone Sales?
2. Local Search in Canada Using the Apple iPhone – a Visual Comparision
3. Canada’s Yellow Pages(TM) Mobile App, over 1/2 Million Downloads and 3 Reasons for its Success

Here are the results:

This is only a 2009 view, but what was interesting is that Cross Iron Mills was getting some incredible web traffic from the time it registered in September and peaking in October and from a web perspective has established itself as Calgary’s leading shopping mall.

In September, Cross Iron Mills had more web traffic than both Market Mall and the Chinook Centre had combined. In October, same thing, Cross Iron Mills dominated the landscape but notice the spike in traffic to the Market Mall website.

Was this a result of the fact that Cross Iron Mills was the first shopping mall to open in 25-years or the fact that they were investing heavily in all forms of traditional media advertising. I suspect a combination of both.

Now if you are from Calgary you are probably asking yourself about the other malls, SouthCentre, Deerfoot and Sunridge. These malls do not have their own websites, instead they resolve to Shopping.ca – so if I included the numbers for shopping.ca it would have skewed the pure results.

What I can tell you is that the shopping.ca network of mall sites, which includes all the Cambridge Ivanhoe properties in Canada has only 311K visitors registered in October with the best month of the year in being May at 455K. Considering in October that Cross Iron had 82K or 26.37% of the traffic of shopping.ca (with all the properties), it is safe to say Cross Iron is still the king in terms of traffic in Calgary.

The other malls in Calgary that have independent websites are not registered in ComScore, hence they were not included.

Links related to this post:

Market Mall – write a review at darbysieben.com
Chinook Centre – write a review at darbysieben.com

Get driving directions at YellowPages.ca for Market Mall or Chinook Centre.

Related posts:

1. Thornton Ranch – Their Marketing May Be Applicable to Calgary Businesses
2. Chinook Centre – Taking Over Your Car’s Front Windshield
3. Calgary Store Owner Asks : Can I Sell My Fitness Equipment Online?

This post is broken into 2 sections. The first is my experience with EQ3 Calgary. The second is 4 lessons for local business.

I would also like to hear your feedback on our reaction to the situation (are we over reacting or unjustified in our approach) and/or your experiences with this organization (positive or negative), feel free to comment below.

Experience with EQ3 Calgary

My wife and I were in the market for a Platform Frame from our new King Size mattress. We decided to purchase the Magnolia Curved Slat Bed (King Size Frame). Like most furniture purchases there is always a waiting period for the product. From the time we purchased until the product came in was around 4-weeks. This seems to be a pretty standard waiting period. The only negative to this particular product was that it is manufactured in China. A little disappointing since EQ3 is proudly promotes themselves as a Canadian Manufacturer but I also understand that certain products are simply cheaper to manufacture overseas. Our purchase price was over $1100 and we opted not to have delivered, we would pick up at their warehouse location when it arrived.

After picking up the product, and coordinating with the Sleep Country on the delivery of the mattress, we were very disappointed to realize that the product had damage. Note – the box was completely sealed, so there was no way to know of the damage until it was opened. Here is a picture of the damage:

Although disappointed to realize our product had damage, we understand that this happens in manufacturing and we were unfortunate to get a damaged one. This was no fault to EQ3 Calgary as the product was sealed, although disappointing that the manufacturing quality control did not catch prior to sealing for shipment. We contacted EQ3 regarding the issue and our specific request to rectify the situation and this where EQ3 Calgary failed in their response.

Our request was two-fold; 1) we wanted a replacement frame and 2) since this was a manufacturing defect, we also requested that EQ3 delivery the new frame when it came in. Here is a the string of conversations with their customer service department:

August 23, 2009 – request made to customer service department regarding the damage issue. This is a subset of the original email.

I recently spoke to a woman in your customer service department regarding damage to a bed we just purchased. We discovered the damage when we unpacked the box Friday night to assemble the bed. She requested we email pictures of the damage.

August 26, 2009 – email response back from EQ3 to us, again subset of email;

I am putting in an exchange for the damaged pieces. The Calgary warehouse will be in contact with you once everything is in. At which time you will able to bring back the pieces you do have for an exchange.

August 27, 2009 – email from us back to EQ3:

Thanks for the quick feedback.

Due to poor quality control at the supplier end it is our expectation that the replacement parts will be delivered and the damaged ones picked up at the same time as a courtesy for the inconvenience. Please confirm.

September 1, 2009 – another email from us to EQ3:

I am following up on the email below. I have not yet received a response.

September 1, 2009 – email back from EQ3:

Just following up with you, sorry for the delay. At this time I am unable to have your pieces deliveries to you, but I would like to offer you a $25 Gift Card to EQ3 to be used on any future purchases.

Why EQ3 Calgary Sucks

We were very disappointed that they would not delivery the product to us or give us an equivalent in compensation. Note: EQ3 Calgary charges $95 for delivery. Their view of compensation was a $25.

My issue with this approach – they charge $95 for delivery, so in sending this message what they are saying is that their time is worth more than my time. At the very minimum, one should expect a $95 gift card to match their delivery charge. The value of their solution seemed like a token response. One could argue this approach ensures that EQ3 Calgary gets more money from the customer since you cannot purchase anything for this dollar amount and by default means you would spend more with them. Personally this sends me the wrong message that it is about them and not me.

Final note on this front – as of this posting, October 31, 2009 – we have not received our $25 gift card.

4 Customer Service Lessons for Local Businesses

1) Take Responsibility For Your Product

In manufacturing defects happen. Take responsibility and be proactive in your approach to dealing with customers. Think about it, your customer has chosen your business. They are putting their trust into your company and your product. When it does happen (if you are a quality company, likely the % of defects will be marginal) be aggressive in solving it for the customer and honor reasonable requests.

2) Don’t Insult Customers With Token Offers

Put yourself in the customers shoes and ask yourself, would you be happy with your company’s response? If you can’t answer a resounding yes, then likely you have not gone far enough. You also don’t have to go to extremes on unreasonable requests (I don’t agree with the philosophy that the customer is always right, in some cases the customer is just an asshole, every business has these) but if its a reasonable request make it happen for your customer. In the above case – the right solution would have been a) deliver the defective product or b) offer a $95 gift card, which is the value of the delivery.

3) Say What You are Going to Do and Actually Do It

If you tell a customer that you will do something, make damn sure you do it. Nothing is worse than saying you will do something and then not follow though.

4) Consider Your Customer Service as a One to Many Relationship

Customer service use to be a one-to-one relationship between the company and the customer. However, with today’s communication platforms, company’s need to consider that customer service issues are one-to-many. Good or bad customer service will get broadcasted. When building out your customer service policies build then with the view that they will be distributed to a much larger audience. Your customer service department is a marketing tool for your organization that will either propel your organization forward or slowly erode your customer base.

Tell me what you think? Was our request unreasonable? What should EQ3 have done? Do you agree that Customer Service departments are an extension of Marketing?

Related posts:

1. Thornton Ranch – Their Marketing May Be Applicable to Calgary Businesses
2. SMS Local Business Search Service in Canada
3. SCAM ALERT – CRS – Central Registration Service

Here is my list of the 8 most usual or out of the ordinary local business questions asked by users:

• I need to find mannaquin arms, 10 to be precise. Where can i find them? – mannaguin arms, I wonder what he needs those for? What about the rest of the mannaquin?
• Does anyone know a good, high tech dentist w/ cute assistants in Montreal, QC (near downtown core)? – love this question, forget the dentist, it is all about the assistant
• Does anyone know a nice no-tell hotel in Montreal, QC? – hmmmm, I wonder what the no-tell is about
• Does anyone know a good escort service in saint john? – interesting, perhaps the person looking for the no-tell hotel could help, see above
• Does anyone know a mediocre taco bell restaurant in guelph on? – some would argue that all food at Taco Bell is mediocre
• Where is a good place to buy NHL jerseys in Toronto? Jerseys from other teams, not just the Leafs. – exactly, who would purchase a leaf’s jersey?
• Anyone know a mediator specialized in neighbour disputes in Montreal, QC? – see Samual L Jackson in Lakeview Terrace, might give you some ideas
• Where is the best place for happy hour on a Friday afternoon in Ottawa? – somebody has their priorities straight

I will continue to monitor and update this list later in the year with more unique questions that are being asked.

1) Create an account and if your business uses Twitter, connect it to your twitter feed
2) Monitor the questions
3) If a user is asking for a recommendation on your business category or you think you can help them out, provide a recommendation. I suggest that you disclose that you are recommending your own business. In the comments field give some insight into why that person should do business with you.

What this does for a local business is gives them direct access to users who might be interested in their products or services and opens a dialogue with users.

Related posts:

1. Revisiting my Yellow Pages Answers Interview on CP24
2. YellowPages.ca Launches Facebook Integration for Local Businesses
3. Interested in a Marketing Role with Canada’s Leading Online Commercial Directory; YellowPages.ca?

For this post I wanted to share a personal story of purchasing a Massage Chair. Although this is a high-ticket item, I think it demonstrates the complexity of the local media mix and one of the challenges that local businesses face in determining the source of a sale. For emergency or low engagement products or services the number of steps would likely be less.

Earlier this year we purchased the INADA Sogno Dreamwave Massage Chair from Bodo (read my review here).

In reverse, here are the steps that lead us to making the purchase:

1) Day of Purchase – Used YellowPages.ca iPhone App, did a search for Bodo – Calgary to plot the store address on the map in my iPhone.

2) Visited YouTube to watch any videos I could find on the INADA Sogno Dreamwave Massage Chair, search for Inada Sogno.

3) Performed a Google Search looking for Inada Sogno Massage Chair Reviews.

4) Met the team from Bodo at the Calgary Home Show. Wife had a chance to sit in the chair and test it out. Also, was entered into a home show draw that would have knocked up to $1000 off the price of the chair.

5) Visited Bodo.ca, the corporate web site to learn more about the company.

6) Heard an ad on QR77, the talk radio station that I listen to in the morning on the drive into work, for Bodo. One ad in particular was very interesting featuring the Inada Massage Chair.

7) Moved back to Calgary in 2008, used YellowPages.ca to find Massage Chairs – Calgary and Google for the same search. Checked out a few local retailers and what brands they carried.

8.) At the Toronto Home Show tested out the Sanyo as well as the Panasonic chairs available there. Almost bought the Sanyo at the show. (Note: was living in Toronto at this time)

9) Used YellowPages.ca to find Massage Chairs – Toronto and Google for the same search. Checked out a few local retailers and the brands they carried.

10) Started doing research on Google for Massage Chairs to see what product was available in the market place. There were lots of options; we knew this was going to take some time.

So the question is … who gets the credit for the sale?

Related posts:

1. The 8 Most Unusual or Out of the Ordinary Local Business Questions on Answers.YellowPages.ca

So, what did NakedPizza do that deserves such mention? Simple. They are using traditional media combined with social media to stay connected with their customers. Check out the picture below from TechCrunch.

From the article – “But if a business can get a customer to add their Twitter handle, it gets a free channel to constantly remind them that they exist. By tweeting out promotions a few times a week, Naked Pizza will maintain a presence in the customer’s consciousness, and the customer gets a chance to score some cheap pizza.”

What a brilliant strategy from a small business. Back in 2005, when I operated KS2 Solutions Inc., a Calgary based Internet Marketing firm, I did a lot of public speaking about small business marketing and how SMB’s could leverage the Internet. In February of that year I posted a blog titled, “Are You Letting Sales Slip Away” in which I discussed the importance of staying connected with your customers. At that time, the message in terms of doing this was through a eNewsletter, however, move ahead 4-years and now there is Twitter.

Twitter is likely one of the best tools, since eNewsletters, for constant communication with your customers. From a user perspective, I can follow my favorite local, regional or national brand players who will inform me through tiny 140 character updates about products, specials or whatever. When I compare Twitter to Email, I see 3 key advantages –

1) more viral, easier to share Tweets as opposed to forwarding emails
2) promotes two-way communication
3) small, short and focused messages, no more rambling newsletters about how great you are

I am still a fan of the eNewsletter but Twitter could be the next best thing to staying connected with your customers.

By the numbers, as of this posting:

1942 – the number of people following @NakedPizza
62 – the number of comments on the article posted on TechCrunch (note: was 60 when I started writing this blog post)
4 – the number of times my wife has asked me if I am done yet

Naked Pizza
0 0 6307 S Miro, New Orleans
(504) 865-0244

Related posts:

1. Does Tweeting Drive Google Search Volume?
2. Are You Letting Sales Slip Away?
3. Which is the Best Canadian ‘Mobile Web’ Local Search Product for the iPhone?

I want to reference a post that I made a few years back titled, Putting Numbers into Perspective, in which I look very closely at the value of advertising from a Calgary Realtor perspective. Here is an excerpt making reference to the search volumes for Google and YellowPages.ca at that time:

While some of the skeptical business owners might say, “well, that’s not a lot”, most likely the top performers within the industry would look at those numbers and be very excited about what they represent.

The first thing to consider is this; the search numbers above represent qualified prospects. These are directive searches; somebody is specifically typing in those keywords or searches. I believe that if somebody logs on YellowPages.ca and does a category search for real estate agent in Calgary, they are most likely seeking a professional to provide those services. The same goes for Google, if a prospect types in Calgary realtor, clearly they are looking for a realtor in Calgary.

The point of the entire article is specifically around how top realtors look at numbers very differently to measure return on investment.

Second, I want to reference an article by Tom Tsinas titled “Google vs Yellow Pages” in which he provides some specific details on dissecting traffic numbers and examines very closely YellowPages.ca as part of the media mix. Here is an except from this posting:

Google vs Yellow Pages – This battle is a lot closer than most of you can imagine. I’m constantly hearing about how the Yellow Pages are dying and there’s no value in them. While most may say that I’m biased because of the number of years I spent in the industry, the same cannot be said for Google Analytics.

Google Analytics cannot lie, it has no biases and, thank goodness for the Yellow Pages, paints a much different picture than many so called experts. You just have to know what to look for.

Read the full article for the detailed analysis that Tom did on the numbers from one of his clients. This is a great article that is worth taking a read. I will use a couple of key measurements he spoke of, namely referral traffic, bounce rate and listing the multiple referral list for YellowPages.ca.

So what about the TheBraLady? Below are some stats from The Bra Lady, Custom Bras in Calgary. For disclosure sake, as many of my readers know, she is my mom and yes I do all of her online marketing in Calgary.

Let’s examine what Google Analytics is telling us about her stats. From January 1 to September 30 here is the traffic from different sources along with the bounce rate, the lower the number the better:

Google Organic – 1576 (bounce rate – 27.98%) – NOTE: this includes traffic from Google Search and Google Images as well as Google.com and Google.ca. Further discussion below about the local value of this traffic – which is about 50% of the number listed above.

YellowPages.ca – 495 (bounce rate – 21.02%)

Yahoo – 60 (bounce rate – 33.33%)

Microsoft Live – 56 (bounce rate – 37.50%)

NOTE: With Google Analytics, Google has done a very good job of pre-aggregating all their sources of traffic in the Google bucket, this would include traffic from Google.com and Google.ca and includes traffic from Google Search, Images, etc. My only complaint with Google Analytics, unlike log analysis, is the breakdown of traffic by time of day. In the case of The Bra Lady when I look at the log files, I see a very high percentage of traffic from Google coming after midnight, usually between 1am and 3am. If I correspond this to keywords, what I notice is that late at night, we are getting lots of “junk” traffic, people looking for pictures of women in lingerie, most coming from US or International based IP addresses. If I remove all the easy to identify “junk” traffic, I notice that the good traffic from Google drops by almost 50% in this particular case.

In the YellowPages.ca bucket was sources of traffic from the following sites which are all part of the network and these to be added together to get the true picture of traffic from this source. This is important to note when calculating return on investment to ensure that you have all the data.

YellowPages.ca Business Directory

CalgaryPlus.ca

Canada411.ca Phone Book

MyTelus Business Finder

SuperPages.ca – purchased by Yellow Pages Group in 2005

Sympatico MSN YellowPages.ca

YellowPages.ca Facebook Application

For her specific business, as you can see Google and YellowPages.ca are both very good drivers of traffic to her website. In terms of bounce rate, YellowPages.ca is showing as the strongest. So if we were only interested in the “Big Shiny Numbers” we might stop here, make our conclusions and call it a good day at the office.

The real question is which one is converting into sales? Although at this point I can’t get into specific financial conversion, I can tell you that the order of the top 2 from web traffic is opposite in terms of conversions to sales. This does not come as any surprise to us when we consider at what stage a user in their buying decision. People don’t go to YellowPages.ca to “surf”, they go their to conduct a specific local action, unlike search engines whose user motivation tends to be higher up in the purchase funnel.

Lastly, I would suggest that you take a look at another older post from January 1 of this year called – Word of Mouth Needs Support – A Deeper Look at Web Referral Traffic – in which I examine specific tactics for a small business to dig deeper with their customers to fully understand conversion of traffic so that a business owner can make business decisions not based on hype, but based on fact.

The bottom line decision for any local business is not who drives more traffic to their website, rather who drives more sales conversions.

Related posts:

1. Putting Numbers into Perspective
2. Google Maps Advertising – How to do it and Does it Work?
3. Word of Mouth Needs Support – A Deeper Look at Web Referral Traffic

I selected these as they all have iPhone compatible versions of their websites. Google Maps is a standard icon on the iPhone by default.

For this particular test I decided to focus on a popular generic category search (dentists in Toronto) and a very specific landmark search (restaurants by Eau Claire Market). For those of you who don’t know, Eau Claire Market is a popular destination located in downtown Calgary. I believe that landmarks would be important search criteria for mobile products.

In terms of ranking, I have decided not to rank the results. For the landmark search I indicated success or failure. You be the judge in terms of your personal preference. Please feel free to add a comment on your favorite or suggest other sites in Canada that have iPhone versions.

Let’s start with what happens when you bookmark the websites above and put them on your iPhone desktop.

From left to right:

Maps (Google) - this is default on your iPhone. One issue that I have is that Apple or Google have failed to customize this icon for regions – notice the US highway signage.

YellowPages.ca – In Canada, Yellow Pages(TM) is a registered trademark and when you bookmark you get the logo on your desktop.

411.ca- They have a unique icon and tell you 411 at the beginning of the text string. The ouch! at the end is a little weird though.

Canpages.ca – No custom icon, uses a screenshot that clearly tells the user nothing.

Let’s look at each property individually based on my two search queries.

First we try Google Maps – “dentists in Toronto” search on Map view.

The same search done via list view.

Here is the screenshot of the details of the business listing.

Finally we will conduct “restaurants by Eau Claire Market”. This search failed as the results are located in Toronto. Google did not recognize this landmark.

Second we try YellowPages.ca here is the screenshot for the “dentists in Toronto” search. NOTICE: with YellowPages.ca you also have the ability to switch to find a person in Canada using Canada411.ca.

Here are the results of this search.

Here is the details of a business listing

Finally we will conduct “restaurants by Eau Claire Market“. This search was a success, landmark was recognized.

Third we try 411.ca here is the screenshot for the “dentists in Toronto” search.

Here are the results of this search.

Here is the details of a business listing

Finally we will conduct “restaurants by Eau Claire Market”. This search failed as the results are located in Ontario. 411.ca did not recognize this landmark.

Fourth we try CanPages.ca here is the screenshot for the “dentists in Toronto” search.

Here are the results of this search.

Here is the details of a business listing

Finally we will conduct “restaurants by Eau Claire Market”. This search failed CanPages.ca did not recognize this landmark.

If you want to see another comparison - check out Taking a Look at Local Merchant Pages in Canada - a post from last December.

Related posts:

1. Which is the Best Canadian ‘Mobile Web’ Local Search Product for the iPhone?
2. MSN.ca Beta’s Local Search in Canada
3. Just in time for the release of the iPhone in Canada – YellowPages.ca iPhone / iPod App Gets a Staff Pick Nod

So what is the determining success in developing a facebook application? In the facebook world it really comes down to the number of installs of the application and more importantly the number of daily active users. At the bottom of this post, I will share some numbers on local search applications in facebook.

Before I get into small application numbers, I want to highlight a feature about the YellowPages.ca application – building your own lists to share with friends and then map your lists. This application allows a user to create lists for private, semi-public and public on pretty much any topic. Here are some public user created lists:

Favorite Restaurants in Calgary – Map List.
Favorite Sports Stores in Montreal – Map List.
Favorite Toronto Restaurants – Map List.
Great Restaurants in Port Perry – Map List.
Places to Eat in Ottawa – Map List.

Some interesting lists, including one for my favorite places to eat in Ottawa.

Back to numbers of successful application usage. I grabbed these numbers from Adonomics.com, which aggregates usage on facebook applications. Here are some stats regarding application usage on facebook. Numbers are as of today.

The most successful application, in terms of installs is SuperWall with just under 43M installs and a daily active usage of 2%.

Funwall has the most active users at 1.8M from a total install base of 36.5M and a daily active usage of 5%.

Scrabulous (now being sued by Hasbro) has 3.9M installs and daily active usage of 506K or 13%.

So what about local search applications? First, from an expectation perspective, they are not even close to the above numbers. Facebook is still, at its core, a platform of entertainment. However, it is interesting to see how some of the local search player applications fair-out:

Yell Socialiser (UK) – 500 installs, 2 daily active users (0%)
Praize’n'raze (CDN and US) – 950 installs, 57 daily active users (6%)
YellowPages.ca (CDN) – 667 installs, 40 daily active users (6%)
Local Picks (Global) – 1.1M installs, 3349 daily active users (0%)
Lolodex (US) – 2800 installs, 15 daily active users (0%)

Related posts:

1. FaceBook Camp Toronto
2. Facebook – Can Local Business Florish in Social Networking?
3. YellowPages.ca Launches Facebook Integration for Local Businesses