Darby Sieben - » YellowPages.ca

How Social is Yellow Pages Group in Canada?

Darby Sieben — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 04:51:53 +0000

It was one of those amazing days of incredible meetings, finalizing a new deal (wait for this one) and introductions to some incredible technologies and start-ups in the social media space. During one of those meetings, I was asked the question; “How Social is Yellow Pages Group?”.

This was one of those questions that I had to pause to give some thought. I answered by outlining some of the initiatives and realized we do a lot. So I figured this would make a good blog post.

Here are just some of the things that we are doing in the social space.

YellowPages.ca

Introduced this year, you can now login into YellowPages.ca using your Facebook Username and ID which will automatically set you up with a Yellow Pages Account. Login in the top right hand corner of the site. This initiative is lead by YPG’s social media guru, @martyboy008 and his incredible team of social media experts.

This sign-in allows you to rate and review businesses and share your discoveries with your social graph. For example, here is screenshot of a recent review that I wrote on the Red House Thai & Malaysia in Pickering (this is the place that started my love affair with Thai food and anybody that knows me, knows I love Pad Thai).

Finally when you connect using your Facebook Account, you can actually see what businesses your friends like.

YellowPages.ca Facebook Application

The first of its kind in Canada, released in 2008 – the complete YellowPages.ca experience within the Facebook environment complete with ratings and reviews.

This one even got press coverage by CTV in June 2008 – check out the video,


Get the Flash Player to see this player.

RedFlagDeals.com

Without a doubt, RedFlagDeals.com is Canada’s most active shopping network featuring one of the most active forums discussing all the best places in Canada to find deals.

For everybody looking for free stuff, one of their popular areas is Canadian Freebies & Free Stuff,

Coming Soon … the RedFlagDeals.com Daily Deal,

Urbanizer iPhone Application

Urbanizer is Canada’s first “mood-based” application for the iPhone (here is the link the iTunes Store) that works in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.

One the web you can see moods of current cities. Here is a screenshot of Calgary.

LesPac.com and BuySell.com Classified Sites

In the province of Quebec, LesPac.com has established itself as the leader in the classified space. In English speaking Canada there is BuySell.com, another top classified destination for Canadians.

Restaurantica.com

One of Canada’s most engaged communities, Restaurantica.com features over 200,000 reviews on restaurants.

New Additions to the Social Family of Yellow Pages Group

Urban Pill

One of the leading blog destinations for what is happening in Vancouver, UrbanPill.com is pretty cool to follow if you live or plan on visiting Vancouver.

GigPark

GigPark is a social recommendation engine that was built by @pema and @noahgodfrey (these guys kick-ass in the Canadian tech space) – who sold this platform to CanPages in 2009.

Quick Links to the Social Destinations for the Above

YellowPages.ca on Facebook
YellowPages.ca on Twitter (managed by @zelia, YPG’s super crazy social media communicator)
PagesJaunes.ca on Twitter
Yellow Pages Group Local Video Channel on YouTube
Yellow Pages Group Ad Campaigns on YouTube
Yellow Pages Group on LinkedIn
YellowPages Mobile on Twitter
Urbanizer on Twitter
RedFlagDeals.com on Twitter
RedFlagDeals.com on Facebook
Restaurantica.com on Facebook

Funny thing, on the phone this took all about 2-minutes, this blog post took a little bit longer. Perhaps I should have done just a video.

Tell me what you think – did you enjoy this post? Any feedback?

YellowPages.ca iPad App – #1 Free App in Canada in less than 24-hours

Darby Sieben — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 20:30:33 +0000

Yesterday I posted an article on the first look of the new YellowPages.ca iPad application, see the screenshots new YellowPages.ca iPad applicationhere or download the application from iTunes.

In less than 24-hours, we have moved to the #1 free application in Canada. Will be interesting to see how long we stay in that position.

I did a post last year on the reasons for the success of the YellowPages.ca iPhone application, when we hit 1/2 million downloads (we are now over 1M) and I think those reasons are still valid today – what do you think.

NOTE: here is the link to the press release on the 1M download mark – YellowPages.ca™ Mobile App for Smart Phone Hits Milestone With One Million Downloads Over 30,000 Downloads Each Week!

First Look – YellowPages.ca iPad Application

Darby Sieben — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 22:32:29 +0000

Quick update this morning (Tuesday, June 15, 2010) – less than 24-hours, the YellowPages.ca iPad application hits #2 top free iPad app in Canada,

Here is a first look at the new iPad application for YellowPages.ca by Yellow Pages Group.

As far as I can tell this is the first directory application in Canada and one of the first directory applications for the iPad by a major IYP.

What are do you think of the application?

Home Page of the Application (Vertical View)

Home Page of the Application (Horizontal View)

Search Results for Hotels NearMe – I was at the Yellow Pages offices in Calgary

Selected Country Inn and Suites – I can see from the listings, they have a video (content is king)

Looking at some Photos

I like this business, what about adding it to my favorites

Hotels in Near Me search (vertical view)

Looking at the results (vertical view)

Country Inn and Suites (vertical view – all the content in one easy view – very cool)

What you Favorite a Business you add a new icon to the home page

Reverse Lookup Screen

Which is the Best Canadian ‘Mobile Web’ Local Search Product for the iPhone?

Darby Sieben — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 04:57:41 +0000

Well it is Friday night and I had another week of travelling. This week I was down at the Chirp Conference (first developers conference for Twitter) in San Francisco. The team at TechCrunch did a great job of covering the conference, here are some articles to check out if you have not already:

– 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.

Are Canadians Checking In?

Darby Sieben — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 03:14:22 +0000

There is no doubt about it, if you follow the online local space that Check-In is “In” for 2010. A recent article on Mashable, “Foursquare’s Growth Not Slowing Down: 725,000 Users, 22 Million Checkins” definitely proves the point for this 1-year old startup organization.

In February I did a post on my FourSquare experience that you can read on my initial experiences and the impact on local.

A couple of days, one of my work colleagues, Mohamed Kahlain, follow him on Twitter, sent me the link to CheckIn Mania, a mashup that features checkins from FourSquare, GoWalla and Britekite. This was originally posted on Mashable.

In a nutshell what CheckIn Mania does is allows you to enter any city, click on the map and select a business. Once you select a business you can see who is the mayor of that place + how many checkins to that business and any tips. You also have the ability to select the “Search by Map” which is a neat feature that allows you to move the map and the locations update as opposed to updating the locations by click.

Here is the screenshot with one of my favorite restaurants (of which I am in the Mayor in Calgary) called Spicy Hut.

It is no secret that any of the location based services listed above have the highest penetration in major US markets like San Francisco and New York, but what about Canada?

Are Canadians checking in?

So I decided to spot check some businesses in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal to see how active Canadian’s are. I decided to focus on Restaurants. My selection criteria for which restaurants and spas to choose was as following, In Google I did a local search and selected business #3 in their 7-pack. In YellowPages.ca, I selected the #8 business and in Yelp.ca I selected business #6. This would give me a random sample of businesses. I also limited this to FourSquare as this is the most popular check-in service.

Here are my findings.

Vancouver Restaurants:
C Restaurant (selected from Google) – 9 checkins
Tojo’s Restaurant (selected from Yelp) – 33 checkins
Top Of Vancouver Revolving Restaurant (selected from Yellowpages.ca) – 17 checkins

Calgary Restaurants
Calgary Marriott Hotel (selected from Google) – 21 checkins
Capo Restaurant (selected from Yelp) – 5 checkins
Karma Fine Indian Cuisine (selected from YellowPages.ca) – 2 checkins

Toronto Restaurants
Bistro 990 Restaurant (selected from Google, this is actually listing #4) – 11 checkins
Pomegranate Restaurant (selected from Yelp) – 8 checkins
The Real Jerk (selected from YellowPages.ca) – 34 checkins

Montreal Restaurants
Restaurant Toqué (selected from Google) – 5 checkins
Santos (selected from Yelp, actually #8) – 40 checkins
Arahova Souvlaki (selected from YellowPages.ca) – 15 checksin

The only thing that surprised me about the above results is Toronto. I would have expected to Toronto to come in closer to Montreal in terms of checkins because of population concentration and smartphone penetration. However, this might be a result of the fact that Toronto does not have the density of Montreal (land mass to population size), which might also explain why Vancouver is more comparative to Montreal. Calgary actually holds it own, relative to its population size and the fact that Calgary.

Although comparatively to the US, Canada is not at the 1/10 rule (see some US results below), it is pretty clear to me that Canadians in the large urban markets have started to embrace checkin. This group, like in the US, are the ones at the start of the product curve and the big question going forward is whether checkin services will hit mass adoption.

How does this compare to the top US cities. Here are the results for San Francisco and New York using the same process as above. I used YellowPages.com as the 3rd source.

San Francisco Restaurants
Zuni Cafe (selected from Google) – 459 checkins
R & G Lounge (selected from Yelp) – 296 checkins
Cote Sud (selected from YellowPages.com) – 6 checkins

New York Restaurants
Spring Street Natural Restaurant (selected from Google) – 495 checkins
La Sirene (selected from Yelp) – 52 checksin
Serendipity 3 (selected from YellowPages.com) – 236 checkins

Which is the Funniest Yellow Pages Group Ad From the Past 4-Years?

Darby Sieben — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 19:49:09 +0000

So last week I was at the Kelsey Conference in San Diego during the brand relaunch for Yellow Pages Group. With our brand relaunch, we also launched a series of funny television commercials. One of the those commercials is emerging as the one that seem to have gotten the most traction in YouTube and even has it own fan page on Facebook. The video I am referring to is the Oily Man video, see below.

Since I started working with Yellow Pages Group in 2006 we have produced (not me specifically, but our communications teams) some pretty funny ads for our Yellow Pages business and our Auto Trader business.

Here are my favorite 3 ads; 1 from our current Yellow Pages Group campaign and 2 ads from previous Auto Trader campaigns. Which one do you think is the funniest ad?

Yellow Pages Group Oily Guy (2010)

Auto Trader Research (2008)

Auto Trader “Big Fatty” (2006)

Want to see more ads. Follow the links below:

– Yellow Pages Group Ads on YouTube – 3 ads from 2010
- Cliff Your Ride Promotion on Youtube – user generated from 2010
- AutoTrader Ads on YouTube – 3 ads from 2008

First Look – Screenshots of the new YellowPages.ca

Darby Sieben — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 17:21:41 +0000

Last week I had the pleasure of posting screenshots on the new YellowPages.ca iPhone Application launch – check out that post to see those pictures, this week I get the pleasure of posting screenshots on the new YellowPages.ca.

Canada’s Largest Online Directory has just launched its most ambitious release. This release includes some new features that are sure to please users. I will follow this posting up with a more detailed look at the new features, but here are some screenshots and highlights.

Of course the best way to experience this new platform is to check it our yourself at YellowPages.ca.

New YellowPages.ca Home Page

You will notice some new features on the home page. Type-ahead, links to Deals, provided by RedFladDeals.com and new Dining Guide provided by Restaurantica.com.

Deals from RedFlagDeals.com

Dining Guide by Restaurantica.com

New Search Results Page

Here I did a search for Restaurants in Calgary.

On this page, notice a few items. At the top of the screen – towards the right hand side you will notice that I am now logged into YellowPages.ca using my Facebook Account. You will want to do this as this is what is going to allow you to rate and review businesses.

Another neat feature is when you have a listing that has lots of individual listings in a city, for example, big chain restaurants. Here is a search for Restaurants in Toronto and you will notice the listing for Mandarin Restaurant expanded to show me locations.

New Merchant Page With Ratings and Reviews

Here is a search for Monty’s Crab Shack in Calgary.

If you are the first to review this business, select the review this business icon and you will be presented with the following pop-up window:

Finally if you are looking at a listing that does not contain any enhanced content information, YellowPages.ca will suggest other places that are similar that contain enhanced information. Here is a search for Badass Jacks Subs and Wraps in Edmonton.

Focus on Mobile

New YellowPages.ca Mobile section featuring direct access to all the popular device applications such as iPhone, Blackberry, Android and Palm.

The Video Channel continues to get it home page exposure and is fast becoming the source of local video searches in Canada. Check out my original post for YellowPages.ca Video Channel Get Home Page Exposure.

In my opinion, the Online Services team at Yellow Pages Group did a great job pulling this together. From my perspective, always great to working with a team of incredibly talented individuals who can make big projects like this happen. I am proud of their work.

So what do you think?

New YellowPages.ca Mobile Application Available

Darby Sieben — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:52:54 +0000

Available as of this morning in the iTunes Store is the brand new YellowPages.ca mobile application for finding businesses and people with some cool new features, such as auto category selection, map based viewing of results, more added content and a completely brand new user interface.

Here are some screenshots of the application:

In November I posted on my blog and update on the fact that there were over 1/2 Million downloads and 3 reasons why Canadian love this application (click to read the original post). This release of the application stays consistent with those 3 reasons which include;

Simplicity – this version of the application remains true to its core of key functions that allow a user to get to the information they need.

Content – with a focus on videos, photos and more content coming soon, it displays the information that users want to see to help them make better decisions

Usability – with this upgrade comes a more user centric focus.

What do you think? Does this application hit the mark? Would be interested to hear your comments.

YellowPages.ca Video Channel Gets Home Page Exposure

Darby Sieben — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 03:17:42 +0000

Back in December I posted a preview of the new YellowPages.ca beta site featuring Canada’s largest collection of local business videos. See original post, “A Deeper Look Into Canada’s SMB Video Portal by YellowPages.ca”

I am happy to report that a new home page was just launched and now features all the videos from the video channel. On the home page you will see videos targeted towards your latest searches which is great for discovery as well as finding. Here is a screenshot:

This is pretty cool for local businesses in Canada. Now videos for their businesses will appear on 2 high-traffic websites in Canada. The YellowPages.ca Video Channel and the YellowPages.ca YouTube Video Channel.

The Weather Network add Local Search and YellowPages.ca adds Weather – A Deeper Look at this Partnership

Darby Sieben — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:45:11 +0000

On January 7, YPG issues the following press release – “Yellow Pages Group Partners With The Weather Network And MétéoMédia to Provide Local Weather on YellowPages.ca“.

Greg Sterling did a commentary on the integration on this website, titled, “Weather An Engaging Add for YPG” in which he goes on to say, “This seems like a very small thing: Yellow Pages Group Partners With The Weather Network and MeteoMedia to Provide Local Weather on YellowPages.ca . . . But it has some interesting potential to drive more frequent usage of the site.” Some interesting discussion on this post – check it out to read all the comments.

I thought I would show some integration from both a YellowPages.ca and a TheWeatherNetwork.com perspective. The deal itself is actually a two-way deal – having The Weather Network integrated on YellowPages.ca and YellowPages.ca integrated on The Weather Network.

From a YellowPages.ca Perspective:

Let’s assume that a user was conducting a Dentists in Vancouver search from the home page of YellowPages.ca.

On the following search results page, you will notice above the map – it gives you the current weather conditions within Vancouver.

If you want a longer term view of the weather, simply click on the “Forcast” and you will see the weather for the next 24-hours.

From the press release, “The addition of local weather forecasts on YellowPages.ca™ is another feature within our online environment that will help consumers make better decisions, when looking for local information,” said Nicolas Gaudreau, Vice-President, Digital Media, Yellow Pages Group. “We are thrilled to partner with The Weather Network and MétéoMédia to continue providing Canadians with useful and locally relevant information.”

From a TheWeatherNetwork.com Perspective:

TheWeatherNetwork.com itself is one of the true local players in Canada. If has every city and town in the country in which you can your weather forecast from. Under this deal, they have added YellowPages.ca to each of these local pages to make it easier for their users to get local business information.

Located just below the Weather News on each of their city pages (the following example is for Weather in Vanvouver) you will see the integrated YellowPages.ca search with some popular link categories.

Let’s assume that you clicked on Restaurants on The Weather Network, you would be redirected to the following page. Notice the search box, you can enter any local keyword in there for results page on the city in which you are viewing the weather in.

What These Means for Local Businesses

This extends the reach for all local businesses listed on YellowPages.ca with one of Canada’s Leading Online Properties. TheWeatherNetwork.com is one of the top 25 online properties (according to ComScore MediaMetrix) in Canada and now businesses are either one click or one keyword away from potential consumers.

Tell Me What You Think

If you are interested in working with YPG Canada on these types of integrations, please feel free to connect with me. As Director of Business Development, these types of integrations are just a part of my teams deliverables. Connect with me via LinkedIn-Darby Sieben and I will respond with my work email address and next steps in the discussion.

If you have comments on this integration, please feel free to post a comment.