Comments on: GenieTown launches listings and market site for local businesses http://venturebeat.com/2008/02/20/genietown-launches-listings-and-market-site-for-local-businesses/ News About Tech, Money and Innovation Tue, 24 Nov 2009 02:54:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: Web RoundUp: Feb 20, 2008 : unitedBIT http://venturebeat.com/2008/02/20/genietown-launches-listings-and-market-site-for-local-businesses/comment-page-1/#comment-795922 Web RoundUp: Feb 20, 2008 : unitedBIT Wed, 20 Feb 2008 15:18:40 +0000 http://venturebeat.com/2008/02/20/genietown-launches-listings-and-market-site-for-local-businesses/#comment-795922 [...] Palo Alto-based GenieTown launches as a public beta its local services marketplace, a so-called hybrid love-child of a trio of services: the Yellow Pages, Craigslist, and eBay. It claims to mate the A-to-Z system of the first, plus the localism of the second, and the “long tail-ness” of the last, and brings the benefits of each together to give people the option to find plumbers, electricians, and emergency Web developers without trying too hard. The GenieTown site allows local service providers (plumbers, dentists, whatever) to put up a web presence. Users looking for providers can find them, based on their location and user rating. The site competes on one end with services like (gulp) Google Local, Yahoo Local, Yelp and of course the Yellow Pages (both online and off). All of those services are great places to find local service providers. GenieTown also allows people in need of a service to post projects for contractors to bid on. That part of the business model is similar to Elance or Guru, two services that list projects for professionals to bid on. In other words, what GenieTown hopes to do is open up a market for blue-collar and technical workers, who have continued to rely on the local phone book for their business. Eventually GenieTown says they’ll integrate more closely with service providers to coordinate calendars and booking systems. At that point they’ll run into another group of competitors, including recently funded Liberysy. And GenieTown is also trying to engage with users on more than just making introductions. The smartest part of the service, according to Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, is a Q&A area that will do very will with search engine optimization. Furthermore, as Paul Glazowski of Mashable says, GenieTown is presently targeted for services and service seekers mainly in the San Francisco Bay Area. So Kansans and Alabamans aren’t going get much out of GenieTown from the start. See the review from Mashable!, TechCrunch, and VentureBeat [...] [...] Palo Alto-based GenieTown launches as a public beta its local services marketplace, a so-called hybrid love-child of a trio of services: the Yellow Pages, Craigslist, and eBay. It claims to mate the A-to-Z system of the first, plus the localism of the second, and the “long tail-ness” of the last, and brings the benefits of each together to give people the option to find plumbers, electricians, and emergency Web developers without trying too hard. The GenieTown site allows local service providers (plumbers, dentists, whatever) to put up a web presence. Users looking for providers can find them, based on their location and user rating. The site competes on one end with services like (gulp) Google Local, Yahoo Local, Yelp and of course the Yellow Pages (both online and off). All of those services are great places to find local service providers. GenieTown also allows people in need of a service to post projects for contractors to bid on. That part of the business model is similar to Elance or Guru, two services that list projects for professionals to bid on. In other words, what GenieTown hopes to do is open up a market for blue-collar and technical workers, who have continued to rely on the local phone book for their business. Eventually GenieTown says they’ll integrate more closely with service providers to coordinate calendars and booking systems. At that point they’ll run into another group of competitors, including recently funded Liberysy. And GenieTown is also trying to engage with users on more than just making introductions. The smartest part of the service, according to Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, is a Q&A area that will do very will with search engine optimization. Furthermore, as Paul Glazowski of Mashable says, GenieTown is presently targeted for services and service seekers mainly in the San Francisco Bay Area. So Kansans and Alabamans aren’t going get much out of GenieTown from the start. See the review from Mashable!, TechCrunch, and VentureBeat [...]

]]> By: ITrush http://venturebeat.com/2008/02/20/genietown-launches-listings-and-market-site-for-local-businesses/comment-page-1/#comment-795917 ITrush Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:59:08 +0000 http://venturebeat.com/2008/02/20/genietown-launches-listings-and-market-site-for-local-businesses/#comment-795917 Cool, it's another great place for finding help and connecting to consumers. http://www.itrush.com Cool, it’s another great place for finding help and connecting to consumers.

http://www.itrush.com

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