To my knowledge only a small number of us have been closely tracking the Local Social Media intersection for a few years.  But since Dylan and I organised  the first Local Social Summit, it feels like the world has taken notice and Local Social is going mainstream.

The Week that was in Local Social

Below, are some of the main stories from last week that caught my attention.

Yelp gets funding of $100 million.  My opinion is that this funding was the plan all along and Yelp played Google to get a solid valuation: a dangerous game to be playing.  Greg Sterling interviewed Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppleman to get some more details on where that money will be going.  As the PR on the investment came out during the Apple iPad launch, Henry Blodget’s harsh headline was:  Yelp Wins Award For Dumbest Funding-Announcement Timing Ever.

AT&T to launch buzz.com.  From what I’ve read, sounds like it’s geared towards mobile and is a standard Local business ratings services with a question function, tied into a friends and family social graph.  What I like about this is that it’s innovation from an old school telco.

Twitter has rolled out Local Trends to everyone (& the API).  The obvious point is that 3rd party innovation will make something interesting out of this.  One possible use is utilising the Local Trends as a solid data source for BI over Local information to determine requirements for things like:  Emergency Services and Content.

Citysearch launches openweb distribution to Local content and ads.  This is a smart play and one the traditional IYPs or those with heavy destination site content and advertisers should be looking to lock down as a move globally.

Facebook are looking at building a Foursquare killer.  Whatever, but what is interesting (both Greg Sterling and Seb Provencher agree on this one) is the comment from Foursquare co-founder, Dennis Crowley, who:

fully expects Facebook and others to launch "check-in" functionality, making it [a] "commodity by the end of the year."

As I’ve said for a few months now, I’m not that interested in the checkin but I believe the checkout is where this trend needs to be heading.  Once that happens, then you’re going to see widespread SMB engagement and things will get interesting in the Local Social games niche.

In Seb Provencher’s required reading deck regarding the Perfect local media company of 2014, which was presented for the first time at Local Social Summit ‘09, checkin is listed as one of the standard features.  You can see the video of that lab session below.

Some more links from last week

• Foursquare’s New Frontier: Newspapers
• Beatbloggers recruited for Guardian Local project
• Localeze To Power Local Business Listings For Bing

Video of the Perfect Local Media Company from Local Social Summit ‘09