Author Archives

Greg Sterling is former program director and senior analyst with Opus Research. He also the founding principal of Sterling Market Intelligence, a consulting and research firm focused on online consumer and advertiser behavior and the relationship between the Internet and traditional media, with an emphasis on the local search marketplace.

Before leaving The Kelsey Group, Sterling ran its Interactive Local Media program. Prior to The Kelsey Group Sterling was at TechTV where he helped produce the first national television show dedicated to e-business and the Internet, “Working the Web.” Prior to TechTV he was a founding editor and executive producer at AllBusiness.com, a leading small-business ASP and Web site. Before joining AllBusiness, Sterling was a practicing attorney in San Francisco.

  • Saks Fifth Avenue Parent the Latest Retailer to Roll Out iBeacons

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    Retailer Hudson’s Bay Company, which owns the Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue chains, said it will roll out beacons (with Swirl) in selected stores in Boston and Toronto.

  • Siri Adds Bing Search Results To Fulfill PVA Promise

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    It’s fascinating to watch Google evolve from a “search engine” into something much more interesting and complex. The rise of mobile, the launch of Google Now, the improvements in voice search and the more recent, conceptual introduction of what Google… Read More ›

  • Why Isn’t Yahoo Doing More with Vlingo?

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    We met with Vlingo yesterday. The company is previewing some new functionality and we had an interesting and wide-ranging discussion about the product and strategy. My question is: why isn't Vlingo investor Yahoo! leveraging the heck out of it? There… Read More ›

  • Windows (7) Phone: Where Is Voice?

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    I saw most of Steve Ballmer’s Windows 7 keynote at Mobile World Congress this morning. Most of the phone’s features were demonstrated and there are some cool ones. Mostly the phone looks different than other things in the market, even… Read More ›

  • The ‘Twitterization’ of (Local) Online Marketing

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    Featured Research
    Twitter has gone from the “margins to the mainstream” in less than 12 months. In so doing it has become an almost essential marketing and customer service tool for brands, as well as a news and information distribution platform for publishers and even government. While companies and larger marketers are flocking to Twitter, there’s also enormous, untapped potential for small businesses to use Twitter as a free marketing and CRM vehicle in the same way.

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    For more information on becoming an Opus Research client, please contact Pete Headrick (pheadrick@opusresearch.net).

  • Users Have Spoken (or Not): Voice Search Still on the Horizon

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    Featured Research
    Voice is the arguably the universal “interface” for mobile devices. Recent surveys show that mobile subscribers are interested in speech services such as they are today; nonetheless, there is also evidence a majority don’t anticipate future speech applications will transform their mobile Internet experience. Yet current offers by leaders in both mobile search and voice processing have not yet transformed voice into the so-called “killer app.” At a recent Web 2.0 conference, Google executives termed speech as “core” to the company’s mobile efforts. If that means deeper integration of speech processing with mission critical application logic, search algorithms, content management, identity management and other resources, we will soon see an inflection point in user adoption.

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    For more information on becoming an Opus Research client, please contact Pete Headrick (pheadrick@opusresearch.net).

  • Grading Free DA: A Qualitative Analysis of the Major Free Directory Assistance Providers

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    Today’s Free DA offerings are the most visible (or audible) entry points for mass market local mobile search. In this advisory, we assess the offerings of AT&T, Google, Jingle and Microsoft to see how well they fulfill the promise of delivering valuable, current local information to people on-the-go.

  • The ‘411’ on Mobile Directory Assistance: New Consumer Survey Findings

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    This is a transformative period for directory assistance (DA) service providers and callers alike. Call volumes are skewing toward mobile devices and competitive threats exist in the form of mobile Internet search, downloadable mapping applications and free DA alternatives. These competitive challenges raise strategic and tactical questions for mobile carriers and their service providers (about pricing and content) in the near term. The findings of a new Local Mobile Search consumer survey, sponsored by V-Enable, present a snapshot of mobile DA usage and of an industry very much in transition.

  • Microsoft and Yahoo: Well-Positioned for Mobile Search

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    Microsoft is set to pay a hefty premium ($44.6 billion) to pre-empt others from acquiring Yahoo. While there are several areas of duplication and redundancy, a Yahoo subsidiary of Microsoft is well-positioned to take on Google and capture a significant share of local search and mobile commerce spending.

  • Google’s Open Handset Alliance: Promoting Mobile Application Development

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    In a potentially industry-changing move, Google has announced an open-source mobile platform and an alliance of mobile industry heavyweights, including carriers and OEMs, that contributed to and are embracing the platform. The intention is to push cost, fragmentation and complexity out of developing for the mobile Internet and help create dramatically improved user experiences to drive mobile Internet adoption.