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What, Where and Now When?

Time and Local Search 

Rise of the Real-Time Web

Content: unheard scale and scope (user participation)

Consumers are looking for instant gratification (real-time products, services and experience)

Business intelligence: in your face

Conversations: become part of it, engage and initiate conversations (join the “now”)

Source: Trendwatching

Real-Time: The Tip of the Iceberg?

Flickr photo: Ludovic Hirlimann

Is there something more strategic when we start looking at time as a variable?

The temporal Web

Time Use Research

Investigates human activity inside and outside the paid economy

Looks at how these activities change over time

Addresses a wide array of political, economic, social, and cultural issues through the use of time use surveys

Surveys provide geographic data and time diaries that volunteers record using GPS technology and time diaries.

Source: Wikipedia

Categories of time

Contracted time (work or school)

Committed time (home and family)

Necessary time (eating, sleeping, cleansing, exercising)

Free time (the rest)

Source: Wikipedia

Top 10 Uses of Time in a Typical Day(minutes per 24 hours)

1.  sleeping (513 minutes)2.  working at main job (199)3.  watching TV (155)4.  eating and drinking (67)5.  washing, dressing, grooming (40)6.  socializing (39)7.  food and drink preparation (24)8.  interior house cleaning (23)9.  reading for personal interest (22)10. relaxing, thinking (19)

Source: Time Use Institute

Where Are People During the Day?

Location and Activity of Adult -Apartment Residents by Hour:Monday through Friday

Source: Time Use Institute

Going Out to Eat or Eating Home?

Those who go out to eat, eat later in the eveningthan to those who eat at home

Those who go out to eat, eat later in the eveningthan to those who eat at home

Source: Time Use Institute

Time Trend: Work-Life Imbalance

Less than half of consumers across 17 countries

are satisfied with their work-life balance

Various commitments and demands from work

and personal/family life have contributed to the

feeling of time-deprivation

People are looking for speed and convenience

and anything that allows them to feel more in

control of time.

Source: Datamonitor, August 2009

Time Trend: Saving Time/Saving Money

28% shoppers prefer to spend more if it saves them time (increasing)

28% say that "saving money by shopping around" was their top preference (decreasing)

Source: M/A/R/C Research and Integer, August 2009

In the “local” space, what products/services/features are time-oriented?

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Hours of Operations

Key building block for temporal local Web

Someone is searching for pizza at 2am, they probably want pizza now

Don’t give them irrelevant results

Reservations / Scheduling / Appointments

Restaurants, hotels, travel, yoga, dentists, etc.

Time Product: RFQ / RFP

Request for quotes / request for proposals

When do you need that roof fixed?NOW!

Next week?

Next summer?

Deals / Coupons / Specials / Sales

Main characteristics:End date

Offer

Location

Real-Time Products

Local content (external and internal)

Local product inventory

Reputation management

Real-time business opportunities

Data mining to influence search results

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Inventory management

"In the retail sector (…), many companies make a high percentage of their sales during an eight-day period around Christmas. If you rely on old information, it gives you an idea of what people are going to buy and in what quantity, but if you can capture that several times a day, you can move products to where the demand is. It allows you to react to needs and trends on a real-time basis"

Source: Montreal Gazette, October 22, 2010

Pop-up Retail

A pop-up retail space is a venue that is temporary

Encompasses all temporary brand manifestations that add an element of surprise, urgency, and must-have/must-see to shopping, dining, entertaining, lodging, exhibiting and so on.

It can also be for the duration of a peak in demand anticipated to be short.

Source: Wikipedia & TrendWatching. Globalgraphica.com for the picture

Local Events

Plancast

Eventful: “Demand events in your town”

Local News

Source: Poynter Online, “From Blog to Narrative: Josh Benton Throws Us a Curve”, March 21 2008

Predictions: The Future

Stock Market

Box Office

Data Mining to Influence Search Results

Determine trends before they happen

Gauge demand of products / services on a day-to-day basis

Serving the right result at the right time

“Temporal Analytics Engine” (Recorded Future)

Ideas / Thoughts / Business Opportunities

How do we stretch time / optimize time for consumers?

Knowing how time is spent probably has an impact on

mobile/local/social applications

Mobile commuting apps

Can you help local merchants with inventory management?

Is there a Plancast for local search?

Real-time local product inventory for SMEs

Deal / specials aggregation

Is there dayparting / yield management on a local search site?

Food for Thought

“Media companies are stewards of people’s time. People choose to invest their time with media companies’ products and those choices become opportunities to invest client dollars to help people get things done…”

Source: Jerry Courtney, “Procuring Value with People”, October 23, 2010

Food for Thought 2

"Brands don't become great by monitoring the past. The challenge is to have a point of view on the future.”

Stan Sthanunathan, Vice President of Marketing Strategy and Insights, Coca-Cola Company

Source: Technology Review, “Mining Moods for Brand Intelligence” October 11, 2010

Food for Thought 3

John Battelle: "What's the next big thing after social? Location."

Me: What's the next big thing after location?

Time?

Time is (probably) money...

Source: John Battelle “Mayer to Location: Big. ” October 12, 2010

Recommended reading

“Twenty-Four Hours - Insights into the Flow of Daily Life from the American Time Use Survey”, The Time Use Institute, June 2008

Merci!

Sébastien ProvencherCo-founder, Praized Media

www.needium.com

sprovencher@needium.com

http://blogs.praized.com/seb

http://twitter.com/sebprovencher

Back-up slides

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Canadians Caught in the Time Crunch

A greater demand by consumers for services in the evenings, weekends and holidays (25% of Canadian work non-standard hours)

An increase in urban sprawl

Greater innovation and adaptation of workplace technologies (on call)

20% of Canadian feel “time crunched”

Source: Canadian Index of Wellbeing, June 2010