Wednesday, October 8, 2008
by Greg Gackle, Principal
© GAH, Inc.
Reality is catching up with the hype on "mobile marketing" - the idea that potential customers would seek services (and you as a business would target advertising) to those "on the go" in the mobile world.
At nearly ever turn on a recent family trip, we "consulted" our phone to access the Internet for not only directions, but menus and customer feedback/reviews on places to eat and visit. Seeking a local bakery, we found a very good pastry shop within a few minutes of our hotel. The feedback on the phone web application Urban Spoon gave the pastry shop a 7 out of 10 rating and it was every bit as good as advertised.
Most businesses have figured out how important it is to have a web presence, but companies providing such impulse or on-the-go services need to make their sites easily accessible to mobile phones and provide the kind of information and references mobile shoppers are seeking.
Daytrotter traffic skyrockets local music site to 25,969 ranking
The audience of popular local music web site Daytrotter.com – founded by Sean Moeller (a writer for the Quad City Times) - has topped more than 61,000 unique visitors per month, ranking 25,969 by web site measurement firm Quantcast. Not bad for a two-year-old site without a major corporate sponsor or links to major media sites.
The site provides free mp3 downloads of songs (more than 4 million to date) recorded by bands traveling through the Midwest.
Quoting from the site:
". . . These fine people – as they’re traveling through America’s heartland – take two hours out of their travels between shows to stop in for a Daytrotter Session at Futureappletree Studio One in downtown Rock Island, Ill. The name of the city is not ironic. They use borrowed instruments, play with their touring mates, utilize an often unkempt toilet, eat some food and then cram back into their vans for the last half of the drive. What they leave behind is a pile of ashes, sometimes a forgotten stocking hat and four absolutely collectible songs that often impart on whomever listens to them the true intensity that these musicians put into their art, sometimes with more clarity than they do when they have months to tinker with overdubs and experiments. These songs are them as they are on that particular day, on that particular tour – dirty and alive."
The site has gotten mentioned in Rolling Stone and Wired magazines, and been the subject of articles in the Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe and Des Moines Register.
Moeller and his Daytrotter.com site may trail the ranking and audience of the QC Times web site (the top local news site ranked 8,975 with a monthly audience estimated at 183,000), but it may just be a matter of time before it overtakes local news sites based on its current visitor trajectory and the popularity of free mp3 downloads.
Recent QC web site rankings and audiences with unique visitors monthly in parentheses, according to Quantcast:
DEERE.com - 1,366 (1.1 million)
QCTimes.com - 8,975 (183,000)
QCOnline.com - 13,431 (94,000)
WQAD.com - 19,267 (61,000)
SCOTTCOUNTYIOWA.com - 21,932 (53,000)
KWQC.com - 22,870 (50,500)
DAYTROTTER.com - 25,969 (61,400)
QCFSBO.com - 57,235 (19,700)
RUHLHOMES.com - *no ranking provided (20,155)
MELFOSTERCO.com - *no ranking provided (10,800)
QCHOMES.com - 108,749 (10,200)
WHBFTV.com - 132,437 (8,200)
