Howard Lerman, the CEO of Yext, Inc. (NYSE: YEXT) recently headlined his blog with the registered trademark of our sister company, SpeedFind: Answers, Not Ads®. Here is his post: It’s Time to Take the BS out of Branded Search.
Thanks Howard, and we could not agree with you more!
Here are a few key takeaways according to Howard Lerman:
1) “Search engines like Google have been executing a hostile takeover of the customer journey for the last 20 years.”
2) “Google transforms from a search engine into an ads engine. And that’s not a bug, that’s a feature — a multi-billion dollar feature. (In fact, last year a staggering 83% of Google’s $162 billion in revenue came from paid search.)”
3) “I’m practically drowning in [ads].”
4) “in the most recent Edelman Trust Survey only 62% of people worldwide trust search engines for news and information — down 4 points from 2019.”
5) “Customers are frustrated. Marketers are frustrated.”
Several years ago I raised Google’s dominance in paid search with a prominent PhD in Economics at a top MBA school and repeated numerous ad industry marketers as characterizing Google’s Paid Search as “protection money” for brands. His bold, immediate, and almost visceral, response was “Google is a $65 Billion tax on consumers!”
We could not agree more with Howard and others and in fact, have developed revolutionary and novel patented technologies designed to provide consumers instant access to Answers, Not Ads®.
While our sister company, SpeedFind, focuses on the 10% of a Brand’s information Consumers want 95% of the time (website, social media, products, locations, where to buy, etc.), at SmartPoint we are focused on a new paradigm of real-time, location information to enable navigation, deliveries, and wayfinding in the real world. We leverage several novel technologies to not only provide a platform for new sub-street address level information and communications, but to leverage AI to enhance communications with real-time information. We are also very focused on user-controlled privacy protections to empower consumers control if, when, how, why, where and to what extent others, including marketers and retailers, can use their location and other personal information.
From real-time information and COVID-19 protocols to keep employees, customers, and other visitors safe and informed, to the incredible convenience of never (ok, more likely rarely) getting lost and wasting lots of time, money, and fuel/emissions on rideshare and deliveries, we help users and the planet with near-perfect, pinpoint precise navigation and wayfinding. SmartPoint and SpeedFind are dedicated to leveraging our numerous early and important patented technologies to help drive new standards, platforms, and foundational infrastructures to enable compelling, killer experiences. Our number one objective is to help consumers and users, and believe that by working intimately with, not against, brands and other sources of definitive and timely information, our tech and platforms will drive the next and future generations of AI enabled, definitive local search, communications, and services equitably to all consumers across all providers.
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