n + 2 = Brian Curtis blogging about what comes next after what comes next: November 2009

The thing that impressed me most about this article is that Urbanspoon have manged to launch a successful iPhone app and business with just 5 employees!

Yell gets in on the act of going vertical to combat increasing competition from search players: One example is at http://plumbers.yell.com/

It's no surprise, but this report from comScore shows some data to support the contention that print is in decline.

A press release from YPG Canada detailing how they are going into the business of SEM and non-YP lead generation for SMEs (is that enough acronyms for you?).

YP.com have had a presence on AT&T's own U-verse platform for a while, but now they are branching out to other cable TV providers.

If Telstra are forced to sell their stake in Foxtel, the other two owners are scrambling to up their share.

Hot on the heels of another announcement about getting into digital downloads, Best Buy now put out a press release about how they are going to make sure that capable smart phones walk out their shop with Google apps ready and working. I'd be curious to see 1) if these things are related, and 2) how the deal is structured.

Ken Auletta provides us with a 10-commandments style precis of his new tell-all book about the Big G.

Speaking of which, here's some news about Google's plans to expand its enterprise search business into e-commerce. Providers such as Endeca must be a bit worried.

Would definitely make things interesting if this happened, but as the article says, it's not likely until after 2010

More insight into how Apple has changed the media landscape, plus some discussion of how the app-store model might be applied to traditional media generally.

In related news, this article details Best Buy's plan to tie a digital downloads business into their brick-and-mortar retailing business. This will be interesting, as it will require a lot of cooperation with OEMs and other device manufacturers, as well as media companies. There's no evidence that Best Buy has any of this expertise or these relationships.

Interesting concept of how the market and technology might conspire to solve some of the world's social and environmental problems.

Two recent studies show that there is a substantial market for mobile offers/loyalty programs (at least in the US). One of them discusses how the potential carrier ARPU from NFC services is greater for special offers than it is for merely enabling transactions.

Speaking of next-gen mobile services that have always seemed to be just around the corner, this press release announces that there is now finally agreement about some communication standards in the LTE protocol. A number of major carriers and handset manufacturers have come to a decision, now we just have to wait for the networks and the devices.

A piece from The Age points out some of the ways in which Google's mapping data is faulty. No set of geospatial data is perfect, but it is interesting that Google Maps seems to already have a number of problems, and this is even before they dump(ed) Tele Atlas in favor of their own mapping data. Related is also this link to Google's new guidelines for local business listings. Maybe it will prevent mapspam like mine from getting into the system.