Top 10 Rules For Vertical Revolutionaries

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Top 10 Rules For Vertical Revolutionaries

• Dave McClure, Simply Hired
• dave_at_simplyhired.com
• www.simplyhired.com

with apologies to Guy Kawasaki, author of Art of
the Start
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Q What is Vertical Search?

• domain-specific search, for people with a
  particular interest
• Im looking for a job
• structured data and metadata (data about data)
• occupation software engineering
• company/industry Electronic Arts, software
  online games
• location redwood city, CA
• structured search based on metadata
• show me all the contract PHP programming jobs
  for biotech companies in CA

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Top 10 Rules for Verticals

• Scratch a Rich Niche
• Find a Long Tail
• Pick the Right Porridge
• Mind the Metadata
• Give Great Search
• Tags 'R' Us
• Don't be Evil
• Buy Low, Sell High
• Find Your Inner Killer App
• Let's Get Vertical

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Rule 1 Scratch a Rich Niche

• Choose a Vertical with enough value to matter
• but not so much value that its on the radar
  for Y!/GOOG/MSN
• Houses, Jobs, Dating Shower Curtains, Bird
  Feeders

dating
jobs
housing
cars
travel
shopping
webpages
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Rule 2 Find a Long Tail

• A Few Gorillas, Millions of Monkeys
• Long Tail Data Fragmentation Distribution
• of data sources, of records per data source
• Bad Tails / Good Tails
• Bad one big ape

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Rule 2 Find a Long Tail

• A Few Gorillas, Millions of Monkeys
• Long Tail Data Fragmentation Distribution
• of data sources, of records per data source
• Bad Tails / Good Tails
• Bad one big ape OR too many monkeys

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Rule 2 Find a Long Tail

• A Few Gorillas, Millions of Monkeys
• Long Tail Data Fragmentation Distribution
• of data sources, of records per data source
• Bad Tails / Good Tails
• Bad one big ape OR too many monkeys
• Good 3-5 apes (

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Rule 3 Pick the Right Porridge (Data)

• Too much structure no barriers to entry anyone
  can do it
• Too little structure hard for anyone --
  including you
• Semi-structured just right
• takes time effort, but can be done

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Rule 4 Mind the Metadata

• Use metadata to enable structured search
• acquire, integrate metadata - help improve,
  target results
• Structured search generic search
• Gorillas can't beat you if you have better
  metadata for your vertical

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Rule 5 Give Great Search

• Comprehensive, Fresh, Relevant results
• Comprehensive broad coverage of data sources
• Relevant accurate results w/ deep match on what
  matters to me
• again -- use metadata (ex LinkedIn lookup,
  GoogleMaps location mapping)
• Fresh recent frequent data

breadth of data
depth of relevant metadata
recency / frequency of data
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Rule 6 Tags 'R' Us

• Millions of results are great, but help me find
  my top 3 (or top 1)
• Let your audience help gather additional data
  about your vertical
• Enable ratings tagging

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Rule 7 Don't be Evil (to your Vertical)

• Don't screw with organic results (except where
  it's obvious)
• Google has already trained users on organic vs
  paid real estate
• Build trust early focus on great user experience
  user benefits

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Rule 8 Buy Low, Sell High

• NOT Google vs Shopping.com, NOT Arbitrage
• Google, Yahoo wholesalers
• Shopping.com, NexTag, PriceGrabber retailers
• Buy traffic, develop users, discover higher
  value

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Rule 9 Find Your Inner Killer App

• Use structured data metadata not just for
  better results..
• but also to build vertical apps solve
  problems
• Applications are sticky, engage the user
• example comparison engines for travel, shopping
• What are the unique common problems for your
  vertical?

search
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Rule 10 Let's Get Vertical(ContentCommunity)

• Community is a natural for verticals
• People who share the same goals, problems,
  stories
• Community - Content - Repeat Visitors

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Bonus Rule 11 Fun is Good

• Relevant doesn't mean you have to be boring
• User Experience Matters
• Possible for defensible intellectual property
  to mean
• Funny Taglines
• Pleasing Use of Color
• Quirky Error Messages

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