MediaPost
Local media companies could lose up to 25 percent of their local ad revenue to location-based mobile services in the next three years, according to marketing executive Dave Morgan.
Morgan, the CEO of Simulmedia, warns that geo-targeted mobile applications will look like “Craigslist on steroids” in terms of their impact on incumbent media advertising revenues:
“I believe that location-based Web services will take 20% to 25% of the annual revenue out of local media’s current advertising base within four years. Yes, 20% to-25% of their revenue base will be lost by 2014. That spend will be displaced by promotion and marketing fees paid to these new location-based services or applications that run on top of them.”
Morgan writes that location-services such as Foursquare have significant advantages, including ease of use, the ability to scale to a “massive” audience, and a typically low cost for advertisers and consumers.
