Number of households in US: 101 million.
Local Services market value: $600 billion annual.
Household services: $180 billion annual.
Amount spent on local offline advertising by contracting and real estate businesses: $25 billion annual.
Dotcom investment in 10 online services during boom: $250 million [they were keen but too early]
Amount spent on advertising local services to households: anywhere between $50 -$90 billion annual [this is the biggest untapped revenue opportunity for search]
Largest category of services posting on Craigslist (taken by looking at a sample 2 days of postings): Sex services, 40% [i.e. Craiglist not a player yet, outside of jobs and real estate]
Largest category of Yellow pages advertiser: Attorneys, $856 million in 2001.
Largest single event resulting in Yellow Pages use: eldest daughter gets married [personalized search and user profiles will be important]
Number of Overture searches that explicitly have a city in the search: 4%
Number of Overture searches that have a term such as ‘lawyer’ or ‘doctor’: 8-11%
Years that Dex (the largest online version of offline Yellow Pages) have had search: 1 [the existing Yellow Pages providers are incumbents]
US Yellow pages advertising revenue: $13 billion annual
Local advertising budget in US: $22 billion
Total size of paid search marketplace: < $10 billion annual [i.e. less than existing Yellow Pages market] This is why the battleground for search will be over Yellow Pages. It is now clear what the product will look like, and maps will play a big part. Google ups ante in mapping rivalry | CNET News.com