South Walton Life recently met up with Gary Redden, one of the owners of DestinDirect.com which he co-founded in 2001. It represents several hundred businesses in the Destin-30A Corridor. A unique aspect of the site is that it’s not just for tourists, it’s designed to also be used by local residents searching for ANY type of local business.
We had a fascinating conversation about how Gary developed the concept for DestinDirect after spending many years in investment banking and investment management. We discussed the evolution of the Internet from its early stages to where we are today. Gary’s first statement regarding the Internet really got my intention.
“ People tend to think that the way the world is now is the way things will always be, it won’t” he said, recalling various stages in the history of communications from the pony express and sailing ships, to the telegram and telephone, all the way up to modern times. It brought to mind the brilliance of Microsoft founder Bill Gates bringing computers into everyday life and, especially the late Steve Jobs who revolutionized modern communications with the iPod, ipad and iPhone – all revolutionary ideas and products that are still transforming our lives as we’ve known them. It brought to mind a thought I’ve had over the years, “if only I knew what was coming next”, perhaps…. perhaps….
Gary took me through the early years of the Internet, back when AOL and Yahoo were kings of the Information Super Highway. “Before the early 90’s there was no commercial use of the Internet. Only the government, the defense industry and a few universities had access. By the mid 1990’s commercial use was beginning but it was nearly impossible to find anything on the web” he said. “That’s when Yahoo came along with the ‘Directory’ concept. They hired hundreds upon hundreds of editors, whose job it was to scour the Internet looking for interesting websites. They would then categorize what they found into a Yahoo directory, making it easier for people to locate the information they needed. In the late 90’s we saw the first search engines that began matching keywords people typed into search boxes with words found on websites. This system, known as meta search, was imperfect and clunky at best,” but as Gary said “it was better than nothing.”
“The next evolution,” Gary said, “was Google’s concept of assigning importance to websites based on the number and linking popularity of other sites linking to them. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, PH.D. students at Stanford called their new ranking concept ‘Page Rank’ and developed algorithms which gathered backlink popularity data and then ranked the importance of sites relative to both popularity and keywords typed into a search box . This system worked so well that Google rapidly became the dominant search engine in the world and still is.” I asked Gary to explain this in simple terms. “The algorithms essentially measure site performance based upon ‘Link Popularity’. The more links you have to your site, the higher Google values it and the higher the ranking will be. The concept is still the same today nearly 20 years later.” Gary says “Google is always changing these Algorithms in order to prevent ‘undeserving’ websites and marketers from ‘gaming the system’. The cat and mouse game being played between Google programmers and enterprising marketers attempting to defeat the algorithms and increase a site’s ranking is legendary.” I asked Gary how this all relates to his opening statement, “that people tend to think that the way the world is the way things will always be.” ”The key,” he says, “ is in trying to anticipate future changes. We developed DestinDirect based upon the concept that eventually search engines and directories would work in unison. And that’s exactly what we’re beginning to see now”, he says. “For instance when you’re searching for
‘Fine Dining on 30A’, the first thing you’ll see are paid listings but after that, in the organic results most of what you’ll see are directories, in this case you’ll find DestinDirect close to the top.” I honestly had never noticed but I had to admit, Gary does have a point, directories do tend to dominate the organic search engine results for local business searches.
We asked Gary to look into his crystal ball and tell us what the future brings? Is there a nugget of wisdom you can share? Here’s a few thoughts from Gary to consider.
1. Web Based Local Radio. No one knows the future, of course, but community based websites will likely become more prevalent than they are today. In addition to traditional website functions they’ll do many of the things local radio stations have historically done except transmit through the air. People are already listening to web based local programming at home, in cars etc. They just can’t get the signal through the car speakers yet without special equipment. I expect future car audio systems to provide website audio, which will allow hyper-local web based programming.
2. Web Based Television. Local websites can also create any kind of programming that local TV stations can offer including news and original programming. I expect local web video broadcasting to become commonplace in the future. It should be noted that unlike traditional radio & TV, local websites do not require land for a tower, large amounts of energy or FCC permits.
- National Networks.It seems likely that national networks of online community directories will be developed just as they have for local radio and TV. This will facilitate national news broadcasts over local websites as well as original programming. It will also give local sites an opportunity to financially benefit from national advertising. Our company is currently building a network for major metro areas and destinations in the Southeast & Texas.
Gary Redden is a shareholder & director in Redden Communications, Inc. owner of DestinDirect.com. For more information call 850-217-3880 or visit Destin Direct Dot Com.
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