Jippidy: Yellow Pages Go Hollywood!

This morning I got a comment on my post about Yelp from someone named George at a company called Jippidy. Intrigued, I had to check it out. I liked the concept a great deal -- a social video yellow pages site that's just getting rolling.

The concept is right there in five words, which is nice in a world of outsourced distributed workforce interactive collaborative computing platform solutions with robust realtime analytics applet synergies.

This video shows you how much richer of a sense you can get about a place or thing with 74 seconds of video.

(Sorry, Blogger is suppressing the sound on this file. Go here to hear: http://www.jippidy.com/watch?viewkey=fa04aaf37f137a1d9d3e)



Sure beats

Clothing - Miscellaneous
Horror Business
Address Area Code Number

on a yellow sheet of onion skin at giving you a sense of the store, hunh?

Here's one for the awesome Bulo shoe store:

(Sorry, but Blogger is suppressing sound on this file. Go here to hear.
http://www.jippidy.com/watch?viewkey=754953b57a32e2841bda)



But there is more to this site than just some nice videos. By layering in proven social interaction functionality into their site, they offer a way to truly connect consumers and businesses.

They describe themselves thus:

Jippidy is a free video business directory that takes do-it-yourself advertising and social networking to the next level. You can pretty much advertise or promote anything you can think of. Create a profile, show the world the service you offer, advertise a home for sale, tell people about your home based business.

* watch video clips
* get recommendations
* find events
* announce a local event
* save money with coupons
* participate in online discussions

Jippidy will change how you connect with your town. We make it easy to share what's best about your town and minimize uncertainty. Looking for that perfect little whole in the wall? Just ask your neighbors on Jippidy. Video gives advertising an added dimension that was previously only available in high-cost television advertising. With Jippidy, you can film your own short commercials and post them in your local community. Jippidy levels the playing field for smaller businesses allowing them to compete effectively with larger ones in their local markets. You can even network with other business professionals and reconnect with old friends. The best part is, it's all FREE! – the possibilities are endless.

I think they are just getting started given that their first blog post was on 6/28. My Yahoo searches didn't turn up much that's more than a month old either. So don't let the current low level of content on their site get in the way of your seeing this idea for what it is -- a transformative small business advertising concept that, by layering in social functionality, also helps these small businesses develop loyal followings and dare I say it brands.

I really like this site and idea and think a bit o' publicity can get that snowball a lot bigger. So while I have significantly lower reach than say CNN, I hope this blurb helps just a little because their concept is great. I'll definitely be watching this company in the months ahead.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.