Craig Smith, CEO of ServiceMagic, just finished his keynote address the BIA/Kelsey Marketplaces 2010 conference. His business is definitely impacted by the rise of social media given the importance of word-of-mouth in service providers recommendations. ServiceMagic has embraced social features early on with merchant reviews but is now getting into Question & Answers and neighborhood group buying. He issued a call-to-arms to the industry saying that we (the industry) need to deliver more value. How? He suggests the following four points:

1. Take risks
2. Disrupt our current business models
3. Invest in long term value creation
4. Invest in deeper relationships with customers

He concluded by saying we would see more change in the industry in the next two years than in the last ten.