The Courier Journal of Kentucky is running a story on the success of local businesses which are promotiing on MySpace.com via setting up MySpace profiles.

Seems that bars, clothing shops, coffee shops and gift stores in the area are focusing highly on establishing popular MySpace profiles and connecting with users in their local areas.

Peter Berkowitz, owner of Old Louisville Coffee House, [says] the effort was so successful that he abandoned his traditional Web site in favor of MySpace. “It just seemed redundant,” said Berkowitz, 32, who uses the MySpace profile to post electronic bulletins about live music events, art shows and poetry readings. … Berkowitz said he gets about five requests a day from people who want to be “friends” of the shop’s MySpace page, giving them access to its calendar listings, photos and other details. The shop, at Fourth and Hill streets, is described online as male, 101 years old, with the following interests: coffee, tea, food, books, art, music.

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And another amazing MySpace profile centered local search & marketing case study from the article:

John Timmons, owner of ear X-tacy on Bardstown Road, said the store’s all-time top marketing scheme remains its trademark bumper sticker, although he acknowledged that campaign is rooted in “old school” advertising techniques. Timmons, 51, doesn’t plan to replace his billboards, his Web site, or his radio, television and print advertising. But he said the store’s MySpace presence provides something those other tools can’t. A couple of weeks ago, he said store employees found that they didn’t have enough time to promote an upcoming live music performance with traditional ads, so they put details on the store’s Web site and on MySpace. More than 200 people showed up.

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And how does MySpace.com’s reach compare with the online Yellow Pages?

Here’s a traffic reach comparison from Alexa of MySpace, Craigslist, YellowPages.com, Superpages.com and Local.com:

Not only is MySpace incredibly more popular, but it lets business owners interact with their local target markets, something other local search and marketing sites do not do very well.

Greg Sterling touched upon how MySpace has the ultimate set up as the Next Generation Yellow Pages… it’s great to see these examples in action down in Ol’ Kentucky.