EveryScape is creating “The Real World Online” through a visual and interactive platform for local search that is creating a virtual experience of all metropolitan, suburban and rural areas. I recently talked with Jim Schoonmaker, EveryScape’s CEO who explained their business model, as well as what they offer now and their future plans. I immediately liked their site, as the top example was a virtual tour of the Boston Celtics victory parade route.

However, since we are writing about enterprise applications here, I first wanted to understand how EveryScape supports businesses. Jim explained that the way local businesses got exposed to potential customers used to be simple; you took out an ad in the Yellow Pages and did local newspaper ads. Now it has become difficult with a more complex search engine bidding process for ad space that can be beyond the interests and/or understanding of many local businesses. Users get text and maps but it is hard to get a real feel for the unique nature of local businesses.

EveryScape is designed to give local business a better way to reach customers and have a richer web presence. EveryScape will create a visual record of a neighborhood and then ask the local businesses if they want to be included in this visual record. Do they want people to be able to go inside their business? Like the traditional Yellow Pages, EveryScape is free to users and charges companies to offer a visual display of what goes on inside their restaurant, store, etc. They pay a yearly subscription fee to open themselves up to virtual foot traffic. Here is a screen shot of the actual Cheers Bar in Boston through EveryScape.

At first, Jim thought they would get mainly high-end retail, hotels, and restaurants. He was pleased to find a more diverse set of customers with hair salons, dentist offices, hardware stores, book shops, and many other typical small businesses. The opportunity to bring people inside their store and see their unique offerings appeals to many business owners. Everyone knows what the chains look like, now the world can see what these individual business look like. I like this support for, and focus on, the unique qualities of individual small businesses. Local institutions are also included. Here is the interior of the Harvard Museum of Natural History, a place I used to take my kids when they were young.

This service makes long tail advertising simpler and allows small businesses to have the same or better web presence than large firms through this collective site. It helps to level the playing field. Everyscape works on the SEO for them and is also developing partnerships with sites like Boston.com that already have good traffic. They are moving into online conversion starting with hotels with a “book now” button added to their hotel descriptions. There has also been interest by some chains, especially ones that have a unique set of resorts or other locations. EveryScape has covered one million points of interest, 15,000 miles and 21 states in their first year. Now they have started an Ambassador program, designed to speed expansion worldwide through a team of trained Ambassadors, who are photographers and entrepreneurs. They can earn money by photographing the public spaces of specific destinations, as well as interiors of local businesses. “Destination Ambassadors” own a particular region, meaning he/she is responsible for capturing the photography of the region’s public spaces (streets, landmarks, etc.), with the additional opportunity to sell interiors to local businesses. “Local Business Ambassadors” are essentially assignment photographers for EveryScape.

They also support user-generated content with World Tags. Through this feature, EveryScape lets businesses upload photos, videos, links and more. For example, a restaurant could upload a video interview with its chef, or a women’s boutique might want to upload photos of its latest line.

EveryScape is also working on social networking features. Their new “Scape Memo” lets people share favorite locations with friends. You can create a private link on EveryScape.com with up to 200 “memos” that identify your favorite locations to share with friends. For example, you could create a link pinpointing your 30 favorite restaurants nationwide, or you could send your friend a link with a memo identifying a new dinner location. Scape Memos are private and are shared via email. In addition, users can embed any memo within their favorite social network such as Facebook or LinkedIn.

When I wrote a book on business uses of blogs a number of years ago, several local regions were starting to use the Web, through blogs, to focus on their unique local businesses and fight the spreading homogeneity of national chains. The new Web, with increasingly rich bandwidth and increased user participation, is even better equipped to support the long tail of business. EveryScape is taking this concept way beyond these early blogs to allow us greater access to what is unique. I like what they are doing.