CityGrid Media Will Provide Free Rep Management Profiles; Acquires BuzzLabs

CityGrid Media will soon provide its advertisers with free reputation management reports as the result of its acquisition today of BuzzLabs, a six-person Seattle-based rep management firm it had previously made a small, strategic investment in. The amount of the acquisition was not disclosed.

BuzzLabs, a 16-month-old company that we first covered in February, has been charging $15 a month for the self-serve, PDF reports. The reports grade all mentions from blogs, review sites, Twitter and Foursquare Tips on a sentiment scale of one to five stars, and charts the aggregated sentiment analysis on a month-by-month basis.

In addition to the self-serve reports, BuzzLabs had been providing more customized reporting to large customers, such as restaurant chains. It is unclear whether it will continue supporting that business.

CityGrid Media CEO Jay Herratti says that the company appealed to CityGrid because it proved to be “very good at crawling both the mobile and social Web, aggregating information, and appending it to the right business. It shows how [the business] looks online.”

Herratti concedes there hasn’t been vocal demand for such information from customers — despite the initial excitement about reputation management 16 months ago or so — but he thinks it will prove to be very desirable and help CityGrid be seen as a one-stop shop. “Publishers can show this to their advertiser to prove results,” he says.

BuzzLabs, which is headed by Philip Lee, who had previously been with Microsoft Advertising, will keep its Seattle headquarters. Herratti says the company will likely add staff, and will also be integrated into CityGrid’s technology team. He anticipates it will take three to six months for CityGrid to fully integrate the company. Urbanspoon, another CityGrid property, is also based in Seattle.