TKG Data and Analysis: Weekly Recap

In case you missed any posts last week, here is the TKG blog highlight reel. Click below to read each post in full.

Interactive Newspapers?
it doesn’t take a journalism degree to note that 12 consecutive quarters of double-digit growth for online newspaper revenues is more than just a trend, it is a secular event that will change the newspaper business forever. This event is equally true for the Yellow Pages, but it will happen much more slowly. (read more…)

Backfence Shuts Down
Backfence announced June 29 that it is shuttering its 13 community sites, which were in the D.C. area, Illinois and Northern California. The ambitious site raised an initial round of $3 million but never had high penetration in its communities or sold enough Yellow Pages listings or banner ads to be optimistic about its future. (read more…)

EBay Refocuses on Classifieds With U.S. Launch of Kijiji
EBay has quietly launched a U.S. version of Kijiji, a free classified service that began in February 2005 and is now serving 17 million users in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, China, Japan, Taiwan, Austria, Switzerland and India. (read more…)

Concerns About Selective Technology
New research from Edison Media shows that television (broadcast, cable, satellite, premium) and the Internet are the most essential media to respondents’ lives in 2007. Both radio and newspapers declined between the current survey and one conducted in 2002. (read more…)

Merchant Circle Reports 140,000 Sign-Ups, Continues Marketing Tactics
Merchant Circle threw itself a party last week at Nola’s in Palo Alto to celebrate a year in business and registration by 140,000 small businesses. I’m on their Evite list, so I knew about it. It is probably a good thing that some of their registered small businesses didn’t know about it, however. They might have come with knives (or worse!). (read more…)

The iPhone and Local Search, Take Two
The New York Times continues the ongoing discussion of the iPhone’s potential as a game changer, and its possible shortcomings. There are a number of other shortcomings that have been tossed around. But looking past these, the big picture is that the device will be revolutionary in the standards and expectations it sets for mobile search and entertainment. (read more…)

HM Capital Acquires Remaining U.S. Portion of PDC
HM Capital Partners has agreed to acquire Phone Directories Co. operations based in Orem, Utah. PDC publishes directories in 18 states covering 137 titles. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. (read more…)

Quigo Sees Local Boost From Time Warner Deal
For the past couple of years, Quigo‘s contextual network product, AdSonar, has been a steady alternative to Google and Yahoo! for local media companies (as have competitors such as ContextWeb and FAST AdMomentum). Now Quigo aims to ramp up the business with a major Time Warner deal that ought to attract many new advertisers. It is also set to launch PageCast, a video search product. (read more…)