TKG Data and Analysis: A Weekly Recap

In case you missed any posts during the short week last week, here is a recap. Click below to read each post in full.

Bebo Provides Mainstream Content — Attracts Big Brands
Last week Bebo, the global social network, announced its new OpenMedia platform partnerships. The network has partnered with major media brands to deliver premium content to its 40 million users. Partnerships include CBS, MTV Networks, ESPN, the BBC, Channel Four, ITN, Yahoo! and BSkyB, as well as emerging media companies like Music Nation, Next New Networks, Crackle, Ustream, Last.fm and JibJab. (read more…)

Should Publishers Embrace Opt-Out?
This question arose last week at the Yellow Pages Today event in Zurich, which was built around the theme of “Driving Value.” A late addition to the program was Wenche Holen, who runs the Nordic publisher Eniro’s Norwegian operations. Holen was asked to talk about her company’s experience in fighting a serious challenge from an environmental group (Naturvernforbundet) that urged the creation of an opt-in system, which would require consumers to actively vote to receive a print phone book. (read more…)

Amazon’s Kindle e-Reader Signs 7 Newspapers
Amazon yesterday launched a $399 electronic black-and-white e-reader called “Kindle” that can quickly download books and customized versions of newspapers, magazines and blogs over a limited-use free EVDO network. Seven newspapers are included in the first batch of content: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Seattle Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Atlanta Journal Constitution and San Jose Mercury News. (read more…)

Urban Mapping Forms Partnership, Gets Into SEM Game
Urban Mapping yesterday announced a partnership with mapping technology provider Placebase. Placebase basically has an API built on mapping tiles (the standard unit of Web 2.0 mapping) that lets developers do a lot with pushpins. This comes in handy in mapping mashups for enterprise applications that require lots of dynamically plotted points. Urban Mapping, for those who don’t know, has a very interesting neighborhood data engine that generates and uses neighborhood-specific terms to better index mapping data. This takes into account the types of colloquial geographic modifiers some users will type in their local searches (“west end,” “southie,” “china basin,” etc.) (read more…)

Google Works to Solve ‘Last Block Problem’
Google announced that it will now allow users to change address information in Google Maps. This will let any registered user click and drag map arrows to a different place on the map if they are incorrect. This is analogous to Google letting businesses edit and contribute data to its Local Business Center, which enhances the organic business listings that surface in Google Maps SERPs. This latest development extends similar capability to the rest of the online user population (or at least registered Google users) and has the similar goal of improving local listing data. (read more…)

Oodle Gets a Facelift, Builds a Publisher Network
Classified aggregator Oodle launched a brand-new interface today with a series of functional and aesthetic enhancements that will serve as the basis of a new product strategy and publisher network. Beneath the surface, the company has refined its taxonomy to serve more relevant results and create a more intuitive experience. For example, a semantic analysis of search queries knows that the term “2004 Toyota 4Runner” is a car. Result pages correspondingly have the appropriate search refinement drill downs (make, model, year, etc.). (read more…)

Freedom Focuses on ‘Medium-Sized’ Businesses
Freedom Interactive President Michael Mathieu told attendees of Piper Jaffray‘s Global Internet Summit last week in Laguna Beach, California, that his sales teams are focusing on selling a broad array of local marketing products to medium-sized businesses (i.e., a notch below newspapers’ typical focus on large local advertisers, such as auto dealers and health-care providers). Freedom, the fifth-largest privately owned media company, is most notably the publisher of The Orange County Register. It has 28 daily, 23 weeklies and 13 TV stations scattered across the country. (read more…)

AT&T Buys Ingenio
AT&T has bought Ingenio and will use its call tracking platform across Yellowpages.com, 800-YellowPages, Mobile and Print Yellow Pages. We think the deal is quite important. This is a story that will unfold in the months ahead as more information about integration becomes public. For a while now, we have been saying that the inclusion of call tracking is the inevitable conclusion of a true multi-platform business where usage is distributed across mobile, print and the Internet. (read more…)