TKG Data and Analysis: A Weekly Recap

Here are the highlights from the TKG blog last week, in case you missed any posts. Click below to read each post in full.

Who Is Responsible for Yellow Pages’ Current Woes?

Jim Hail, president and chief operating officer of Hagadone Directories and chairman of the Association of Directory Publishers, outlined what he believes has been a systematic decline in the brand value of the Yellow Pages at this year’s ADP Mid-Year Convention in San Antonio. (read more…)

Yellow Pages ‘Paper Termites’ Are Winning

In an opening session of the Association of Directory Publishers‘ 2008 Mid-Year Convention in San Antonio, YP Talk Publisher Ken Clark gave a close-up view of how negative PR in print and online is eroding the perception of the Yellow Pages industry. Describing these sites as “slowly chewing away the credibility of the industry,” (read more…)

EveryZing: A Better Mousetrap for Video Search?

EveryZing this week launched a new video player whose features carry the company’s emphasis on video search engine optimization, searchability and good content indexing. Like many of the other video search companies that employ a combination of video indexing technologies, EveryZing’s technology uses speech-to-text processing at its core. (read more…)

Watch: TKG Webinar on Local Media

Peter Krasilovsky, Matt Booth and I did a webinar this week, hosted by “the Commando” Dick Larkin. The content was essentially a preview of the topics we’ll hit during our Interactive Local Media conference that takes place Nov 19-21 in Santa Clara, California. (read more…)

Reaching the Canadian SMB Market During Economic Instability

Closing remarks at the Warrillow Summit Toronto yesterday gave advertisers targeting the small and medium-sized business market some hope despite the alarming descent in optimism on the current Canadian economic situation. (read more…)

Precision Tune, DriverSide Team Up for Online Auto Profiles

Precision Tune Auto Care, which has 300 franchisee-owned stores, is the first major auto-care chain to sign up for DriverSide‘s new co-branded version of its online vehicle profiles. The profiles include maintenance records. Customers can also receive reminders and special offers via e-mails, alerts or a servicing calendar. Customers can also use the DriverSide service to look up auto-related info, such as repair costs, or to locate parts or accessories. (read more…)

Yotify Goes for a Metasearch Approach

Search and alert service Yotify has entered the scene with a wide-reaching value proposition to do the legwork in finding people, places and events for you. On one level, it’s similar to a lot of aggregators we’ve seen, like Oodle, that scrape together listings from many sources to create one-stop-shop appeal to users. In Oodle’s case, it’s classifieds, and there are other examples in other verticals. Google Alerts also does this for news or keywords on the Web. (read more…)

MapQuest Optimizes for the iPhone

MapQuest has announced the launch of a mobile site that is optimized for iPhone interfaces. It has a sharp design and is relatively quick to return maps and local search results. It must be made clear, however, that this is a Web app, accessible through the iPhone’s Safari mobile browser, as opposed to a native app that is planted on the phone’s desktop. (read more…)

Web Chatter: Excitement Over Android

On the eve of T-Mobile’s launch of the G1 — the first device based on Google’s long-awaited mobile OS — we’ve seen lots of excitement throughout the blogosphere. The gist of these reviews, overall, is that it’s a good device that doesn’t stack up to the iPhone in many respects, but Android could eventually have more mass-market reach and appeal as a mobile OS. Google’s position in search could also give it a leg up in content delivery for native apps and a “continuity of services” from online to mobile. (read more…)

Real Estate Woes (Finally) Hit Zillow, Redfin

It is counterintuitive that Web 2.0 real estate sites would continue to grow their audience and ad dollars while the industry “scrapes along the bottom” for years to come. The sites, though, still say they are growing. “Fear, value-shopping, and curiosity are driving people in record volumes to our site,” noted Zillow CEO Rich Barton on the company blog. (read more…)