TKG Data & Analysis: Marketplaces ’09 Recap

Thanks again to all those who attended Marketplaces 2009. If you missed the show, or any of our coverage, below is a collection of posts from the week.

Marketplaces 2009: Top 10 Takeaways

Thanks to everyone who came out to L.A. for the Marketplaces 2009 conference  this week — and to everyone who followed us on the blogs and Twitter. We had a great time. Here are some top-line takeaways. (read more…)

Marketplaces 2009: Donato’s Oodle.com Pushes the Classified Envelope

Oodle CEO Craig Donato led off day three of Marketplaces 2009 describing how classified advertising has gone through an evolution over the past five years, progressing from simply importing them online, to making them searchable and finally today integrating classifieds with social media/user-generated content (UGC). (read more…)

Marketplaces 2009: Active Network CEO Dave Alberga

Vertical networks can leverage their knowledge of their consumers to sell marketers wide-ranging research and media programs, according to Active Network CEO Dave Alberga, who keynoted at the Marketplaces 2009 conference in Los Angeles. (read more…)

Marketplaces 2009: Citysearch CEO Jay Herratti

Citysearch CEO Jay Herratti, in a keynote at Marketplaces 2009 in Los Angeles, stressed that there are four things local sites need to focus on: being “more local,” “mobile,” “social” and “balanced.” “Local is really an evolution,” he said. “Now the evolution is transforming the marketplace from cities down to neighborhoods.” Accordingly, Citysearch has “rearchitected” from 150 sites to 75,000. (read more…)

Marketplaces 2009: Matchpoint’s Peter Adams, Bogopod’s Adam Leff

Promotional services that boost SMBs run the gamut from coupons to prizes. The most popular are free offers, discounts off total amounts, and prizes/free gifts, said Matchpoint CEO Peter Adams, who was speaking at Marketplaces 2009. (read more…)

Marketplaces 2009: AOL’s Chris Spanos, Yahoo’s Atif Rafiq

AOL Yellow Pages has greatly benefited from search engine optimization, with 50 percent of its traffic coming from SEO, according to Chris Spanos, GM, local search, who was speaking today at Kelsey’s Marketplaces conference in Los Angeles. “We have a very healthy Yellow Pages business,” said Spanos, who called it “the No. 1 independent Yellow Pages” site. “If the AOL network were to go away, the business would still be strong because of what we’re getting from Google and MSN.” (read more…)

The Optimism at Marketplaces 2009 Is Palpable

At the end of the second day of Marketplaces 2009, my colleague Matt Booth made a statement and then asked a follow-up question. He said, “most of what I’ve been hearing from the podium is optimistic. Don’t people realize that this is a challenging business environment? Is this optimism my imagination, or is it real?” It is a fair question to ask whether the people who are able to attend Marketplaces this year are those who are doing well. (read more…)

Scaling Local Search and Making It Less Boring

In a session at Marketplaces 2009 this afternoon on building local online content and services, the oft-cited challenge of scalability took center stage. “The trick with local is to operate at scale,” said Matthew Berk, Marchex’s executive VP of product engineering. “There are lots of things out there that are phenomenally interesting, but small.” (read more…)

Greenspun Interactive Spins Out Aggressive Online Newspaper

Rob Curley and Chris Jennewein of Greenspun Interactive gave a lively presentation this morning at the Marketplaces conference representing the yin and yang of product features and business models. This is often in a state of imbalance at online newspaper entities. (read more…)

Marketplaces 2009: NCI CEO Dan McCarthy, AutoTrader CEO Chip Perry

NCI President and CEO Dan McCarthy told attendees of Marketplaces 2009 in Los Angeles today that “local marketing spend is going to be reduced tremendously. It will have a big impact on all marketing budgets,” he said. “Local media starts with price and results, “added McCarthy. “Marketers needs to hold on to as many dollars, especially with a glut of 3.6 million homes for sale and millions of duplicated listings on every independent site. (read more…)

MySpace’s Jeff Berman Kicks Off Marketplaces ’09

Marketplaces is under way with the opening keynote from Jeff Berman, MySpace president of sales and marketing. MySpace has made some inroads to attracting SMBs to use the social network as a marketing platform. Most recently, this has included its MyAds program. which lets businesses establish a profile in the same way that individuals and bands traditionally have done on MySpace.(read more…)