Verizon Tests PPC in Print

Search Engine Journal points to an AP article that reports Verizon is testing pay-per-phone-call ad auctions in a Boston-area print book. A generic ad is given and "dynamically assigned," meaning it connects users to whatever local business won the auction…

Read More

Optimism and Professionalism

The message from the ADP Annual Convention last week and my colleagues Carlotta Mast and Charles Laughlin's Advisory this week is that independent publishers continue to be growing quite nicely, thank you. The mood at ADP in Tampa was very…

Read More

Click Fraud

Google's announcement of a US$90 million click fraud settlement is making the rounds on various blogs and news sites. The Kelsey Group believes more legal issues around the topic of click fraud will arise. Our view is that the solution…

Read More

Cox Zeros in on Cars

Last month, Cox Enterprises and Landmark Communications announced a reshuffling of the deck chairs, with Cox taking a more significant position in the "auto" related marketplaces and Landmark focusing on more niche or specialty oriented publications and Web sites. Cox…

Read More

Overscope in L.A.?

I don't normally read every scoping announcement Yellow Pages publishers issue via e-Linc, but a recent one caught my eye. Yellow Book announced that it is combining a Burbank book and a Glendale book and offering the market a wide-area…

Read More

Battle Over Baltimore

Last week 250,000 editions of The Baltimore Examiner were tossed to homes in and around the Baltimore area. That's right — The Baltimore Examiner not The Baltimore Sun. Interestingly, The Baltimore Sun — the 169-year-old incumbent newspaper — offers its…

Read More

Swift Approval

Last week, in Hempstead, New York, city bureaucrats voted to approve Verizon's application to build a competitive television distribution system. The final ruling was probably not ever in doubt given the intense lobbying effort being put forth by Verizon and…

Read More

Hail and Farewell

The ADP Annual Convention and Partners Trade Show kicked off officially this morning with presentations by outgoing ADP Chair Jim Hail of Hagadone Directories and President Larry Angove. The tone was much less adversarial toward incumbent publishers than it has…

Read More

Google Real Estate

Shimon Sandler was able to take a few screenshots of Google's new real estate engine in the short time it was live yesterday. John Battelle points out that it is simply the latest integration of Google Base. The Internet Stock…

Read More

MySpace: Hot or Not?

Om Malik reports on the staggering growth of MySpace traffic, while this Guardian Unlimited article challenges how the site will make money in the face of recent bad PR, lack of a (clear public) monetization strategy and the historic failures…

Read More

AOL: the New AOL

AOL has officially changed its name to, well, AOL. No more America Online. Like Ask.com's dumping of Jeeves, the move appears to fall in line with AOL's continuing efforts to shed associations with its former self (something it should do…

Read More

Monday News Bits

There is a lot happening today. Here is a quick wrap-up and we'll dig deeper into individual topics later. —Washington Post tech columnist Leslie Walker has a good piece today about the growth of local, blogging and social media Web…

Read More