Amdocs Buys Stibo
Amdocs announced today that it has acquired the Danish firm Stibo. This appears to be a way for Amdocs to get deeper into the European market. Here is the announcement.
Auctioning the YP
Lots of pick-ups on an AP article that talks about something Verizon's Eric Chandler discussed at last week's Drilling Down conference, namely the addition of a pay-per-phone-call feature in the print Yellow Pages. We will write about this notion in…
IPTV and Triple Play
My explanations of IPTV are sometimes met with blank stares or looks of confusion, at which point I just revert to "You'll be able to watch television on your computer." But this isn't really what IPTV is. An important distinction…
Things Go Better With Google
At the beginning of the year, Safa Rashtchy, senior research analyst for Internet and media marketing and managing director of Piper Jaffray, made the bold prediction that Google would hit $600 a share in 2006. At the time we wrote,…
More on Social Media
Judy's Book and Local.com announced a partnership earlier in the week to syndicate the former's local reviews and user blogs on the latter's local search site. Since Judy's Book was already syndicating blog content of its users' existing blogs (rather…
Windows Live Search Introduces ’Macros’
When Greg and I were up at Microsoft a few weeks ago, we discussed the integration of search macros into the company's Live Search Product, which will power MSN Search and Windows Live. Yesterday, search macros were introduced on the…
More on Eric Chandler’s Drilling Down Announcement
President of Verizon's Internet division Eric Chandler announced a partnership between SuperPages and Google on Day 1 of Drilling Down On Local, as mentioned earlier by Greg. The deal will position Verizon as an authorized AdWords reseller and give it…
Day 1 of Drilling Down
Great shower here at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose. And lots of good stuff yesterday at the show and in the exhibit hall. Safa R. was very good as a keynote speaker (predicting that the further development of local…
Google’s New SERPs?
Google appears to have introduced — or more likely be experimenting with — a new AdSense-like format for search results, placing ads in a box above the "organic" Web results. Here's "Hotels New York." Here's "Health Insurance." (If you're seeing…
Simplified Search’s ’Sixth Man’
There are maybe eight firms out there enabling Yellow Pages, Web hosts, verticals and newspapers to sell simplified search distribution to local businesses. One firm, which is doing well under the radar, is Kevin Dufficy's LocalLead.com. Dufficy was in on…
Google Adding Graphical Ads to Maps
A few weeks ago at SES, Google told me they were going to be allowing advertisers to add logos and graphical images to the mapping balloons that appear on Google Local. I looked for them but couldn't find them. Today,…
Mobile Advertising: Much Still Needs to Be Done
There's an incredible amount of hype and anticipation among marketers and the mobile industry in general around ad revenue projections and the anticipated size of the mobile TV/video market. This mostly bullish BusinessWeek article does a nice job of assessing…
YPG’s Vertical Innovation Hits the Streets
Just got my hands on a copy of the "Style at Home Special Issue — Home Improvement" produced by Canada's Yellow Pages Group and media partner Transcontinental Media. The product was recently distributed in Toronto. The joint venture between the…
TPI Bids In
Here is what we have found about the bids that have come in for the 60 percent stake in Spanish publisher TPI currently owned by Telefonica, Spain's leading telecom. This is from the AFX news service. Note an apparent contraction…
New Customer for FAST
Fast Search & Transfer has announced it landed a deal with the Finnish directory publisher Fonecta, which is part of the PE-backed European Directories organization. Here is the release from FAST. Here is what we picked up from Norwegian News…
As Long as There Are Publishers …
Yellow Book continues its stready pace of acquiring independent directory publishers — large, small and in between. The company just announced the acquisition of Banana Publishing in Springfield, Mass. This is not the Springfield of "Simpsons" fame (at least we…
More Ink on Syndicated Usage Results
Found a couple of new items on the results from the Yellow Pages Market Reporter, the syndicated usage measurement product from KN/SRI. One is a press release from BellSouth touting its results from Birmingham, Alabama. And another is a news…
Independent v. Independent
Found this press release interesting. One independent publisher is suing another in federal court for allegedly copying ads for a competing publication. This is not such a big deal as a business dispute, but it does offer a small glimpse…
My Media Is More Local Than Your Media
Each year I attend a few conferences put on by other companies, both because they tend to have different speakers, but also because it enables me to pick up some ideas that can enhance our events. Today I went to…