In an exciting development from Microsoft, the company just announced it will provide 3-D models of 15 U.S. cities in its Live Search results. Starting tomorrow, users who click on the "maps" tab after entering a search term in Live…
Geosign, a privately owned publisher of dozens of local and vertical services, including TrueLocal, has teamed with Go2 to get a foot in the door of the nascent mobile directory marketplace. Go2, founded in 1999, was a pioneer in mobile…
Google's announcement that its self-serve system will be enabled for print newspapers gives newspapers an easier way to reach small businesses. Newspapers, of course, are famously challenged to apply their relatively limited sales forces to anything smaller than a car…
Google is said to be considering a major deal to either partner with Clear Channel's radio stations or buy the stations outright, according to RBC Capital Markets (as reported by Jeffrey Yorke in Radio & Records, a radio trade pub).…
I've been out for some of this week, only to return to a flurry of events in the Googleverse. (What else is new?) In case you missed it too, here are some of the more notable items. Continuing its hot…
The story about Idearc (formerly Verizon Information Services) successfully raising $2.85 billion in high-yield bonds and $6.5 billion of bank debt takes place in an unknown ladies' room. The point of The New York Times column is that big Wall…
AT&T has launched its Homezone service in the Bay Area, which will be one of the products in its bundling strategy (explored in the recent TKG Advisory "Triple and Quad Play: Who Will Win the Bundled Services Battle"). A forebearer…
So, you don't think that phonebooks are a big deal, huh? Well, let's take a look at the incredible noise that Dex caused when it chose to re-scope the Quad-Cities telephone book. The Quad-Cities include Davenport and Bettendorf, IA, and…
Every now and then you meet someone in business that makes you think it is not just about business; someone you imagine you will have the joy of working with for the rest of your career. For me, Greg Parker…
Here is a quick follow-up on the fallout from the Nov. 1 announcement that the Canadian government will tax income trust dividends. Income trusts had become a popular structure in Canada, and one of the leading trusts is the Yellow…
As expected, Telecom New Zealand today confirmed that it will sell its Yellow Pages division, Yellow Pages Group, and plans to complete the deal by the end of the year. The sale is expected to command about NZ$1.5 billion (US$1.01…
The "big daddy" publisher of free online classified ads in the U.K., Loot.com, announced last week that it has gone live with the AdMission rich-media platform. This implementation comes on the heels of a deal with Microsoft, announced in mid-September,…
Just saw this item on the Canadian government's effort to curtail the income trust, which has gained popularity as a structure for Canadian corporations. The government wants to put the brakes on trusts to stem a drop in tax revenues.…
There are some interesting bits in this article on Telecom NZ's plans to spin off its Yellow Pages Group business for an estimated NZ$1.7 billion (US$1.1 billion). The telecom is expected to update its plans for the Yellow Pages unit…
In all likelihood, it was just a coincidence. Even if it weren't, it may be the smart thing to do. When I opened my home-delivered edition of The New York Times this morning, out fell a piece of white bond…
Many of the world's leading directory operations have released their third-quarter and year-to-date earnings, and as usual the results show a mixed picture. We report these in some detail in our Local Media Journal, as well as in summaries that…
I am in the process of moving and somehow AT&T knew about it. A packet came in last week's mail branded as "AT&T Mover's One Source." I'm still not sure how the company knew I was moving. As a current…
Yesterday I had the chance to talk to Jigsaw CEO Jim Fowler. Part LinkedIn, part Wikipedia and part Hoovers, Jigsaw compiles user-generated contact information for business professionals. These data are invaluable to salespeople and recruiters who wish to bypass the…
In the past, financial analysts covering the newspaper industry haven't paid much attention to online results. They're more focused on quarterly results, which don't have much to do with online. Indeed, despite several years of strong growth from online services,…
Yell Group has hired a new chief marketing officer, Helen Stevenson, a veteran marketing executive with experience in banking and consumer products. Stevenson replaces Anne Franke, the CMO who left the U.K. directory company earlier this year, after serving as…
