I missed this late last week because I was out, but AT&T has fired the latest shot in the bundled services (or "quad play") battle by offering free wireless calling to landline phones. In other words, it's free when Cingular…
As Peter Krasilovsky reported last week, Citysearch will establish new Atlanta-based sales digs. Kevin Newcomb over at Search Engine Watch points to a ClickZ article today about the expansion. The company hopes to have 180 sales (inside, outside and national)…
One big trend we've noticed for both Yellow Pages and newspapers is a renewed emphasis on the dynamics of cities served. We used to worry all the time about local dynamics as city guides and others tried to figure out…
Pushing hard on "multimedia" capabilities to sell national ads on 1,200 local radio, TV and newspaper Web sites, Media Span and Broadcast Interactive Media mostly known as Web enablers and sales consultants are teaming up to provide a…
The Observer has an interesting story about Hyper-Localism. This idea has several manifestations. In one version a newspaper creates Web content around niche groups like high school football teams or cats in trees and the brave city workers who save…
The European Interactive Advertising Association released portions of a study showing increases for online conversion rates across several categories. The chart below, part of the release, shows the product categories with the fastest growing "conversion rates" from 2005 to 2006.…
IAC's Citysearch has opened an inside sales center in Atlanta as part of a major sales push that also includes the development of a national sales team. There are currently 60 inside sellers in the center, and more than 150…
There are a lot of reasons why Yellow Pages will continue to be the dominant local advertising vehicle. Certainly a major benefit Yellow Pages publishers have is that advertisers and people looking to buy products and services both know a…
Oodle, the listing aggregator service, is completing its transition from a Google dependent site with the rollout today of a comparison feature for autos. Real estate and rentals will be rolled out next. In October, Oodle made its first move…
Local.com continues to expand into related local search verticals announcing a partnership with Oodle.com. Strategically, the addition of classified verticals to local search platforms has driven incremental consumer usage as users navigate across the two offerings. According to Heath Clarke,…
Gannett, McClatchy and Tribune (aka "The Troika") have now weighed in on the controversy generated by the revelation that they are working on a national ad network that will compete with a national ad network being created by Yahoo! and…
An executive at AT&T has informed me that an internal communication went out saying that BellSouth Advertising & Publishing President Ike Harris is leaving the corporation. Denny Payne, who has been president of SBC Directory Operations/AT&T Yellow Pages for the…
There's been more industry feedback on the "Open Network" for national advertising that Gannett, McClatchy and Tribune (GMT) have proposed to launch for the newspaper industry. The first question is: Who leaked it to reporter Julia Angwin and why? There…
Amid the endless and effusive praise of Apple's new iPhone, Good Morning Silicon Valley's John Paczkowski offers a refreshing reality check about some of the things the device is missing, "questions that are now emerging as the hypnotic pull of…
Today's Wall Street Journal reports that Gannett, McClatchy and Tribune (GMT) are shaping an "open network" to sell national online advertising, possibly replacing McClatchy's Real Cities. The article says that network members are committing around 10 percent of their banner…
The blogosphere is abuzz over the iPhone. Lots of claims that it will be a game changer in mobile search and entertainment. Apple certainly sees the potential of the device, and correctly anticipated the killer app of mobile devices by…
There has been a lot of talk in the past week over some of the apparent challenges facing local destination sites. Last week, BackFence endured a major downsizing, including the resignation of cofounder Susan DeFife (past writing on BackFence and…
Last week, we linked to a Search Engine Guide Piece by Jennifer Laycock that outlined some of the challenges that small businesses face in devising and executing online ad buying strategies. Today, Laycock takes a closer look in her article…
As mentioned briefly yesterday, we expect much of the product innovation unveiled at CES to deal with device convergence particularly with sharing content between Web, mobile and TV. Bill Gates' keynote had this theme, but it showed little difference…
The departure of BackFence CEO Susan DeFife amid the layoff of 12 of 18 staff members brought in a flood of comments to my personal site. Here's a selective summary. Dick Larkin, the Small Business Commando, kicked off the comments,…
