A few months ago, Freedom Interactive President Michael Matthieu said he was "tearing out the infrastructure" at his newspapers and TV stations and making everything Web-centric. Now we see the first tangible results. At The Shelby Star, Freedom’s 15,000 circulation…
A new Interactive Local Media Advisory looks at Google’s moves over the past week to continue its march toward becoming a one-stop shop advertising powerhouse across all media. They include of course the massive DoubleClick acquisition and the deal with…
Knowledge@Wharton published an article Wednesday that uses some Kelsey Group information. It's a mini case study titled "All Politics Is Local and So Are Sales Leads: The Birth of an Internet Search Company." The subject is a company called Natpal…
This morning, I joined 500 or so members of the San Diego Venture Group to hear Vint Cerf, the tech legend who was instrumental in the Internet's creation in the 1960s. More recently, he's been working as a very high-profile…
Last week, Yell Group sold its Brazilian directory operation (TPI Brazil) to regional rival Publicar for US$8.5 million. This was a challenging market for Yell, which inherited the operation when it acquired the Spanish publisher TPI last year. Yell continues…
We all share the grief in the tragedy at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, but it is especially gnawing on me. Over the years that I lived in Virginia, I watched with pride as the Hokies became a first-rate school and…
For media "old-timers," the annual NAB show is synonymous for where-it-all-happens. Year after year, the masses of media professionals still come, with this year's edition attracting 108,000 people from around the world. I went yesterday, mostly to see how TV…
The recently acquired Tellme today announced that it will integrate a new local business search into its multi-modal voice search platform. From the press release: The free service launches today with local business search by business name or category. Designed…
Whenever a new man moves into my community, one of the mothers in my neighborhood immediately searches the Megan's List database, which is dedicated to ID'ing sex offenders. A new site, FatDoor, however, hopes to look on the brighter side…
We’ve got several meaty personnel moves to report in the global Yellow Pages business this morning, most of them involving Australia’s Sensis. The big news is that Sensis has hired U.S. industry veteran Carol Johnson as chief operating officer, directory…
Google and Clear Channel Communications will announce a partnership today whereby the search company will sell 5 percent of the radio group's inventory in 100 top U.S. markets. The agreement covers roughly 675 Clear Channel stations. Terms of the deal,…
Google has reached an agreement to buy DoubleClick, a display ad network, for US$3.1 billion in cash. The acquisition moves Google deeper into the critical display and rich media markets, a segment the company has vowed to become a larger…
After weeks of rumors that Microsoft was in talks to buy DoubleClick, and subsequent rumors that Google had swept in to start its own talks, Google today came away with the company for whopping US$3.1 billion. This could mean a…
The WSJ is reporting that McClatchy, the publisher of 30 newspapers, is set to be the 12th newspaper publisher to join the Yahoo! consortium, leaving behind Gannett and Tribune, which had hoped to work with McClatchy to build an alternative…
A successful SES New York is coming to a close. This was a significant event for many because it was the last SES show that Danny Sullivan will run. Last night, Danny hosted his evening seminar, a bittersweet event that…
The disintermediation of local media doesn't stop. First, we got Realtors cutting into newspaper audiences (and advertising) by adding all the area listings to their Web sites. Phase Two is going to be the disintermediation of Yellow Pages, if you…
Mobile versions of newspaper and TV station sites WAPsites have mostly been corporate vanity projects, generally attracting just a couple of dozen regular users. But as the demographics for enhanced mobile services have graduated from kids downloading ringtones and…
WCAU-TV, NBC's owned and operated station in Philadelphia, is launching DigPhilly, a city site, reports today's Wall Street Journal. The site isn't yet up and running, but a teaser features buttons for "learn," "do," "share," "find" and "shop." The Journal…
OpenTable, the secretive eight-year-old restaurant reservation service, was slow to take off, with some of its local media and directory affiliates reporting little traffic in its early days (and a competing service, Foodline, basically dropping off the map). But in…
Between sessions at SES New York, I had the chance to sit down with Alex Vlasto, head of global communications for Miva. The company is moving in some interesting directions, shown most recently by the deal it formed with Conde…
