TKG Data and Analysis: A Weekly Recap

In case you missed any, Here are some greatest hits from the past week of blog posts. Click below to read each post in full.

Yelp Integrates Event Listings in 10 Cities
Yelp has added events to its listings, maps and user reviews in 10 cities — San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle, San Jose, Austin, Chicago, Washington D.C., and San Diego. The feature includes a landing page for each event, a comment board and a “will you be attending” feature. Unlike Yahoo!’s upcoming.org, which is in a separate silo, the Yelp events feature is fully integrated (as Josh Lowensohn at Webware points out in his excellent and comprehensive review) (read more..)

Friday Yellow Pages News and Views
I’ve come across a few items this past week worth noting. Will give a quick take on each here. An article in the Dayton Daily News reports that The Berry Network, the CMR wing of The Berry Co., has landed the Allstate Insurance account. To illustrate what a big win this is for BNI, the company is adding 50 jobs in Dayton, Ohio, to accommodate the new account, which amounts to a roughly 24 percent increase in head count. (read more..)

Of Yellow Pages, Classifieds and Beer Pong
I’m a day late to this because of the natural tendency to get caught up in SES, but LiveDeal announced that it will integrate community discussion boards into its classified engine. This is a good integration for LiveDeal that will not only boost the conversations happening around classified listings, but could also serve to enhance the directory content that was recently brought into the fold via YP.com. (read more..)

AdMission Seeks Middle Ground Between Search and Display
The big picture we’ve all been looking at is that online ad spending for search and lead generation is beginning to plateau. ComScore pegs search’s share at around 40 percent. Google certainly sees it, hence its recent effort to entrench itself into display and video. So does AdMission Corp. A couple of years ago, the vendor switched its focus from virtual tours to image search on demand, hoping to gain more visitors, more looks and longer sessions. (read more..)

Multitasking @ SES: Cutting Through the Clutter of Mobile Search
I’m at SES San Jose today and tomorrow, where there are some interesting local, mobile, social and shopping search sessions going on. I’m in a mobile session now while blogging, responding to e-mail and juggling the bouncy balls they are giving away in the exhibit hall. Many of the sessions are presentation format rather than panel discussion, but some interesting topics have been brought up. The scope of many of the discussions are sometimes more tactical than where my interest lies (how to optimize a mobile Web page using XHTML and CSS), but there are nonetheless important industry issues, user adoption trends, and relevant technological directions that have surfaced. (read more..)

Gannett Says ‘No’ to Planet Discover’s Outside Work
Planet Discover, the pioneering local search and Internet Yellow Pages vendor, won’t sign new contracts with local media outlets that compete with Gannett newspaper and TV properties, according to sources. Gannett purchased Planet Discover in May 2006, but up to now has not interfered with its business development. Gannett’s decision leaves the local search field to competitors such as Local.com, Innovectra and HarvestInfo. (read more…)

YouTube Debuts Inline Video Ads; World Listens
YouTube has launched a new video ad format it has been testing for months (see past post). These ad units, known as inline ads, involve translucent windows that are overlaid on video content for about 10 seconds near the beginning of a given clip. Experimentation with more integrated and less cumbersome video advertising has flourished in the wake of the somewhat recent realization that consumers largely don’t like pre-roll ads. This innovation has gotten much further than YouTube’s ad overlays have taken it, as we’ve reported, from the likes of Blinkx, Adap.tv and ScanScout. (read more..)

Peter Horan’s Grand Canyon of Local
We have been discussing the issue of the potential for Internet Yellow Pages offered by print publishers. The question is whether IYPs can be sufficiently significant to merit the necessary investment. At our recent Drilling Down on Local conference, one of our keynote speakers, Peter Horan, CEO of IAC Media & Advertising, gave a speech titled “What’s Local Really About?” He said we are “now in the second decade of local: So much promise. So much logic. So little progress. How come?” His answer was that we are in the age of Internet-driven media where local isn’t about reading, it’s about doing. (read more..)

A Step Closer to Interactive Product Placement
There is no doubt that online video is blowing up. With increased online use and investment levels on the supply side, have come innovation and experimentation with respect to monetization opportunities, such as dynamically placed inline ads being developed by the likes of Blinkx and Adap.tv. The NewTeeVee blog reports on a new form of online video ads centered on product placement (developed by product placement firm Delivery Agent), known as Shopisodes. Watch the video to get a full sense of what they’re trying to accomplish. (read more..)

Online and Offline Come Full Circle
We know well that online search has considerable effect on local offline purchasing behavior. Likewise, it’s clear that the majority of retail purchases happen offline, while a growing percentage of research is occuring online. Now, iProspect has released interesting figures that show conversely how offline factors affect online search activity. More specifically, the data show how advertising in various offline media affect search engine use. (read more..)