The churn rates for low-end local businesses are incredibly high. Why is that? WebVisible CEO Kirsten Mangers told Directory Driven Commerce attendees the reason we don’t see high conversion rates for low-end advertisers is their Web sites “really suck.” It…
The churn rates for low-end local businesses are incredibly high. Why is that? WebVisible CEO Kirsten Mangers told Directory Driven Commerce attendees the reason we don’t see high conversion rates for low-end advertisers is their Web sites “really suck.” It…
A session on online video this morning at the DDC conference explored some of the opportunities for directories to integrate video on their sites and video ad units in the toolbox of their sales reps. The thought is that this…
Verticals are important to Yahoo! and others on a national basis, but they really aren’t the way to go at the local level because of the limited resources for local sales, says Warren Kay, managing director, strategic alliances, Yahoo! Search…
Verticals are important to Yahoo! and others on a national basis, but they really aren’t the way to go at the local level because of the limited resources for local sales, says Warren Kay, managing director, strategic alliances, Yahoo! Search…
No surprise that a takeaway from the “Building a Better Database” panel at DDC2007 was that it is getting harder and harder to acquire good listing data -- fragmentation, latency issues and disparate data are just the tip of the…
Trader Pubs, the Canadian shopper publisher of AutoTrader.ca and assorted other titles acquired by YPG last year, is seeking synergies between the companies that add usage and extend advertiser relationships in both directions, according to Geneviève LeBrun, a longtime YPG…
What’s fun about attending a DDC conference is that at some point a challenge is laid down calling for a radical change. Yesterday afternoon, Neal Polachek and Charles Laughlin outlined the challenges major metropolitan markets face around the world including: …
Today at DDC, we saw a lively panel on Consumer Reviews -- among the earliest and most widely used forms of UGC. Mike Boland's intro used Kelsey data showing how much consumers want reviews on Web sites. Reviews have the…
Today at DDC, we saw a lively panel on Consumer Reviews -- among the earliest and most widely used forms of UGC. Mike Boland's intro used Kelsey data showing how much consumers want reviews on Web sites. Reviews have the…
Sprint announced this evening that it will launch a mobile search service that rides on Microsoft's Live Search for Mobile. This will include location-based and voice-enabled search, which will pull in the Tellme platform Microsoft acquired earlier this year. Some of…
Tribune is eyeing the launch local editions of Varsity MyTeam in all its newspaper markets and perhaps the creation of a national high school sports database that would include non-Tribune papers, following the successful launch of the high school sports…
While I am in Reston, VA, attending Kelsey's Directory Driven Commerce conference, I thought it would be a good time to start talking about our next show, which I am co-producing: Interactive Local Media 2007. The show is being done…
Idearc Media announced today it is buying the Switchboard online directory asset from InfoSpace for US$225 million. This is the latest in a series of moves by Idearc to own more elements of a comprehensive IYP/local search platform. The overarching…
For this pre-conference week, here is a recap of news and views from the TKG blog in case you missed any posts. We hope to see you at DDC. Sign of Times? Online Newspaper Vet Goes to TV If you…
It must be tough running online newspaper sites right now. After many years of strong annual growth in the 30 percent range, online revs are beginning to plateau. And in most markets, the rest of the ship has begun to…
One year ago, head of AT&T Directory Operations Dennis Payne (apropos to the previous post) mentioned during his DDC keynote address that AT&T would push hard on bringing directory listings to new formats, most notably IPTV. Then last march at…
After 33 years of working in the directory business, Dennis Payne has been a firsthand witness to the changes and evolution in the industry. Denny began working for Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. as a directory sales rep in Kansas City…
After 33 years of working in the directory business, Dennis Payne has been a firsthand witness to the changes and evolution in the industry. Denny began working for Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. as a directory sales rep in Kansas City…
Today, I had a brief call with George Garrick, CEO of Jingle Networks, which operates the service 1-800-FREE411. The Jingle team has been aggressively wringing costs out of the system for months trying to reduce the cost per call as…
