Google Maps will launch a feature next week that will allow any Web site or blog to more easily plant an embedded map anywhere on its site. This will essentially allow SMEs to more easily integrate a "find me" map…
We're seeing no shortage of commentary throughout the blogosphere on the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index, which shows Yahoo! beating out Google in overall customer satisfaction for its online network of products. But another notable data point many…
Gannett’s “Information Center” project to overhaul its newspapers with user-generated content and data-driven services is making some progress, per this month’s Wired magazine piece by Jeff Howe. Since I first reported on the initiative in November 2006, the company has…
Following up on last week's post about the evolving mobile device environment, GigaOm reports (found via Digg) that a German company has developed an application that lets iPhone users access Skype. This is an interesting development and well in line…
Here is a sampling of posts from last week in case you missed them (click below to read each post in full). Vehix Takes a Page From the Yellow Pages My column for Search Engine Watch this month, Pimp My…
In the daily news gathering of the wide-reaching local media world, social bookmarking services, like MyWeb, have become my best friend. There is a lot of potential for social bookmarking providers -- if nothing else to grow stickiness among a…
Summary My column for Search Engine Watch this month, Pimp My Vertical Search, takes a look at some of the directions being taken in vertical search, particularly in autos. Autobytel has begun to do some interesting things with its recently…
Web exec Bill Day, who formerly led WhenU (a behavioral targeting firm), About.com and Prodigy, was announced yesterday as Marchex’s new chief media officer (an interesting title). The position is a new one for the publicly owned company, which isn’t…
Marchex continues to expand its local advertising and content capabilities with its acquisition of VoiceStar, the pay-per-call and call tracking company. The VoiceStar acquisition adds more than 100 local advertiser aggregators, including Comcast, The Cobalt Group, R.H. Donnelley/Dex and Yellow…
Yellow Pages Group CEO Marc Tellier offered some more color on his company's plans to roll out value-based pricing (VBP). According to Tellier, the company should roll out the new pricing approach by 2009 or 2010. One key to value-based…
Idearc Media and Yellow Pages Group announced their earnings today, and like R.H. Donnelley maintained their 2007 guidance estimates. As The Kelsey Group had estimated earlier in the year, print revenues are basically flat with growth coming from electronic, vertical…
Lawyers will be offered a chance to sign up for pay-per-call advertising via a new relationship formed between Ingenio, the pay-per-call company, and LexisNexis, the legal publisher. Advertisers on the newly created LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell Attorney Match service will be offered…
In my post yesterday on Facebook, I took a few shots at MySpace. Now my account seems to have been frozen. I haven't been able to get in for almost 24 hours, with the message that it has been "temporarily…
Idearc Media released its first-half financial results this morning. The company emphasized that "multi-product" sales, combining print, online and other, were about flat. Idearc is maintaining full-year guidance for 2007 – revenues will come in “close to flat” with slight…
Coupon giant Valpak has overhauled its Web site using Ajax and other features to make its online coupons download faster and searchable by distance, maps and category. The overhaul is the 15-person division’s sixth since 1998. Valpak, "the blue envelope…
There is no question about it: Facebook is on a roll. Since it made the astute move to release its API for Web developers to create various widgets that will work on its network, scores have already been developed to…
We just posted a Client Inquiry Brief summarizing the French publisher PagesJaunes’ first-half results. In reviewing the document, one thing jumps out. The publisher's otherwise solid first half was diminished by a decline in print revenues, this for a company…
It would be a stretch to think that Rupert Murdoch was pining for more local services when he bid $5 billion for Dow Jones. Mostly, he wanted The Wall Street Journal (and will take MarketWatch). Nevertheless, Dow Jones comes complete with…
Following up on Michael Taylor's excellent post this morning on Google's new quasi-sales force, I've been thinking more about what it could mean and how it fits into similar Google initiatives. First, it seems that it would tie together nicely…
As mentioned in last week's post Here Comes the Gphone, one of the worries (among many) causing U.S. wireless carriers to exert so much control over the devices that run on their networks is the development of Wi-Fi-enabled phones. This…
