Some people in the user-generated content community are very Wiki-centric, but there really haven’t been local applications – until now. Our forward looking friends at The San Diego Union Tribune’s SignOn San Diego site have launched a local Wiki to…
Some interesting details about LiveDeal's operations have been released as the result of its $11.8 million sale to YP.com, which had previously been written about by my colleague Mike Boland. During a June 7 investor call announcing the sale, LiveDeal,…
Summary Paul Jahn at Search Engine Guide writes today about how fraudulent user reviews can be particularly damning to local search sites. Users are smart, he contends, and can sniff out a fake message from a business owner or constituent.…
Summary The New York Times today continues the ongoing discussion of the iPhone's potential as a game changer and its possible shortcomings. It brings up the challenge that could arise in getting consumers accustomed to a radically different interface that…
Business 2.0's Erick Shoenfeld reports on a movement today to see if you can get by without the five major search engines, consisting of Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, (including MSN and Live Search), Ask and AOL. Search Engine Land reports there…
Summary Comcast has begun to serve coverage of local events on its on-demand programming menu. This includes things such as high school sports, local parades and local interest news stories. This is an interesting move for Comcast, and one that…
A new report, written by me and called “The Newspaper Online Shopping Report: Online Relationships with Retailers,” is out today. It is a fairly comprehensive work that gives readers a 360-degree view of what newspapers are doing (and should be…
Consumers increasingly use the Web to search for services. But it is tough to complete the loop and actually order service. In many cases, businesses are either unresponsive to phone calls and e-mails, or their information is inaccurate. All this…
After Hellman & Friedman's well-publicized return on DoubleClick when it sold its stake in the company to Google in April, there seems to be an uptick in the interest among private equity firms in online investments. The latest is NexTag,…
In case you missed them, here is a compilation of blog posts from this week from TKG's Interactive Local Media program. Click below to read each post in full. More Data in Favor of Online Research, Offline Shopping II Research just…
Summary Research just released from Hitwise and WebCollage shows that shoppers are more likely to shop in stores and visit Web sites of retailers that provide comprehensive product information, including inventory data. This is a growing trend in the local…
Summary Online-only Yellow Pages site YP.com announced this morning that it will buy online classified site LiveDeal in a stock transaction estimated to be worth about $12 million. The deal will bring together directory content and classifieds in one online…
Zvents, the localized, personalized online event calendar, says it is driving a lot of page views and traffic to its newspaper partners. The growing list of partners now includes The Orange County Register and other Freedom newspapers; several MediaNews Group…
Summary EBay announced today that it will begin working with radio ad start-up Bid4Spots. The deal will bring Bid4Spots' auction-based radio ad sales capability to eBay's Media Marketplace. This represents a growing direction for eBay to broker ads to cable…
Online video stood out a great deal as a theme and business opportunity at this year's Drilling Down on Local conference in March. Spot Runner's Nick Grouf keynoted, while other speaking slots were given to TurnHere and IYPs that expressed…
Summary New legal search destination Avvo launched today to join the likes of FindLaw and LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell. Like these destinations, it offers users search tools to find lawyers in different categories and locales. Legal search will be a growing area…
The San Jose Mercury News reported yesterday that IAC is a few weeks away from opening its new venture arm in Silicon Valley called Primal Ventures. The focus will be investments that are more strategic than financially driven in order to…
Summary The new Yellowpages.com beta is available for users to access and play around with. Lots of features are still unavailable, but you can get a general idea of what the new site will offer. The look and feel has…
My former colleagues at Borrell Associates have carved out a unique role in the local online advertising space with their annual survey of local media revenues. This year is the survey’s fifth, and was conducted with 2,885 properties in the…
WashingtonPost.com has soft-launched “Local Explorer,” which allows users to map crime, home sales and school information by ZIP code. It is a great model for “mapped journalism.” The tag line for Local Explorer says it allows you to explore “Police and…
