Is the Opt-In Era Upon Us?
I had an interesting discussion this week with Amy Healy of the Yellow Pages Association. You may recall a few weeks back we blogged about a movement in Norway to give consumers the ability to opt out of print directory…
A Conversation With BuzzLogic
Yesterday I had the chance to speak with the leadership team at BuzzLogic, which has developed a platform for tracking buzz around any topic or company. The primary venue for this buzz is the blogosphere, where there has been a…
J-Lab Provides 10 Citizen Journalism Grants
A lingering idea from Al Gore's Information Superhighway is using grant money to jumpstart online (and wireless) community services and involvement. One year, as a judge for the U.S. Department of Commerce, I even helped dole out some of the…
The $40 Million Free Directory Assistance Bet
Last week, my colleague Peter Krasilovsky wrote a blog about 1-800-Free411 launching category search and took the opportunity to update how Jingle is doing. According to SVP Lyn Oakes, Jingle is receiving 16 million calls per month, with 60 percent…
Google Maps Gets Personal
Google today launched MyMaps, something appropriately coined by Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land as "mashups for the masses." Google Maps, like most other mapping engines has long made its API available to third-party developers, best documented by the Google…
Tidbits: A Conversation With BooRah
Today I had the chance to speak with Nagaraju Bandaru, Cofounder and CTO of "meta reviews" site BooRah. The site has developed some clever algorithms that scrape, aggregate, structure and serve up third-party reviews for local search. It currently focuses…
Internet Yellow Pages, Small Businesses and Video
It seems to me that precious little has been written about the fact that, according to the March 19 issue of eMarketer, four national portals Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and AOL have seen their share of total Internet advertising…
Tidbits: A Conversation With YellowBot
Yesterday I had the chance to speak with Erron Silverstein, CEO of Solfo, the company behind recently launched (beta) local search site YellowBot. The site is built on many social features and will target the same young and tech-savvy demographic…
Newspapers and Talking Cars
Every once in a while, I’ll allow myself to post something on the lighter side. Just a warning that this is one of those posts only tangentially related to local search, but having a semantic coincidence that I couldn’t…
Live Local Gets Social (and Other New Features)
Following closely behind the social media trend in local search, Microsoft Live Search Maps launched a feature that will allow users to read and contribute ratings and reviews of local businesses. This is part of a new feature set it…
Ready for Online Only? Seattle Paper Mulls It Over
I was recently stunned by a conversation with a group of newspaper execs mulling over which U.S. city would be the first to rely on an online-only newspaper. The switch might be faster in one of the handful of surviving…
Tribune’s New Owner Is ’Grave Dancer’ Sam Zell
How is one to consider Sam Zell's "purchase" of the Tribune Co.? We can be fairly certain that Zell, a "grave dancer" investor who is putting in $315 million and relying on an ESOP for the rest, didn't win the…
Topix Cites Progress, Launches Personal News Bureaus
After its founding in 2002, Topix was definitely an "A List" Silicon Valley company, leading the way for crawling news in a million interesting and valuable ways. Its founders were extremely dedicated and smart, and the company looked like it…
A Conversation with ZipLocal
Yesterday I had the opportunity to catch up with Elaine Kunda, CEO of newly launched (beta) Canadian local search site ZipLocal. The site currently covers Toronto and Montreal, but has 1.3 million Canadian business listings in 45 cities, which it…
Google’s Expansion into Radio, Cable Sales Not Easy
Google is pushing hard to jumpstart its radio ad business, leveraging its $1.245 billion acquisition of the DMarc rep business in 2005. The search leader says it is working with 900 stations in 200 markets. But so far, according to…
Yellowpages.com Joins MoLo Pack
Yellowpages.com today joined the ranks of local search providers that have an SMS-based mobile local search application. Similar to Google SMS and Yahoo! Mobile (and one from Starbucks), any cellphone user can send a business name or category in a…
Closing the Gap With Maps, Revenues
Map-centric directories from the likes of Google and Microsoft, enhanced with satellite and 3D imagery, are absolutely fascinating. They're also increasingly functional, with all kinds of searchable links. But is it really clear that they are the future of directories?…
Oodle and iPoste Team Up
Classified aggregator Oodle has offered to integrate its listings into community site iPoste. The press release doesn't mention if listings will flow in the other direction, but they should based on Oodle's aggregation model. Classified aggregation is all about in/out…
EStara Brings Click-to-Call to Singapore
EStara announced this week that it will power the new click-to-call functionality of Yellow Pages Singapore's online directory, Yellowpages.com.sg. YPS is the largest directory publisher in Singapore and its online directory is the most trafficked online business directory there, according…
EPrize Adds Games for SME Sites
EPrize, a Michigan-based promotions fulfillment company that typically works with the likes of Proctor & Gamble and others, is pushing hard to add its games and sweepstakes promotions to small-business Web sites. The "Caffeine" product can get users to register…