The Wall Street Journal ran a piece today (sub req.) on a few video ad technologies that are being developed. These are mostly geared toward national advertisers and branding, but there are important implications here for local. In the ongoing…
Outside.in, the place-blogging site that collects everything that appears on the Web in a geographical context blogs, traditional media, individual contributions has won $900,000 of funding from a number of high-profile investors, including Esther Dyson, Marc Andresson, John…
My sources got it right and IAC's Citysearch is the company that ended up with Insider Pages. Dinesh Moorjani, Citysearch's new VP of strategy and corporate development, says that Citysearch will incorporate Insider's 600,000 reviews from 30 markets into its…
In a recent news release, B2BYellowPages.com, Syosset, NY, announced it would begin offering free business listings on its site. B2BYellowPages.com is a vertical site focused solely on the business-to-business marketplace with ownership of additional vertical sites (b2bAutos.com, b2bCosmetics.com, b2bTravel.com, etc.).…
A lot of discussion has taken place as to why the Yellow Pages industry has sat on the sidelines as the Web 2.0 world of social media, online video and greater consumer interaction has advanced in other media. Now enter…
AT&T's rollout of its U-verse high-speed data, voice and IPTV bundle has served as a reality check to the ongoing discussion of IPTV and bundled services. Today it added two additional markets in Milwaukee and Racine, Wisconsin. AT&T continues its…
Google announced it has integrated real-time traffic reports on Google Maps. Yahoo! has had traffic reports since late 2004, and Microsoft rolled out a traffic feature (care of Traffic.com) in the May 2006 relaunch of Windows Live Local. Maps, like…
AT&T Advertising & Publishing, the new directory organization arising from the combination of AT&T and BellSouth, is beginning to establish a new identity. The company announced this week that it would adopt "the AT&T Real Yellow Pages" as its new…
Bambi Francisco wrote a column today weighing in on the notion of online video ads for local merchants. She recalls the launch, seven years ago, of VYP.com, a site devoted to video ads for plumbers, carpet cleaners and the like.…
It's really the year of video on the Net, and local video plays a big role in that (and we're talking about more than the big rats that were filmed running amok at the TacoBell/KFC in Greenwich Village). At our…
vFlyer today announced a new line of "widgets" that companies and individuals can use to display products on their Web sites or blogs. Previously, vFlyer's main product was a multimedia-rich "virtual flier" that let anyone create a professional looking classified…
Sebastien Provencher points out an interesting new development found on the Skype Blog. The newest version of Skype allows users to search for local businesses and call them at the click of a mouse. This is a great add-on to…
BT has just launched a free click-to call feature from eStara on its "Tradespace" local listing product. More details from the BT Blog.
Hearst Interactive Media has bought into local search in a big way by loaning $8 million in a debenture to Local.com. The amount would translate into roughly 20 percent of the publicly traded company if Hearst converts the debenture notes…
TechCrunch published a report today that Insider Pages, the review site that has been actively shopped for some time, may have found a buyer for more than the $8.5 million it raised last March from Sequoia and Softbank Capital. I…
MerchantCircle may be best known as the bad boy of telemarketing for a negative marketing scheme that went awry last fall. But the eight-person Rustic Canyon start-up promises it has mended its ways and points to a growing base of…
Fresh off its partnership with Nokia, which we wrote about here and in this week's Local Media Journal, AdStar has partnered with classified aggregator Edgeio. Edgeio will use AdStar's software to offer print advertising upsells (on behalf of newspapers) to…
The Los Angeles Times, a great newspaper that has been widely derided for its ineffectual Web site, hopes to turn the site around by bringing in Meredith Artley as its executive editor. Artley previously served as the Web site director…
Tellme Networks announced today that it will expand its mobile voice platform to allow mobile search application developers to build products that integrate voice and visual search. In essence this brings together the ease of speaking and of seeing results…
Kate Kaye at ClickZ has an interesting story on newspaper publishers and local television stations that are sending their salespeople away to learn more about interactive advertising. As the media world in general moves toward many different advertising platforms (Web,…
