TKG Data and Analysis: A Weekly Recap

Below is a sampling of posts from the TKG blog, in case you missed any posts this week. Click below to read each post in full.

More Web 2.0 Ideas for Local Search Sites
OK, so I’m on a Web 2.0 kick. I guess I’ve made it my New Year’s resolution to get more publishers and local search companies thinking about the broader meaning and business opportunities Web 2.0 presents beyond consumer reviews and online video. (read more…)

Larry and Sergey Go to Washington
The New Yorker this week has an interesting piece by the prolific Ken Auletta about Google’s growing efforts to fend off attacks from anti-corporate lobbyist groups and legislators (some of whom see the Internet as a “series of tubes“). (read more…)

A Christmas Story: ‘Three Yellow Pages Advertisers’
The recent hubbub over our “prediction” regarding print media usage — see my earlier blog — has created an exaggerated picture of the perils facing print Yellow Pages. While it is true print YP has some serious challenges, we often forget how well it still works for so many local businesses. Three recent personal experiences drove this point home to me. (read more…)

Out of Home Ramping Up
American Public Media’s Marketplace ran an interesting piece yesterday about the launch of NBC Everywhere, NBC’s foray into the expansive and growing out-of-home media market. According to the piece, there are some 500,000 out-of-home display monitors delivering content and advertising into the aisles of large retailers, the seats of movie theaters and the gas pumps at gas stations. The piece points out that this out-of-home market might reach $2.5B by 2010. (read more…)

What the Heck Is Web 2.0?; Tech Heavyweights Debate
A few weeks ago, my colleague Michael Taylor sent me a link to a webcast of a panel discussion from last year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. I finally got the chance to watch the session titled The Impact of Web 2.0 and Emerging Social Network Models, and wanted to extend the recommendation to readers of this blog. (read more…)

Yellow Pages Group the Latest to Marry Video and IYP
Canada’s Yellow Pages Group announced today that it will launch enhanced business profiles on Yellowpages.ca this spring, offering video ads and photo galleries. This joins U.S. IYPs Yellowpages.com, Yellowbook, Superpages and a growing set of local search sites that will offer video ads to small businesses. (read more…)

Grayboxx Grows Footprint, and a Personality
Local search and automated rating site Grayboxx announced a series of upgrades today, meant to enhance and expand the site as well as infuse some personal flavor (read: trust) to its core rating features. (read more…)

Linkedin as New Age Yellow Pages
Linkedin is a powerful and growing business network that recently reported topping the 17 million-member mark, making it one of the world’s largest business networks on the Internet. With a large base of business-focused members, finding ways to share vendors and service providers seems like a natural extension with the possibility of enhancing its revenue generation and profitability. (read more…)

Rural Verticals: The Shift of Small-Town Auction Advertising
Small-town newspapers and radio stations sometimes get into businesses that media companies in larger markets rarely do. They publish directories, develop Web sites, provide Internet access — you name it. (read more…)

Android Prototype Sightings at CES
The first devices that run Google’s much-anticipated Android mobile operating system made a few appearances last week at CES. Android along with the iPhone will erode the carrier control that has stifled innovation in the mobile world thus far. Now the adoption of open and standardized platforms (both Android and the iPhone’s SDK, which will be released next month) will open the floodgates of innovation and make it easy for third-party application developers to bring their apps to market. (read more…)