The sell-off of directory stocks that reached a crescendo yesterday is continuing today, with Idearc, R.H. Donnelley and Yell being hit the hardest. Each of the three has been downgraded by leading banks and has lost a substantial amount of its value.…
Thursday was a very rough day for publicly traded directory companies. With Idearc and Yell announcing results that show more weakness in print directories, the two companies' shares moved sharply downward. As of this writing Thursday afternoon, Idearc shares had lost…
In what amounts to yet another vote of confidence for local merchant video producer TurnHere, the company has announced a $7.5 million cash infusion from Venrock and Hearst Interactive Media. It's also a vote of confidence for the red hot…
As a leading player in home verticals, IAC’s ServiceMagic is a company we watch with interest -- especially as IAC intends to split into five pieces. Arguably, it is the one company at IAC that really does straddle its home mortgage…
Following up on yesterday's post about the Google Maps/Twitter mashup, the Lost Remote blog points to an interesting mashup created by Spokane, Washington's Spokesman Review. In all the snow the area has received, it basically creates a micro-marketplace between snow…
MySpace has taken yet another step to follow some of the strategies proved successful by its newly legitimized (and recognized) source of competition, Facebook. The company has announced it will open up its network to outside developers to build a…
After writing about the cautious progress of publishers adopting Web 2.0 tools and approaches, I came across the introduction of a "wiki" approach to directories recently launched in the U.K. called Brownbook. Officially launched this week, Brownbook describes itself as…
Apple has announced the latest upgrade to the iPhone line -- a new 16-gigabyte model. The new model will retail at $499 and join the 8-gigabyte model ($399). In total, this is the third iteration of the device (counting the…
There are lots of places to get your Super Tuesday coverage today. Some interesting online mashups I've found include The Washington Post's and Newsweek's streaming live coverage and MTV's network of "Choose or Lose" reporters who are live blogging and…
Merchant Circle has been sending out a survey on online marketing to its list of 350,000 registrants (what else could we call them? "Members"?). The six-question survey has some good Qs, and I'll look forward to the results to four…
Yellow Book USA announced a redesigned Yellowbook.com today that features a new clean and simple user interface and a map-based search featuring Microsoft's Virtual Earth. In addition to the enhanced mapping feature, the new site also includes some new navigation…
Amid all the noise about Microsoft and Yahoo!, one of the unanswered questions has to do with MS’ intent toward the recruitment business -- a business that actually has some relationship with Microsoft’s core enterprise solutions (as opposed to its less…
Here are some highlights from the TKG blog over the past week, in case you missed any posts. Click below to read each post in full. Review: Yellowpages.com on U-verse TV I'm a happy subscriber to AT&T's U-verse IPTV service,…
Local Insight Regatta Holdings and AT&T announced the acquisition of L.M. Berry's Independent Line of Business unit. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. According to the press release: The transaction will combine two industry-leading organizations responsible for selling, producing…
I'm a happy subscriber to AT&T's U-verse IPTV service, and I noticed in the monthly program guide that AT&T's Yellowpages.com is now available on Channel 97. So I "rented" it ... a process that required a one-time-only download of graphics,…
David Drummond, senior vice president, corporate development, and chief legal officer, responds to Microsoft's acquisition of Yahoo!. In part: "... Microsoft's hostile bid for Yahoo! raises troubling questions. This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking…
Today’s big news is Microsoft's unsolicited takeover bid for Yahoo!. The $44.6 billion bid represents a 62 percent premium on Yahoo!'s closing stock price yesterday, which was affected by Yahoo!’s depressing earnings announcement, in which Yahoo! said it would lay…
European Directory Assistance has launched a new English-language directory assistance site in Belgium called 14-14, which offers residential and business search, with the latter available by name and category. Part of the new service's positioning is that during business hours, consumers…
Yellowbook.com is gaining ground in the U.S. IYP arena. Online measurement firm comScore Networks issued a "year in review" press release this week in which it noted that Yellowbook.com was one of the top-gaining properties of 2007. In December 2007,…
