TKG Data and Analysis: A Conference Week Recap

Last week, DMS dominated our blog coverage, with lots of takeaways from the show. Here is a sampling of posts, in case you missed any.

Future Search: Where Will We Be in Five Years?

DMS ’08 concluded with a “big thinker” panel and a format that batted around questions in the form of “in five years … ” The panel was more forthright than usual for a composition of public companies (half the panel). It was a reality check on real issues that will face local search and Yellow Pages in the foreseeable future. (read more…)

DMS ’08: V-Enable – The Potential for Mobile Voice Search

Local voice search advertising is already getting promising results, with widespread reach, and high clickthrough rates, according to V-Enable CMO Craig Hagopian, who was speaking at DMS ’08. V-Enable is a San Diego-based mobile voice search company with 65 employees. It partners with Superpages.com, Yellowbook, and AT&T’s Ingenio and Yellowpages.com. (read more…)

IYPs Should Morph Into Consumer-Focused Sites

The “Deconstructing Internet Yellow Pages” panel at DMS ’08 revealed a number of areas in which IYPs need to evolve. Based on Kelsey’s IYP research, conference chair and TKG Program Director Charles Laughlin said, “IYPs appear too conservative and unwilling to do what it takes to win in the local search space.” (read more…)

DMS ’08 Keynote: Idearc’s Briggs Ferguson

Former Citysearch President Briggs Ferguson, who took the helm at Idearc Internet and its Superpages.com flagship about five months ago, said there is tremendous potential for the Yellow Pages industry. Speaking at DMS ’08 in Atlanta, he opined that “it should be much bigger than it is today. At the very least, we get past it as an $8 billion industry. We should see $10 billion online alone. [The whole industry should pull in] the $20 [billion to] $25 billion range.” (read more…)

Vertical Without Vertigo

Disney’s vertical engineering legerdemain is less ambitious than that of the diverse “vertical” providers who spoke at the “Building Online Vertical Experiences” panel this afternoon at Directional Media Strategies 2008. Wrangled by Peter Krasilovsky, the panel included Tom Bates, VP and GM of Cox’s Kudzu; John Busby, director of product management of Marchex; and Joel Toledano, CEO of Krillion. (read more…)

Transparency Key to Selling in a Down Economy

Three Yellow Pages organization represented on a panel this afternoon at Directional Media Strategies 2008 agreed that more transparency and investment in the product, particularly in the form of advertising, were keys to managing through time economic times. (read more…)

Directory Assistance: Moving Beyond 411

Voice search has been put on the map over the past few years with the advent of free directory assistance service providers, not to mention Google (Goog411) and Microsoft (Tellme) entering the space. These services are increasingly educating the U.S. mobile market that there is a better alternative to paying $2 for a carrier-delivered DA call. (read more…)

DMS Panelists: Print Still Works

A group of print Yellow Pages executives speaking at Directional Media Strategies 2008 challenged the notion that print usage and revenue growth are no longer realistic objectives. Jo Lynne Whiting of Sensis in Australia and Mike Brugman of Local Insight Media gave presentations that made similar points — print is still used, and there is still an opportunity to grow usage and revenue through a combination of innovation and execution. (read more…)

More on Spotzer: A Conversation With Andy Klein

Spotzer’s deal will most notably bring ready-made video ads to MerchantCircle’s base of 600,000 listings (about 7,000 are currently paid advertisers). Prepopulated videos will include simple business information that is overlayed on stock video and images. This info is scraped and automatically added to videos, which are presented on MerchantCircle listings for business owners to show up and claim (prompted by telesales). (read more…)

DMS ’08 Keynote: AT&T A&P President Frank Jules

President and CEO Frank Jules, who has held the top slot at AT&T Advertising & Publishing for a year, laid out a prescription for Yellow Pages growth during a keynote at Kelsey’s Directional Media Strategies conference in Atlanta, noting at the top that his business is “changing dramatically.” Jules’ prescription is heavily dependent on the success of AT&T’s efforts on the Internet, which is growing at a clip of 40 percent per year, and social network models. (read more…)

DMS ’08: Taking It to the Street

The theme of actively evolving local ad sales forces, touched upon by Charles Laughlin this morning, continued at DMS in a session titled “From Perception to Performance: The Sales Channel Revolution.” (read more…)

DMS ’08: Predictions for the Next Few Days and the Next Few Years

To kick off DMS, Charles Laughlin, Kelsey Group program director and conference chair, presented a general state of the industry and the main issues it faces. First and foremost on this list is a general move toward evolving the local ad sales bundle and adding more ROI-based products. The expectations in the market and the conditioning of users and advertisers by Google, has pushed the industry in this direction as an opportunity and a necessity. (read more…)