TKG Data and Analysis: A Weekly Recap

Here are the highlights from the TKG blog last week, in case you missed any posts. Click below to read each post in full.

EADP Conference: Thoughts on Pricing Strategy

Among the interesting sessions here at the European Association of Directory Publishers’ annual congress here in Athens, I thought I’d share a few takeaways from a presentation regarding pricing strategy. The speaker was Mark Billige of Simon-Kucher & Partners. The issue of pricing also came up in some subsequent presentations, in particular a talk given by Müller Medien CEO Michael Oschmann on creating efficiencies through sales force automation. (read more…)

Jivox Claims 600 Web Sites in Network

Earlier in the week, Jivox grew its publisher network where it distributes the self-serve videos that small-business advertisers create. Like a growing crop of local video producers, these are stock videos that are customized with text and logos. I just got off the phone with CEO Diaz Nesamoney, who claims the network now consists of more than 600 Web sites. This includes a number of radio, TV and newspaper sites (San Francisco Examiner, Denverpost.com, etc.) that promise locally relevant traffic. (read more…)

MySpace Kicks Off Self-Serve Advertising

Fox Interactive Media’s MySpace is seeking to jump-start local and small-business advertising by launching a homegrown Self-Serve Ad Service. Initial advertisers are likely to be rock bands — the first major segment to have adopted MySpace itself — but the service hopes to move up the food chain as time goes on. (read more…)

European Directories’ Riklin: ‘Our Business Is Lead Generation’

I’m here in Athens this week at the European Association of Directory Publishers’ annual congress. Nice line-up of speakers thus far, many of whom are echoing the themes that we heard emerge at The Kelsey Group’s DMS ’08 conference last week in Atlanta. European Directories CEO Cornel Riklin was one of the keynote speakers to open the event today. Among his key messages to the group of mostly European directory publishers and vendors was not to look at their businesses as just print or online, but instead to view them as focused on generating leads for their advertisers. (read more…)

Yahoo’s New Self-Serve Ad Platform: A Conversation With Warren Kay

Yahoo announced today from the ADWEEK conference that it will launch a new ad platform called APT. It is meant to be a one-stop shop for media buys across Yahoo’s growing sources of localized inventory. This includes its own network as well as that of the growing list of partners (782) in its newspaper consortium. Unlike Google’s more long-tail base of advertisers, Yahoo has appealed to more national brand advertisers and agencies with graphical display ads. But one barrier preventing their true understanding of the online local opportunity has been its complexity and fragmentation. APT is a move toward making this less daunting with a single point of entry to a wide swath of localized ad inventory. (read more…)

Web.com Partners With MerchantCircle

Web.com announced today that it will bundle its Web creation and hosting services with MerchantCircle’s online product suite for small and medium-sized businesses. This will include analytics and search engine optimization services for Web sites that SMBs create. This represents another move by MerchantCircle to beef up its SMB offerings. It seems to further the strategy that began with the company’s August launch of its own Web site development tool, although it’s unclear how today’s move affects that program. (read more…)

IYPs, National Advertisers Adopting MediaTraks’ One-Stop Ad Platform

Placing and managing national ads on different Internet Yellow Pages sites in different regions has been too difficult. It is one reason why more national advertising probably hasn’t flowed to local sites. But now Superpages.com, DexKnows.com and several other sites have embraced a one-stop local online marketplace developed by Miami-based MediaTraks. The platform acts as the sole intermediary between the IYPs and certified marketing reps and ad agencies handling national or regional accounts. In theory, the CMRs can, in fact, retire the Excel sheets and e-mails that have long been the norm for national orders. (read more…)

Hispanic Yellow Pages of America Ceases Operations

Hispanic Yellow Pages of America has ceased operations, according to a notice distributed on Monday via ELINC, a Yellow Pages Association’s electronic newsletter providing updates on the directory industry to the CMR community. Chicago-based  HYPA had grown primarily through acquisitions since its inception in 2004. According to The Kelsey Group’s Global Yellow Pages 2007 report, HYPA had 22 directory titles in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin with estimated revenues of US$2.7 million, and until recently it employed 100 people. (read more…)

Android Arrives in Style

After more than a year of speculation about a “GPhone,” the Google-powered G1 phone was unveiled today in New York. As we reported last month, this will be a T-Mobile phone (built by HTC), and it will be available to T-Mobile subscribers for $179 starting Oct. 22 (two-year contract). It features a touch screen that slides up to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard. It also has a 3-megapixel camera, on par with that of the iPhone, and it will bundle a suite of native Google applications, including Street View‘s first appearance on a mobile device. (read more…)

Comcast Teams With Mixpo in Push for Online Video

Comcast, the nation’s largest cable TV company, is set to upsell its vast body of video advertisers via a new deal with Mixpo, the Seattle-based venture-backed company dedicated to making video “actionable” across multiple platforms. For Mixpo, the deal represents its first foray into cable. It already has deals with several newspapers, including The Houston Chronicle and Freedom Newspapers. (read more…)