OpenTable, the online restaurant reservation service, has filed an S1 with the SEC to raise $40 million. The company, founded in 1998 by former Citysearch President Thomas Layton, was launched as Easyseats.com. It currently has contracts with 10,000 restaurants in all 50…
Gary Campbell is among the directory publishing executives with the most experience in building a performance-based ad model in the print product. He is now hoping to leverage that experience in a new venture called Cost Per Call Solutions. The…
Expanding on the bit about text messaging in my previous post, a panel discussion at i2G likewise expanded on the topic. The idea is that despite its lack of sex appeal (compared with other things happening in the mobile world),…
(The View From the 46th Floor) The bad market for real estate has put a crimp in a lot of real estate marketing (except perhaps for foreclosure sites like Zetabids). The New York Times, on Sunday, found that many real…
I'm at Opus Research's one-day Internet2Go show in San Francisco where there have been lots of good case studies and concrete talk about mobile marketing. Lots of it is local, but there is a fair mix of agency and brand…
IAC’s ServiceMagic, a leader in delivering leads to services, has purchased Bethesda,MD- based Market Hardware, which provides websites and search engine optimization for 2,500 SMBs. Market Hardware, which has 30 people, targets “high online spend verticals” that closely mirror ServiceMagic’s…
Buzz monitoring has gotten increased attention lately as something that partly falls under the category of online reputation management. BuzzGain is a new company that targets individuals or SMBs with the ability to track this buzz -- i.e., where the…
The iPhone app store now has 15,000 apps available. So what’s No. 8 (among the free utilities)? RepairPal, an auto site that uses the GPS capabilities of the iPhone to deliver repair auto estimates, a comprehensive repair shop directory and…
Our Marketplaces 2009 conference in L.A. is just around the corner (March 16-18). Some great additions have just been announced: Active Network CEO Dave Alberga (our fourth keynote); Yahoo Local leader Atif Rafiq; and all the ins and outs of…
Video creation platform provider Mixpo today announced partnerships with five local media organizations: NBC Local Media, Tribune, Freedom Communications, TownNews.com and Fisher Communications. The deal will equip each new partner with Mixpo's VideoAd platform, which will let advertisers create and…
The Search Engine Strategies conference series has set up a YouTube channel filled with short interviews that are done before and after sessions. They're typically good snack-sized videos that can give you a general sense of some of the biggest…
Our post on the latest WebVisible/Nielsen survey data got lots of interest and requests for copies of the report. For anyone who's interested, WebVisible will hold a free webinar in partnership with SEMPO to talk through some of the findings.…
I’m at the OMMA Social conference put on by MediaPost. It’s mostly attended by ad agencies looking to learn more about engaging users through social networking and blogging -- something they’ve probably achieved a C+ for as an industry. Some…
AdReady, the Seattle-based media placement firm and builder of display ad templates for SMBs, has long been on our list of “most interesting” local services. And that was before it signed white-label deals with The New York Times, Boston Globe…
FixR, a seven-person Boston-area site that bills itself as an “eBay for local services,” has launched. Developed with private funds, the site provides free listings for services and free bids for consumers, but expects to charge a “success” fee when…
Here is a recap of posts from last week, in case you missed any. Click below to read each post in full. Online Video Ads Just Got a Lot More Interesting The name of the game in online video is integrating…
ComScore released new data today showing that the global Internet population has reached 1 billion. Asia Pacific accounts for the highest regional share of users (41.3 percent), followed by Europe (28 percent), North America (18.4 percent), Latin America (7.4 percent),…
The name of the game in online video is integrating ads in ways that are unobtrusive and contextually relevant. These are simply rules we have to live by, as standards have been set for all online media -- even before…
Following the recent post on MIT coursework devoted to building mobile apps, TechCrunch reports that Stanford is doing something similar with iPhone apps. A number of the applications are approved and some are awaiting iTunes approval. They're all fairly useful…
The New York Times covers a new daily news provider called The Printed Blog that's building a new model based on what it hopes to be the best of online and offline distribution. As its name implies, this will involve…
