In addition to a 22 percent year-over-year revenue decline, IAC announced during today's first-quarter earnings call that it will acquire Urbanspoon for an undisclosed amount. There are many possible synergies with IAC's Citysearch -- most notably mobile. Citysearch is…
Local/social/event planning site Center'd announced a redesign late yesterday, which will make the site more effective as a local search and discovery engine. This will be version 3.0 if you count the site's first iteration as FatDoor. The second version…
Best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell, the man behind top business tomes such as "The Tipping Point," "Blink" and now "Outliers," spoke today at the Yellow Pages Association conference in San Diego, suggesting that Yellow Pages publishers' advantage over Google and others…
Microsoft announced today that it's working with Spotzer to bring video production capability to small businesses in the Netherlands. This will be part of a broader product under Microsoft's advertising division that involves a self-service platform for SMBs to create…
National Yellow Pages advertisers appearing on a YPA conference panel moderated by The Kelsey Group’s Charles Laughlin reiterated the importance of Yellow Pages to their businesses. While they were open-minded about experimenting with new types of directional advertising, including Yelp,…
Arguing that local and state “opt-out” requirements for Yellow Pages delivery would cripple local businesses and force industry layoffs, the Yellow Pages Association has successfully fought and beat back opt-out requirements this year in some states, reports YPA President Neg…
Keynoting at the Yellow Pages Association Convention in San Diego today, R.H. Donnelley CEO Dave Swanson acknowledged “the worst local media environment this country has seen since the Great Depression.” But the YPA’s outgoing chairman also noted that “the will…
Clickable, a third-party online search manager, says local search packages are too heavily marked up, with too little emphasis on conversions. It is re-aiming to fix these problems with a “highly scalable” local solution for publishers and resellers. The "Clickable…
Here is a recap of posts from last week, in case you missed any. Click below to read each post in full. Dinan Takes Helm at Telmetrics Call measurement pioneer Telmetrics last week named Bill Dinan president. Dinan takes over from…
Call measurement pioneer Telmetrics last week named Bill Dinan president. Dinan takes over from Richard Zurawski, who will stay on the company's board and, in an unusual move, remain on the management team as CFO. I chatted with Dinan about…
Google announced yesterday that it has optimized Google Product Search for iPhones and Android. Google Product Search (manifestation of Froogle) allows users to compare products, prices and reviews. The move to mobile is a smart one, given increased use of…
Fresh from the annual convention of the National Association of Broadcasters, it is clear that local TV stations should continue to extend their advertising and programming on -- and for -- new media platforms, including the Internet, cable and mobile…
Cox’s AutoTrader.com, which reaches 15 million unique visitors per month, bills itself as the Google of auto search. For the most part, the visitors come from the URL, plus various affiliate relationships. But now it is reaching out to potential…
AT&T reported its first-quarter earnings this morning, and its Advertising Solutions unit, which includes the Yellow Pages business, recorded top-line revenues of US$1.3 billion, down 10.4 percent over Q1 2008. In its earnings briefing, the company attributed the double-digit revenue…
Neal Polachek and I are at AdTech today and tomorrow and noticing some love for local -- something traditionally missing from the mostly brand marketing-focused show. This mostly came in the form of a location-based advertising panel this afternoon. Local…
Citysearch’s strategy of winning wider distribution for its user reviews, editorial content and business profiles, “and living wherever consumers want to be” has becoming closer to reality as it has announced back-to-back partnerships with Idearc's Superpages.com and AT&T Interactive's Yellowpages.com.…
Next week I will be moderating a panel discussion at the Yellow Pages Association conference in San Diego featuring national companies that spend tens of millions annually on Yellow Pages advertising. The hour-long panel (Monday, April 27, 11:45 a.m.) was put together by…
American University’s J-Lab, which is funded by The Knight Foundation, has announced new grants for eight hyperlocal sites as part of its New Voices competition. All of the sites are focused on geographic communities, with many of them appearing to…
Steve Espinosa's budding Local Search News site has begun to produce podcasts. We're the guest on the second episode -- a discussion about mobile search and mobile technology in general. The podcast builds off our guest column on his site…
One of the disadvantages of being the "most respected analyst firm" is that other people (including otherwise knowledgeable pundits) are wont to misquote you, use your comments out of context, or simply draw erroneous conclusions. Although we were flattered to…
