Prompted by my writeup of Google's new mobile pay-per-call program, I had the chance today to speak with the executive team at RingRevenue. The company provides a platform for partners to monetize incoming calls. It private labels the platform for…
One of the challenges of running conferences is keeping our analyst hats on and covering the world outside the venue walls. We're still catching up on notable media and tech news items from last week. But luckily there's a fair…
As my colleague Peter Krasilovsky notes below, eBay has rebranded its global classified company Kijiji as eBay Classifieds. Parallel with that announcement, the company has launched two new iPhone apps and some projections about the merchandise value it expects to…
More than a year after it became apparent that it would do so, eBay has finally killed the Kijiji brand in the U.S., and rebranded its efforts as "eBay Classifieds." The rebranding, which does not affect more established Kijiji-branded sites…
In the second “installment” of its quarterly report “State of Small Business Online Advertising, Search Edition," WebVisible reports that its SMB clients increased their online search spending to an average of $2,149 in Q4 2009, an increase of some 30…
Yellow Pages Group Canada announced it has reached an agreement to acquire Canpages for an estimated C$225 million. In addition, YPG has secured a deal with ZipLocal to essentially combine its U.S.-based Your Community Phone Book property with ZipLocal. "The…
The Berry Co., the SMB sales giant with 260,000 SMB clients, has partnered with Yodle for Web site creation and search engine marketing and optimization. The deal gives Yodle access to Berry’s 42-state reach and 885 print publications. Yodle, which…
One of the most talked about presentations at last week's Marketplaces 2010 conference was MojoPages CEO Jon Carder and his breakdown of game mechanics. Characterized by Carder as "the new black," game mechanics are behind the growth of lots of…
BIA/Kelsey’s Marketplaces 2010 conference has just ended after two-and-a-half days of fantastic presentations from 49 speakers; top-level research from our BIA/Kelsey team; and really great evening events from MojoPages and Acxiom/Moon Valley (we’re talking fire eaters and San Diego Bay…
One of the last sessions at Marketplaces 2010 focused on what local niche or media sites can do to better leverage opportunities to grow revenues. Sitting on the panel were Tony Lee of Adicio, Ken Kalb from Analog Analytics and…
Groupon is one of those "cool" companies that come along every now and again with a good idea, and a certain intangible vibe that captures the industry's imagination. This morning, the company's founder told the Groupon's story and answered questions…
Jordan Glazier, CEO of Eventful, mapped out the company's latest social, mobile and crowd sourcing efforts to the day-three audience here at Marketplaces 2010. The company currently has 15 million users through online, mobile and partner channels. At this scale,…
Serving mom-and-pop small businesses is a challenge in digital marketplaces. They want to be online, but they don't know where as there are no huge, recognizable brands. It's a challenge for them to know whom to work with in the…
Citsearch CEO Jay Herratti, speaking at BIA/Kelsey’s Marketplaces conference, debuted the company's new thinking and approach to how best to address the local online market. Herratti explains, “It has been increasingly difficult to reach consumers and advertisers at scale. This…
Urbanspoon, our pre-season pick for favored mobile loca app, has passed half a billion shakes (searches), according to CEO Jay Herratti during his keynote at Marketplaces 2010 today. This comes almost a year after Urbanspoon was bought by IAC and…
"People still underestimate what is happening," Loopt CEO Sam Altman said of developments in mobile local search. His big message was that mobile is becoming far more infused into consumer behavior than the desktop Internet ever was, with location awareness…
Content creators that seek to optimize millions of pieces of content for contextual vertical advertising were on full display at Marketplaces 2010 today in San Diego. Luke Beatty, founder and president of Associated Content, noted that his company was “the…
This panel, moderated by conference-meister Peter Krasilovsky, peered into the boiler rooms that power vertical search, with presentations by three leading players in the nuts and bolts of this space. David Kidder, Cofounder and CEO, Clickable, presented a solid vision…
"What’s missing from online markets that offline markets have?" Jim Delli Santi from AlikeList sees that online markets need to develop better relationships, utility, transparency and establish ROI. Word of mouth drives trade. Consumers want to find the right business…
ServiceMagic CEO Craig Smith started off his keynote address this morning stating that the current recession has been a good thing for the industry. His controversial point was that prior recessions have spawned innovation. "I think we'll see more innovation…
