The economy is showing signs of strength outside of the weak employment gains. Consumers are spending and advertisers are taking notice. To attract these new purchases, advertisers are spending more in many different local media. And given that the outlook…
Our first official week of Social Local blogging is just about under our belt. So let's wrap it up with some of the more interesting posts we came across: First on the blog I started out the week with my…
By now, you've probably heard the big but unsurprising news that Nokia has partnered with Microsoft to power its smartphones. I say unsurprising because of Nokia's slipping market share, need to get over Symbian (and MeeGo), recent "burning platform" memo, and…
In the realm of mobile analyst geekdom, Christmas comes every time Mary Meeker shows up somewhere with her now infamous data dumps (last one here). The latest was today's presentation to Google's ThinkMobile conference -- one of her first appearances…
The "getting social" challenges for local businesses are simple to understand, yet hard to address: taxed time, strained resources, lack of platform awareness, tactical needs, fuzzy measurement tools and more. Postling doesn't propose to solve all of them, but it…
Google just launched Google Weddings. While it's possible this is just a 20 percent timer side-project, it's also possible this is a component of a Social/Local strategy. I am sure my fellow BIA/Kelsey-ites will be weighing in on this, but some…
Last week we wrote about Foursquare's new trial to promote a nationwide venue for its users to check in to. What better way to get it going than Suber Bowl XLV? Now the fix is in: Besides a few overwhelmed…
I just heard from the good folks at Yelp that they'll integrate OpenTable reservations on Phone, iPad and Android apps. The free app update is already live in iTunes and Android Market. This extends each company's logical tie-ins (already present…
BuzzLabs, a Seattle-based rep management service initially funded by CityGrid Media, has rolled out a new self-serve tier for SMBs. CEO Phillip Lee told us that the year-old, six-person company has been mainly working with large restaurant chains. But it…
Q&A sites like Answers.com, Yahoo Answers and ChaCha have been around for a while. They generate huge amounts of traffic because they create millions of pages that target common (and not-so-common) search queries like "how tall is justin beiber?" And…
Canada's Yellow Pages Group has formed a deal with Marchex to power click-to-call links throughout the Web. That last part is important -- this isn't click-to-call on YPG properties, but active wherever its advertisers' numbers show up online. This results…
Tomorrow BIA/Kelsey will publish a report on the exploding area of mobile payments. One of our biggest 2011 predictions was how emerging standards in this area will accelerate innovation across the industry. This will not only apply to obvious areas…
There are gobs of research supporting social media's evolution into a mainstream marketing vehicle for businesses of all sizes. BIA/Kelsey's Local Commerce Monitor Wave 14, for example, found that 48 percent of SMBs already operate a Facebook page. However, there's…
On the heels of record revenues for Q4, AT&T Interactive today launched a new version of its flagship YP Mobile app for iPhone. David Williams, ATTi VP of mobile products, tells me the new app is a complete redesign from…
According to the Australian media news site mUmBRELLA, Sensis has soft-launched a daily deals product called Yellow Pages Offers that is currently live in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. There has been no formal launch, but the site has reportedly been…
The program for ILM East, March 21-23 in Boston, is now mostly set, with a lot of action-packed sessions and speakers that represent the state of the art -- and also the fast, fast, fast evolution of local from even…
Last week I attended Opus Research's Conversational Commerce Conference (a.k.a. "C3). The focus of the discussion was mostly on social media and its impact on marketing and customer care, at both the local and national brand levels. While there is…
AOL will buy The Huffington Post for $300 million in cash and $15 million in stock, and put Arianna Huffington in charge of the AOL Local sites (MapQuest, Patch, MovieFone) as well as its growing collection of opinionated tech and…
Foursquare is trialling a new nationally featured place to check in to: Super Bowl XLV. "Super Bowl Sunday" will be available in the trending now section on Foursquare's mobile apps. If you check in and shout which team you're rooting…
From the Friday humor department, here's some good circa-1994 morning show banter about the Interweb. Though mainstream tech awareness has come a long way since then, the dialogue actually isn't that far off from my mom asking me more recently what…
