Idearc Media announced yesterday that it has named Briggs Ferguson president - Internet, replacing Eric Chandler, who departed in January to accept a position in another industry. Ferguson spent five years at IAC Citysearch. He left in March 2007, replaced by…
The Association of National Advertisers Directory Committee has used a very public method to challenge North American Yellow Pages publishers to do more on research and transparency. The committee issued an "open letter" today urging directory publishers to expand syndicated usage…
When I read the article in The Boston Globe today that yet again chronicles the woes of big city Yellow Pages directories (full disclosure alert: I was interviewed for the Boston Globe article but not quoted), several thoughts came to…
U.S. independent publisher Yellow Book announced a distribution and co-branding deal with Cox Communications in which Yellow Book directories in key Cox markets will carry Cox branding and information on Cox products and services in the front of book. The deal currently…
Since so many opinions these days seem to be based on anecdotal evidence, let me add another anecdote to the mix. I am sitting in a coffee shop near where I live doing e-mail and so on. In walks a…
U.K. directory publisher Yell has launched a new syndication product called netReach, which serves search contextually relevant results from Yell.com onto a network of syndication partners. The product is launching with a half-dozen partner sites, including the Manchester Evening News, Multimap…
I've taken a quick look at the R.H. Donnelley earnings release before the company's much-anticipated earnings call this morning. Here are a few quick highlights: The company posted ad sales of US$2,743 million, an increase of 0.4 percent. Net revenues…
Idearc has announced CEO John Mueller will resign after just eight days on the job, citing "unforeseen health reasons." Mueller, who was previously Idearc's chairman, had replaced Kathy Harless, who was removed following a sharp decline in the company's value.…
The Yellow Pages Association released new usage data showing that U.S. print directory usage was stable in 2007 at 13.4 billion print lookups, while online directory references climbed 15 percent, from 3.3 billion searches in 2006 to 3.8 billion in 2007.…
Sensis, Australia's largest directory publisher, recently released first-half results from its 2007-2008 financial year (ending June 30), which show solid growth of its print products. White Pages in particular grew 9.9 percent in the first half, an improvement over its 8.1…
Yellow Pages Group in Canada made another small step toward complete coverage of the Canadian directory market by acquiring the directory business from TBayTel, a leading telecommunications company in Thunder Bay and Northern Ontario. This means YPG will now be…
Idearc Media announced today that Kathy Harless has been replaced as CEO of the directory publisher by board chairman John Mueller, a former CEO of Cincinnati Bell Yellow Pages and Valor Communications. Harless' departure follows a substantial decline in the…
On the Yellow Pages Group (Canada) fourth-quarter earnings call today, CEO Marc Tellier was asked whether YPG had any interest in making acquisitions in the United States. The question was prompted by the steep sell-offs last week of Idearc Media, R.H.…
The sell-off of directory stocks that reached a crescendo yesterday is continuing today, with Idearc, R.H. Donnelley and Yell being hit the hardest. Each of the three has been downgraded by leading banks and has lost a substantial amount of its value.…
Thursday was a very rough day for publicly traded directory companies. With Idearc and Yell announcing results that show more weakness in print directories, the two companies' shares moved sharply downward. As of this writing Thursday afternoon, Idearc shares had lost…
Yellow Book USA announced a redesigned Yellowbook.com today that features a new clean and simple user interface and a map-based search featuring Microsoft's Virtual Earth. In addition to the enhanced mapping feature, the new site also includes some new navigation…
European Directory Assistance has launched a new English-language directory assistance site in Belgium called 14-14, which offers residential and business search, with the latter available by name and category. Part of the new service's positioning is that during business hours, consumers…
Yellowbook.com is gaining ground in the U.S. IYP arena. Online measurement firm comScore Networks issued a "year in review" press release this week in which it noted that Yellowbook.com was one of the top-gaining properties of 2007. In December 2007,…
AT&T Yellow Pages announced a new research strategy yesterday that includes a phase-out of its participation in the current industry syndicated usage program, though the publisher will continue to follow a syndicated methodology and make results available. AT&T will continue…
A new study in the United Kingdom, commissioned by welovelocal.com, a U.K.-based online local site competing against directory publishers, has found that 35 percent of British consumers no longer want to receive print directories, and choose the Internet to look…
