We expected the recent court ruling on the Seattle opt out ordinance to have an impact beyond its immediate scope. And now it has. San Francisco Board of Supervisors President David Chiu introduced an ordinance Tuesday that would suspend the…
The Yellow Pages industry won a big victory yesterday when the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Seattle's tough opt-out ordinance in a unanimous decision. The court based its decision on the finding that print directories offer more…
The Asian Directory Publishers Association's annual conference next month in Thailand has assembled an impressive list of international industry leaders to take a hard look at the challenges of transformation directory organizations. ADPAI represents search and directory companies throughout Asia…
I am here in Boston having just finished giving a lunchtime talk on mobile commerce to the Outdoor Industry Association, gathered here for its annual Rendezvous conference, which has drawn more than 350 outdoor retailers and manufacturers. They are offering…
Constant Contact CEO and "Engagement Marketing" author Gail Goodman made a pretty direct pitch to those attending SMB Digital Marketing to partner with her company to build out a social contact management system, which she describes as the "rich social…
While SEO may still have a somewhat murky reputation (many still don't know what it is), the fact is SEO is now a big business that will only get bigger, and it drives very strong ROI for small businesses, with…
Well, another shoe has dropped in the U.S. directories market. This morning Dex One and SuperMedia announced plans to merge, creating an an entity called Dex Media with roughly $3.1 billion in revenue, based on 2011 results. Dex shareholders will…
This week we caught up with Yodle CEO Court Cunningham to talk about how his company uses data and technology to gain insights that help improve results and drive down customer acquisition costs. Cunningham will be a featured speaker at…
On last week's Q2 earnings call, local online marketing firm ReachLocal emphasized how its international expansion will fuel its growth. Plus the company offered a glimpse into its efforts to expand into smaller U.S. markets via telesales. ReachLocal has long been among the…
A study commissioned by YP Holdings (formerly AT&T interactive and AT&T Ad Solutions) has concluded that phone calls generated from listings distributed on YP.com and its Local Ad Network outperformed those sourced from Google Ad Words, as measured by cost…
In a move that is surprising a lot of people, Marissa Mayer, arguably the face of "local" at Google, will leave immediately to take the top job at online media company Yahoo. The appointment as Yahoo's new president & CEO,…
The website development firm vSplash is playing in a fertile field with its Buzzboard product, a tool that enables local media salespeople to use the quality of small business digital presence as a starting point for a sales conversation. The…
New Zealand's Yellow Pages Group had named current Managing Director Chris Armistead as its new CEO, replacing Scott Pomeroy, who held the job on an interim basis. Pomeroy, formerly CEO of Local Insight Media, will remain on the company's board…
Legendary venture capitalist Stewart Alsop of Alsop Louie Partners sat down with BIA/Kelsey analyst Matt Booth here at MLM SF to offer a glimpse into the fertile mind of a leading tech investor. Interestingly enough, one of the first things…
"Mobile is a big part of our business," said Mihir Shah, Groupon's VP-Mobile, in an interview this afternoon with BIA/Kelsey analyst Peter Krasilovsky at the Mobile Local Media event in San Francisco. Shah said that 30 percent of Groupon's transactions…
Here in San Francisco at BIA/Kelsey's Mobile Local Media conference, a panel of three young companies offered a glimpse into the leading edge of mobile shopping and loyalty marketing. Moderator Peter Krasilovsky walked each panelist through an examination of his…
Back in 2008, Trevor Nadeau went to the board of the company he was running, Yellow Medya, and told them that no one was buying the product they were selling, an online Yellow Pages directory. Nadeau had to come up…
So where should a European local media company place its bets when looking across the spectrum of opportunities in social media, mobile and local online commerce? BIA/Kelsey announced today that it has joined forces with the European Association of Search…
YP CEO David Krantz wanted to dispel a widely held notion when we spoke with him late last week about the company he now runs, newly acquired from AT&T by the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management. "This is not…
London-based Telnic is carving out an interesting role for itself as an online enabler of small businesses. Telnic is the organization that offers the .tel top level domain, which for GBP 14.95 per year provides a simple Web presence that…
