The global directories company Yell Group, which is fighting a rapidly declining core business as it shifts to new digital products, has announced it will be changing its name to Hibu, pending the approval of its shareholders in July. The…
Last week BIA/Kelsey attended the EASDP congress in Brussels, a two-day event focused on the emerging social local mobile ecosystem, and how directory publishers might fit into this new landscape. The association, which represents both B2B and B2C publishers in…
AT&T has finalized the sale of 53 percent of its Yellow Pages operation to the private equity firm Cerberus Capital, which has launched YP Holdings LLC. The new company will be led by newly appointed CEO David Krantz, who had…
AT&T has sold a 53 percent stake in its Yellow Pages business to the private equity firm Cerberus Capital for $950 million. This works out to a valuation of $1.8 billion. The deal involves both the Advertising Solutions and AT&T…
The staff of Italy's leading directory publisher, Seat Pagine Gialle, is in a state of shock following the sudden death last week of its popular CEO, who is credited with saving the company from collapse. Alberto Cappellini died March 25 from…
The biggest boom in local is actually national. With geotargeting options, better metrics and better creative national brands and agencies are increasingly going the local route. GroupM research shows that 83 percent of brand advertisers expect their local online spending…
Two leading digital executives from the Boston Globe shared some of the innovative ways the newspaper is using social media to connect with Boston consumers and extend the newspaper's relevance in the community. Lisa DeSisto, chief advertising officer/GM of Boston.com,…
American Express executive Leslie Berland described how the company is using its unique relationship with merchants to help national brands and local small business leverage social media. Berland delivered the opening keynote address here at ILM East in Boston. "We…
BIA/Kelsey's top analysts kicked off this week's ILM East conference in Boston with some data-supported insights into their respective coverage areas. Some examples: * Social Local Media program director Jed Williams walked the audience through his recent detailed assessment of Facebook's…
"We aren't [as a culture] wired for long-term investment, and SEO is long term. We'd rather take a statin drug than use diet and exercise to stay healthy." That's how Search Influence CEO Will Scott described the SEO dilemma. It's…
Last week, BIA/Kelsey issued its annual U.S. Local Media Forecast, which included our five-year view on Yellow Pages revenues. The bottom line is U.S. Yellow Pages revenues will be about $7 billion in five years. Roughly 60 percent of those…
Thomsonlocal.com, the U.K. local print and online directories company owned by Italy's Seat PG, has changed CEOs. Effective April 1, Elio Schiavo will move over to run Seat's Telegate (directory assistance) operation full time. Schiavo has recently been dividing his…
The Australian telecom Telstra announced yesterday that Bruce Akhurst, CEO of its Sensis directories unit, has resigned. Akhurst had once been seen as a rising start at Telstra, but his failure to complete the transformation of Sensis from a traditional…
Bloomberg News is reporting today that AT&T is close to a deal to sell a majority stake in its Yellow Pages operation (AT&T Advertising Solutions, the world's largest directory company, in a deal that prices the business at US$1.5 billion.…
The Local Search Association and BIA/Kelsey have assembled an agenda for this year's Search Starts Here conference (April 21-24 in Boca Raton) that focuses heavily on industry transformation. The agenda features 17 sessions with more than 20 speakers representing 17…
The French directory company PagesJaunes Groupe reported 2011 revenues of 1.1 billion euros today, with 575 million euros from digital sources. That's 52.2 percent of total revenues. The company, which has a dominant position in directories in France, posted a…
The agenda is shaping up well for the Local Search Association's April conference, the first involving a partnership with BIA/Kelsey. The event runs April 21-24 at the Boca Resort in Boca Raton, FL. We've lined up headline presentation from Ursula…
On Thursday's Q4 and full-year 2011 earnings call, Eniro announced that it will phase out its print Gula Sider (Yellow Pages) directory in Norway, leaving only local directories as a print product choice in the Nordic country with a population…
On yesterday's AT&T earnings call, CEO Randall Stephenson opened the door to the possibility that the telecom giant would sell off its directories business. Here is what Stephenson said on yesterday's earnings call: "That's one area that we're going to…
U.S. directory and local search player The Berry Co. has scooped up defunct search marketing firm WebVisible's Geneva platform from a liquidator in the wake of that company's collapse. "This acquisition will dramatically enhance our presence and capabilities in the…
