There's been lots of speculation around Apple's moves into local search and advertising over the past year. This has accelerated in the past 30 days with the acquisition of three different local mapping-related companies (and a failed Waze acquisition). We've…
Mobile local advertising's promise -- besides hyper-targeted ad placement -- has always been clearer ROI (enter John Wanamaker quote). This has taken form in "beyond-the-click" activity like call tracking and mapping/navigation. Location based data provider Placed has just taken this…
On this week's episode of BIA/Kelsey's new analyst round table series, we tackle the M&A activity that seems to be picking up all over the local media space. This is everything from Apple's recent mapping acquisitions to Yelp's moves in…
Yelp took a big step today that it had previously avoided for years: allowing mobile users to write reviews directly from their mobile devices. Recently tested through a selection of elite Yelp users, the feature is available starting today to…
Tech world chatter over the past few weeks (including ours) zeroed in on Apple's back-to-back mapping acquisitions, what they mean, and who's next? After learning that mapping is a game won on data, Apple is buying it's way out of…
At our March Leading in Local conference, one session that everyone went home talking about was the keynote presentation from David S. Kidder. Serial Entrepreneur, angel investor and author of The Startup Playbook, he gave a stirring address on the…
Continuing our charge down the multimedia path, the latest initiative is video round table sessions among BIA/Kelsey analysts. The idea is to capture a topical discussion and unpack the market events that have the most impact on our local media…
During BIA/Kelsey's March Leading in Local conference, Swipely CEO Angus Davis opened our eyes to an innovative concept in the famously challenged local media/ad sales game. Selling operational tools to SMBs can be a lesser path of resistance than advertising…
As mentioned earlier this week, we're doubling down on video. And there's no richer source of tidbits and sound bites than a BIA/Kelsey conference. The latest is from our recent Leading in Local conference in Boston: a fireside chat with…
A few months ago, we wrote about ByteLight, a Cambridge MA indoor positioning startup that's pioneering the area of in-store lighting to communicate data to smartphones. It's a novel take on retail customer engagement that goes beyond what others have…
As part of our overall effort to analyze the fast moving local media space, we're experimenting with new formats like infographics and video. One of those projects is an executive interview series to highlight recent areas of coverage and top…
As Peter Krasilovsky posted this week, Apple made two acquisitions last week to advance its position in mapping and navigation. Locationary standardizes local business listings and HopStop -- a company we've been talking to for years -- specializes in navigation…
Foursquare just announced that it will now offer its Promoted Updates and Promoted Specials to a wider swath of SMBs. When we first covered the unveiling of these ad units (exactly one year ago), it was available to a list of…
Late last week I had the chance to talk to Telmetrics president and newly minted LSA chairman Bill Dinan about the newest installment of the influential Path to Purchase (PtoP) series. This one zeroes in on the travel vertical and specifically…
BIA/Kelsey has just released Media Ad View Plus. For those unfamiliar, it builds on our forecast data (example) among other sources, to calculate local media ad spending by category across U.S. ad markets. The starting point is the $132.5 billion…
Last month I presented to the International Franchise Association "Fran Camp" conference in Atlanta. To capture and prepare for the presentation, I recorded some of the slides and audio which you can see in the video embedded below. The point…
After lots of rumors, and a weekend article from the Israeli based Globes.co.il, Google has announced it acquired mobile navigation company Waze. This comes after a rumored Facebook acquisition (see our writeup), the drivers of which apply here in lots…
In the run up to WWDC, we're hearing the standard chorus of rumors about what Apple will unveil. These include iOS7, new OSX, and iRadio. For the latter, Apple just signed Sony Music to round out its licensing deals with…
Yesterday, I had the chance to talk to Zubair Talib, CEO and CoFounder of YaSabe, about the company's efforts to reach the opportune U.S. Hispanic marketplace. The opportunity comes to the tune of 52 million people and $1.2 trillion in…
Verve Mobile this week released its second "State of the Market" report containing the activity seen on its ad network. In this case it focused on the Quick Serve Restaurant (QSR) category -- a leading area of search and user activity…
