MSNBC.com, the Seattle-based entity co-owned by Microsoft and NBC, has acquired EveryBlock, Adrian Holovaty’s hyperlocal site. The price was apparently “several million dollars,” per reports. The six-person site, an outgrowth of Holovaty’s Chicagocrime.org, is a leading-edge example of “mapping journalism.” It maps…
Newspapers are down in the dumps. But they remain powerful forces in local. Accordingly, the search engines (Yahoo, Google and Microsoft) are now beginning to fight for partnerships with newspaper sales channels, which they see as one of the best…
One of the big questions in local has been how well ReachLocal is doing. The SMB online advertising consultant was reportedly valued at $305 million after an October 2007 investment round. While ReachLocal says that number is “inaccurate,” the company’s…
For years, Realtor.com has been widely predicted to fail, even with an audience that is more than twice the size of its next closest rival. Its technology has not been considered innovative, the quality of its customer service has been…
Yelp COO Geoff Donaker, subbing at the last minute for a “very ill” CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, told an SF Connect audience that Yelp’s base of 24 million + unique "Yelpers," 7 million reviews and “thousands” of advertisers represents a rich…
One of the big new ideas of the consumer resolutions during the past few years has been Redfin, a real estate service that provides consumers with comprehensive home buying tools and pays real estate professionals flat fees with bonuses based…
ERento, a Berlin-based e-commerce site for all types of local rentals, has recently expanded beyond the German-language countries to the U.K. and the U.S. The site has 9,800 rental firms signed up to use its commission-based leads program and processes…
Newspapers want to attract smaller local advertisers. To get there, they’ll need self-serve solutions. The accounts aren’t valuable enough to assign feet on the street. It would be helpful if they were simple and intuitive as well. That’s what AdReady,…
TargetSpot has announced that founder Doug Perlson has stepped down to launch a new venture. His replacement is Eyal Goldwerger, an online advertising and e-commerce veteran. TargetSpot, which is backed by Bain Capital, CBS Interactive and Union Square Ventures, aggregates…
Hyperlocal sites are well intentioned, and most have some kind of business plan. But they haven’t really focused much on making money. That’s where GrowthSpur, a new company, comes in. Launched by former Washington Post executive and BackFence founder Mark…
A year since IAC’s spin-off of several businesses, IAC Chairman Barry Diller, during a 2Q earnings call, saw some bright spots, including ServiceMagic, which saw a 5 percent jump in service requests. Diller also expressed optimism that the company had…
The Huffington Post has hired a staffer for a Denver site. The site, in the nation's 20th largest market, will be HuffPo's third local site when it launches in September. New York and Chicago are already up. Los Angeles is…
Women have become a prime target for service referrals. The appeal of Angie’s List's premium gated community is largely oriented around them. Now ServiceMagic is ramping it up. The IAC company, which recently launched an ambitious TV campaign, has announced…
The conventional wisdom is that alternative weeklies have their best days behind them. But that’s clearly not the position of Village Voice Media, which owns 15 titles reaching about one-quarter of the 7.6 million alt weekly readers in the U.S.…
ESPN, which revealed a plan this week to launch a series of local sports Web sites, may soon be contending with local CBS Sports sites as well. As reported by the Fang’s Bites blog, ESPN has registered at least 26…
AT&T Interactive today launched a beta version of YP.com, a Web site that won’t be heavily promoted but will add cutting-edge features to searches, such as expandable local maps in results, aggregated SMB content, and videos, coupons and other promotions.…
Yahoo is extending its local sales reach for its behavioral targeting-informed display ads, enlisting AT&T Interactive’s 5,000+ sales reps. They will begin selling the "APT" branded- display ads later this summer to local businesses in more than 300 categories, along…
EveryCarListed.com, a 25-person car portal quietly acquired by Idearc Media in February, has formally rolled out its new look and feel. It includes an unprecedented effort to provide videos of every car on the site. The site currently has 2…
The New York Times reports that ESPN, after a successful launch of its local sports Web site concept in Chicago, is adding three more markets: New York, Los Angeles and Dallas. The Dallas site launches this fall, while New York…
Lat49, which sells ads on online maps for more than 120 Web sites, including Topix.net, Trails.com and others, announced that it has raised $1.5 million in Series A financing. Participation was led by PenderFund Capital Management, with further participation from…
