Hopstop, which provides public transit routing and schedules, plus walking directions, has brought in new leadership and expects to pursue rapid growth to 200 cities. It is currently in seven markets (or eight, if you count Long Island as a…
As noted in the above post, Urban Mapping continues to build out its neighborhoods and compete to license its neighborhood mapping API. It has 80,000 neighborhood maps developed. But it is also focusing on providing additional value with several features…
Maponics, a provider of polygonal neighborhood maps based on both GIS and sociological data, is launching a suite of services that match ZIP codes to the neighborhood boundary data it sells. The Norwich, Vermont-based company, which has around 30 staffers,…
There’s too much “noise” with SMB information, and no one knows which businesses have up-to-date and fully populated information. Many SMBs, for instance, will have two or more sets of profiles, featuring different types of information. Think, for instance, of…
Oodle has added Twitter to its outlets for social classified listings. Oodle’s other social media outlets include Facebook, MySpace and AOL. CEO Craig Donato says he hopes to apply the learnings to Twitter from its launches on the other sites.…
Providing price quotes to online auto shoppers (and the auto ecosystem of lead providers and OEMs) has been a tough business for third-party auto sites. It involves a lot of interaction with thousands of individual dealerships. But Cobalt’s Dealix has…
When it comes to lifelong memberships, people often confuse commercial entities, such as sports teams and rock bands, with nonprofits such as universities, the Sierra Club and other things that are worthy of presumptive annual support. Now we come to…
Among local mass media, newspapers are usually credited with taking the Web seriously before others like TV and radio stations did. With an earlier start, newspapers bore both pioneers' scars but also moved up the learning curve before broadcasters. But…
Out-of-home media -- initially billboards and electronic signs, but now extending to the flat screen TVs at gas stations, groceries, retailers, on elevators and buses, and in fast food restaurants -- is getting a big push. But many questions about…
Newspaper companies are so far down we don’t pretend to offer comprehensive fixes anymore. That’d be science fiction. But we do track the incremental investments that leverage their strengths and often prove to be strong profit centers in themselves. Last…
Tree.com has acquired the operating assets of Done Right, a service that provides guaranteed referrals for service professionals in at least 38 markets via dedicated phone lines. Referrals come from print directories (“the orange book”) and online sites, which are…
With many auto dealers closing their doors or cutting back on advertising, AutoTrader has announced that it has laid off a “modest percentage” of its field representatives to keep the company stable. In a video addressed to the AutoTrader community, …
Are small businesses really churning from search packages in droves surpassing 60 percent per year? That’s the contention of a recent report, and it has important implications (i.e., that the value-added reseller industry isn’t sustainable). To learn more, we talked…
Citysearch publishing head Kara Nortman reminded us today that Citysearch and IAC are set to do great things with the Sidewalk.com brand it acquired from Microsoft in 1999. In the best spirit of Web 2.0, the company has announced a…
Coinciding with its high showing in the Quantcast analysis, MerchantCircle today announced that it has added a local city coupon feed for Twitter. Merchant coupons will now be fed to city-specific Twitter feeds (i.e., @MCircleNY) so local consumers can find…
Figuring out who is on top of the heap in the online directory business is a complex task: On one hand, a "directory" category is kind of an oxymoron, given that so much of what is quantified is based on…
MojoPages, a 12-person local search/directory player based in the San Diego beach town of Solana Beach, has landed $5 million in Series A funding from Austin Ventures. Mojo has settled on $5 million as the amount it needs to get…
Kaesu, a provider of online services to free community papers, has received “more than $1 million” to jump-start its efforts. The strategic investment, from Media Space Solutions, is geared to open up community paper inventory around the U.S. for Media…
Niche publications serving specific demographics, like gays, seniors or Koreans, can make a lot of sense, whether they are online or in print. But not every niche is the same. Longtime YP executive Dick Larkin, the “Small Business Commando,” lays…
In an action that could have broad implications for the classifieds industry, Yahoo HotJobs has added a "Pay Per Candidate" model that guarantees recruiters aren’t paying for untouched “ghost” listings. Pay Per Candidate only charges recruiters when candidates view a…
