Tellme Networks hasn't exactly lived up to its 1999 vision of becoming the "Yahoo! of voice portals." Using the portal has been a clunky experience, and ad revenues have never really developed. But Tellme has stuck it out by providing…
FAST put on its own kind of MacWorld this week in San Diego, evangelizing the way to its "enterprise search" solutions for every kind of customer, including major local players such as MediaNews Group, The Washington Post, InfoSpace, Scandinavian publishing…
In the wake of the hard knocks reported by community journalism sites such as Backfence, and social review sites such as Judy's Book and Insider Pages, it seems to be a good time to reassess the category, starting with a…
There is no better guide to how to avoid the potholes in hyper-local than Judy's Book cofounder Andy Sack, who has been writing a series of "don't do this at home" posts about Judy's Book's failed efforts building an online…
Even as Yahoo! pushes hard to fully partner with newspapers online, Google has taken a different tack, offering to sell advertising for newspapers in print. The Google Print Ads program began in June 2005 with magazines to decidedly mixed…
The decline of their ad share with retailers has newspapers worried to death. But several execs speaking at the NAA Marketing Conference last week in Las Vegas said they can bring retailers back into the fold with special vertical sites.…
Krillion, a start-up with deep pockets from Hummer Winblad, launched the first iteration of its "localized search engine" today. The highly attractive, ad-supported service is kicking off with a dedicated appliance search. The next wave of localized searches will include…
Newspaper sites have done a lot of window dressing with "hyper-local" by adding neighborhood blogs and whatnot. But now some papers are challenging themselves to embrace hyper-local in all things, as they seek to tame Google and Yahoo! in search,…
Fox Interactive Media, the home of MySpace, Fox Sports, Fox News and other sites, definitely has local on its agenda and is rolling out several new features to bring users more in touch with their communities, says Dan Strauss, VP…
When Freedom Communications recruited Michael Mathieu, the monetization leader from United Online (Classmates.com, NetZero, etc.), it was opting for change with a capital "C." Freedom, of course, is the longtime libertarian owner of 70 properties, including The Orange County Register,…
The Los Angeles Times Online will roll out two new e-commerce-oriented verticals in the midst of a ripping internal report that says its online strategy is nowhere near where it needs to be for the paper to have a future,…
Gary Arlen, the longtime media pundit (and my former business partner), says in a new article for TV Technology that he is expecting newspapers to use the Web to shove their way into the television industry and "become significant online…
Gannett, via its Planet Discover subsidiary, says it will start providing its newspapers and TV stations with search marketing help. The newly formed "Market Development Group" will be run by Stanley Gauss, the former online general manager of The Press…
Pushing hard on "multimedia" capabilities to sell national ads on 1,200 local radio, TV and newspaper Web sites, Media Span and Broadcast Interactive Media mostly known as Web enablers and sales consultants are teaming up to provide a…
One big trend we've noticed for both Yellow Pages and newspapers is a renewed emphasis on the dynamics of cities served. We used to worry all the time about local dynamics as city guides and others tried to figure out…
IAC's Citysearch has opened an inside sales center in Atlanta as part of a major sales push that also includes the development of a national sales team. There are currently 60 inside sellers in the center, and more than 150…
Oodle, the listing aggregator service, is completing its transition from a Google dependent site with the rollout today of a comparison feature for autos. Real estate and rentals will be rolled out next. In October, Oodle made its first move…
Gannett, McClatchy and Tribune (aka "The Troika") have now weighed in on the controversy generated by the revelation that they are working on a national ad network that will compete with a national ad network being created by Yahoo! and…
There's been more industry feedback on the "Open Network" for national advertising that Gannett, McClatchy and Tribune (GMT) have proposed to launch for the newspaper industry. The first question is: Who leaked it to reporter Julia Angwin and why? There…
Today's Wall Street Journal reports that Gannett, McClatchy and Tribune (GMT) are shaping an "open network" to sell national online advertising, possibly replacing McClatchy's Real Cities. The article says that network members are committing around 10 percent of their banner…
