Yellow Pages

According to this article in the Guardian newspaper, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has offered an unspecified amount of financial help to U.K.-based Yellowikis, which faces a costly legal fight with Yell.Yell, the leading directory publisher in the U.K., is going…

Google has entered an agreement to compensate the Associated Press for stories and photographs. Google suggested that the content will become the basis of a new product that will launch in the next several months. The as-yet-undefined product will complement…

The NAA released data that showed newspaper Web site visits in May reached 56 million unique visits. This is an increase over both April and June, when newspaper visits were 54 million and 54.4 million, respectively. Further, about 55 million…

A group of Japanese electronics manufacturers, including Sony, Matsushita, Sharp Corp., Toshiba Corp. and Hitachi, announced plans to develop a joint standard for Internet televisions. The televisions, which are rumored to hit sales floors next year, will make viewing rich…

Revenues increased 7 percent over first-quarter 2006 (or $200,000 better than guidance) to $3.4 million. Local search revenues were $1.7 million for the second quarter, representing growth of 46 percent (or $100,000 better than guidance) versus the previous quarter. The…

The upgrade of the popular MSN Spaces, renamed Windows Live Spaces, had a bumpy start. According to the official blog: "We know we disappointed a bunch of you with the issues we had in our rollout last night. There was…

Both R.H. Donnelley and Verizon posted their second-quarter and year-to-date figures today, and each revealed some challenges. We will write up both sets of results in detail for next week's Local Media Journal. In the meantime, here are some quick…

AP and BusinessWeek are reporting that newspaper groups including Gannett Co., McClatchy Co. and Tribune Co. have agreed to increase their ownership percentage in CareerBuilder.com, ShopLocal.com and Topix.net.The deals place the following valuations on each of the respective businesses: CareerBuilder…

A new social networking site called Eons.com launched earlier this week. The concept: a Web site for 50-plus Americans. It includes an obituary database and alert notification when someone, well, passes.Jeff Taylor, the founder of Eons.com, told Reuters, "The death…

Just saw a note from media analyst Ben Mogil of Westwind Partners that takes issue with the conclusions of a recent report from Veritas suggesting that Yellow Pages Group's core print directory business is imploding, citing a sharp reduction in…

Interchange Corp. and Verizon SuperPages will partner to deliver SuperPages.com customers via Interchange's Local.com search engine. Here is the press release.

Sallie Mae announced that it has signed an agreement to purchase Upromise. Sallie Mae services more than 10 million customers totaling US$130 billion in loans. Upromise launched in 2001 and has grown into one of the largest direct marketing companies…

A report issued July 19 by the stock analysis firm Veritas Investment Research has led to a sharp drop in the unit price for the Yellow Pages Income Fund, which owns Canadian publisher Yellow Pages Group. According to this article,…

Just got off the phone with Olivier Vincent, CEO of Canadian Phone Directories. He told me that his company, a competitive publisher backed by HM Capital (formerly Hicks Muse), has just acquired the search engine Yellow.ca to use as a…

CNET ran a report stating Google ads are running on a Detroit-based radio station. This is part of the strategy revolving around the dMarc acquisition last year. Other portals and ad networks have not been shy in suggesting that they…

The Kelsey Group is preparing a report scheduled for release in September that evaluates the current field of online directory and local search sites.Part of the process of researching this report involves soliciting the views of the industry on how…

Here is an item from Bloomberg that says buyout firm KKR will saddle up PagesJaunes with a record level of debt for a European LBO, about US$8 billion. This will certainly motivate PagesJaunes managers to optimize cash flow.

Kate Bowler of Platefood points out that Platefood Performance is a PFP platform and not, as I suggested, a local search platform. It may well be that the Platefood engine will be licensed by World Directories to complement the Local…

News from World Directories that the company has chosen Local Matters to power its local search platform. This is a particularly interesting win for Perry Evans and team as it presumably beat out competitors Platefood — a collaboration of Sensis…

AT&T and MetroFi submitted a joint proposal to operate a municipal Wi-Fi network in Riverside, California, that covers 65 square miles. The proposed project has similarities to the Google-Earthlink partnership for San Francisco. The AT&T MetroFi network will be supported…