Yellow Pages

The Financial Times (FT.com) has published an in-depth interview with Meg Whitman that covers many topics from acquisitions to advertising models. It is worth reading in its entirety. Interview transcript: Meg Whitman, eBay

As posted elsewhere The N.Y. Times ran a lengthy story about the shareholder battle at the Tribune Co. Much was made at the time of the acquisition/merger of the Times Mirror and Tribune companies about the possible synergies the "deal"…

In an interview with Reuters yesterday, AT&T Yellow Pages CEO Dennis Payne predicted that revenues from its directory business will start to rise this year. He predicts that the growth will most likely come from delivering advertising on electronic platforms.…

U.S. independent directory publisher Ambassador Yellow Pages announced that it has entered the Staten Island, New York, market. The publisher is currently in canvas with the book, which will publish in August, just ahead of rival Yellow Book. Details on…

Just saw this. The French media company Vivendi is studying the possibility of acquiring France's leading directory publisher, PagesJaunes. France Telecom is planning to sell off its 54 percent stake in PagesJaunes, which has been among the leading performers among…

A recent Kelsey Group Web poll of certified marketing representatives, the sales professionals responsible for national Yellow Pages advertising in the United States, indicates greater support for syndicated usage research among those working for larger agencies.Of the 24 CMRs representatives…

Yell Group has long been known in the U.K. for the quality of its advertising, standing out in a category that has generally produced some interesting and funny commercials over the years. Yell is now in the position of finding…

I've lived in Marin County, California, for almost 20 years now. For three-quarters of the time the Pacific Bell/SBC/AT&T Yellow Pages directory was the only one available. A couple of years ago, Seig Fischer and his Valley Yellow Pages team…

Lots of press coverage out of the U.K. on the Yell rate cap preliminary ruling this week. We will offer our full take in this week's Local Media Journal, but we thought a sampling of the U.K. coverage on this…

Bloomberg News has reported that Google will begin offering an online payment alternative to eBay this month. The new program will be called GBuy and will facilitate transactions between merchants and consumers. Participating merchants will be listed as Trusted GBuy…

Reuters is reporting that Schibsted, Norway's largest media group, has agreed to acquire Trader Classified Media's Western European and Latin American units for 580 million euros, or US$746.7 million. "Among Trader Classified's properties are Spanish online job site InfoJobs.net and…

YellowPages.com, a joint venture of AT&T and BellSouth, announced it will provide search returns for the Yellow Pages and Find A Site sections on the Anywho.com portal. Anywho.com has roughly 3.4 million users per month. Since its acquisition by the…

Internet research firm comScore has announced plans to launch a study designed to quantify the relationship between online queries and offline purchases. Over the past two years, comScore has conducted studies that have uncovered results consistent with the findings of…

Online auctioneer eBay is moving aggressively to shore up its leading market position by reducing the risk of becoming too reliant on Google's dominant search share. Recently, eBay has negotiated large deals such as the integration of its PayPal unit's…

Yell Group is unhappy today, but perhaps not all that surprised. The U.K.'s Competition Commission issued its provisional findings on the question of whether price regulation is still necessary in the U.K. (this assumes it ever was) to foster a…

Sensis, Australia's leading Yellow Pages publisher and diversified media company, has a tall order to nearly double revenues by 2010. A Goldman Sachs analyst suggested that only through acquisitions could Sensis reach its goal. The key question is, what properties…

Google has started to include StepUp Commerce retail feeds into its mapping solution. This allows consumers to search for local retail products from the StepUp merchant base then click to view real-time inventory. We have been speculating about the inclusion…

One of the world's premier directory organizations is now officially for sale. France Telecom has confirmed that it will sell its majority stake in PagesJaunes, the dominant directory publisher in France. The Kelsey Group has long viewed PagesJaunes as an…

A few interesting news stories hit the wires last week about Internet advertising and the state of the newspaper business. Overall, we believe newspapers have tremendous opportunities, despite the near term difficulties that dominate the headlines.The NewsThe Interactive Advertising Bureau…

The European Association of Directory Publishers held its 11th annual spring conference in Rome, June 1-2. The Kelsey Group cosponsored the first of these events, which was held in Monaco, and we have attended every spring EADP congress since then.…