Kelsey Local Media Blog
Location-based services continue to roll out left and right. TechCrunch won't stop saying this year's South By Southwest conference will be all about location (except for this contrarian piece by Paul Carr). We mostly agree. But with all the start-ups…
I had the opportunity to speak with Michael Pastko, CEO of Coupious a Boulder, Colorado-based mobile coupon platform. Coupious got its start when Pastko and his partner leveraged their experience at Purdue University to launch a Coupious iPhone application in…
On Thursday's earnings call, DexOne (ex-R.H. Donnelley) leaders cautiously projected that the rate of decline in ad sales would improve in 2010, from being down 20 percent in 2009 to down between 12 percent and 15 percent this year. The…
Multiplied Media has announced that its flagship Poynt mobile search application is available now for the iPhone. The app so far has planted its stake on the BlackBerry with 2 million users -- indeed the top mobile local app for…
In late January, Google launched a new pay-per-call program for mobile advertisers. It emphasized the opportunity for local advertisers that are more interested in driving phone calls than clicks (or those equally interested in both). Today it expands the program…
We've been listening to earnings webcasts for the major global directory publishers over the past days, trying to pick up any clues for how publishers see 2010 developing. Most publishers have shortened their guidance horizon or have stopped giving it…
In all the excitement around geolocation, Google's latest move to discern local intent is a search tool that enables "nearby" filtering. This is useful during the times when a geographic modifier, like a ZIP code, is not used in a…
Foursquare is blowing up in the tech mediasphere. It's also standard issue for the mobile elite in cities like New York and San Francisco, and I admit addiction. But there is a certain amount of tech media distortion going on…
Local/social leaders from Facebook, Yelp and Twitter took the stage at IAB’s Annual Leadership Meeting in Carlsbad, California, this week to discuss what IAB President Randall Rothenberg called “the mobile/social local real-time medium that does not have a name.” Facebook’s…
Mobile and online "questions" company ChaCha today has partnered with local search and listings provider Localeze. This primarily involves ChaCha's Web site (as opposed to mobile), and will insert deeper local business information around questions asked on the site. Specifically,15…
Mobile M&A activity continues ... except this time it's a mobile ad network on the buy side. Following Google's $750M AdMob acquisition, and Apple's $275M Quattro acquisition, the largest remaining independent ad network, Millennial Media, will acquire mobile analytics firm…
SuperMedia has announced a new program that extends its SuperGuarantee idea into the autos vertical. The SuperGuarantee Autos program gives anyone who buys a car on SuperMedia's EveryCarListed.com automotive vertical a free limited powertrain warranty good for up to $3,000.…
This Thursday, Feb. 25, at 2 p.m. EST, we'll hold a free webinar to outline the key discussion points that underly the upcoming Marketplaces 2010 program. This will include a unique look at some of the presenting companies, as well…
Today, BIA/Kelsey released its 2009-2014 U.S. local advertising forecast. Over the past two months, lead analysts Charles Laughlin, Matt Booth, Mike Boland, Peter Krasilovsky, Rick Ducey and Mark Fratrik have grinded through the process of forecasting local ad revenues. This…
Cost-per-click ad network Reply.com today filed for a $60 million IPO. The company targets SMB advertisers with the majority of its 125 employees in media sales positions. My colleague Peter Krasilovsky spoke to the company recently and wrote this post.…
It's been made clear here and other places that mobile devices enable advertising that's much more granular and targeted than the PC. We've also argued that the ad formats and campaign objectives should therefore be de-coupled from online equivalents. But there…
There are now 150,000 mobile apps for the iPhone and quickly growing libraries from other smartphone platforms like Android. Every once in a while an app comes along to truly underscore the fact that nearly every imaginable niche has been filled.…
Today I had the chance to catch up with GetFugu, a mobile tool applying some of the voice and visual search technologies we've examined here over the past few months. The app, currently in beta for iPhone, BlackBerry and Android,…
Mobile social player Loopt has made lots of moves to evolve amid quickly changing market standards and user expectations. This has involved moving from a purely social tool to a more broadly defined local utility -- recently including Foursquare-like check-ins,…
Following a significant court decision, Yellow and White Pages content is not entitled to copyright protection in Australia. Assuming the case is upheld, any entity can legally copy the content from a Sensis directory, even to build a competitive local…
