Kelsey Local Media Blog
Social bookmarking and news aggregator Digg has announced that it will integrate a new recommendations engine. This will track users' activity and recommend stories according to the behavior of other presumably like-minded users. This is mostly a filter to increase…
TeachStreet, which lists and profiles local independent teachers for everything from test prep to tennis lessons, is close to its official launch out of beta in Seattle and readying a second market in Portland, Oregon, according to founder Dave Schappell.…
Local.com yesterday announced an ad distribution deal with Hearst-owned White Directory Publishers. The deal will bring Local.com's display ad inventory to White's national sales force. In this way it presents an opportunity for White to appeal to national advertisers that…
As speculated, Microsoft today announced the acquisition of natural language search technology developer Powerset. The acquisition is hoped to help Microsoft better serve search results, based on a natural language analysis of user queries, and better index of Web content.…
Over the past several months, The Kelsey Group has been talking with a number of sales managers and directors of companies in the directory, newspaper and online space to understand the challenges of recruiting, hiring and training online reps. The…
Here are this week’s highlights from the TKG blog, in case you missed any posts. Click below to read each post in full. Stepup Alum Launches DriverSide, a Car Maintenance Site There is a sudden glut of sites that allow…
There is a sudden glut of sites that allow people to register their cars and get specific service information and recommendations about them. First, there was Autobytel’s MyRide. RepairPal launched last week. This week, it is DriverSide, which is being…
Idearc Media has made the decision to discontinue 28 competitive directory titles in Florida, Tennessee and Texas, and has eliminated 200 positions as a result. The company will also close nine sales offices, each associated with the independent directory titles…
The latest nugget of data from Palore examines the average number of restaurants by state that have reviews written about them. Looks like Massachusetts takes the cake (sorry, bad pun). This is somewhat binary as it looks at restaurants that…
Some details have been released about Praized Media’s Local Conversations Organizer. Praized is a Canadian start-up launched by YPG vets Harry Wakefield and Sebastien Provencher, and Sylvain Carle, a longtime industry vet. Its tagline is “Trust Your Tribes.” In a…
Many market forecasts have attempted to size the U.S. online video market, which consists of ads that are tied to a growing subset of online music, sports and entertainment clips. These forecasts project the market will grow to between US$4…
Inhabiting a small but potentially valuable corner of the local search world are geodomains -- sites like Boston.com whose intuitive URLs give them a leg up in direct navigation traffic and branding. Boston.com might be a bad example because it…
The Huffington Post has a certain glamour about it and is able to attract an “A” list of contributors. There is always something interesting on it, and its readership is apparently between 3 million and 8 million unique. Now it…
TKG has learned that local online industry veteran Mark Canon has accepted the position of president-new media at Yell, the U.K.'s leading directory publisher. He will start in July and take over for the retiring Eddie Cheng. Canon brings a…
Yahoo! is set to place contextually relevant display ads with its newspaper consortium, which now represents 40 percent of all newspaper circulation. The new AMP program for newspapers begins by the end of 3Q at the San Jose Mercury News…
There is lots of talk this week about the next generation browser, now that Firefox 3 has launched. On Friday I got the chance to meet with Ryan Sarver, Skyhook Wireless director of consumer products, who has some notable efforts…
To all the skeptics who thought that Zillow’s deal with newspapers would never roll out ... next week, The Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News and Richmond Times-Dispatch are selling featured listings for Zillow at the same…
R.H. Donnelley announced today that President and COO Peter McDonald, a 35-year industry veteran, will retire in September. The company also announced that George Bednarz, its current senior vice president for enterprise operations, will take on the new role of executive vice…
Here are this week’s highlights from the TKG blog, in case you missed any posts. Click below to read each post in full. MerchantCircle: 5,000 Paying Customers MerchantCircle, which is partially owned by IAC, is apparently beginning to make some…
MerchantCircle, which is partially owned by IAC, is apparently beginning to make some headway in selling search oriented services to small businesses. It reports that it has achieved a base of 5,000 paying customers, who buy services costing $30, $60,…
