Yelp took a big step today that it had previously avoided for years: allowing mobile users to write reviews directly from their mobile devices. Recently tested through a selection of elite Yelp users, the feature is available starting today to…
Tech world chatter over the past few weeks (including ours) zeroed in on Apple's back-to-back mapping acquisitions, what they mean, and who's next? After learning that mapping is a game won on data, Apple is buying it's way out of…
Last week, outgoing Yellow Media CEO Marc Tellier presided over his final earnings call and ended the call with a recitation of his accomplishments during his 12 years at the company's helm. Tellier leaves his post this week, with no…
At our March Leading in Local conference, one session that everyone went home talking about was the keynote presentation from David S. Kidder. Serial Entrepreneur, angel investor and author of The Startup Playbook, he gave a stirring address on the…
Continuing our charge down the multimedia path, the latest initiative is video round table sessions among BIA/Kelsey analysts. The idea is to capture a topical discussion and unpack the market events that have the most impact on our local media…
During BIA/Kelsey's March Leading in Local conference, Swipely CEO Angus Davis opened our eyes to an innovative concept in the famously challenged local media/ad sales game. Selling operational tools to SMBs can be a lesser path of resistance than advertising…
As mentioned earlier this week, we're doubling down on video. And there's no richer source of tidbits and sound bites than a BIA/Kelsey conference. The latest is from our recent Leading in Local conference in Boston: a fireside chat with…
As part of our overall effort to analyze the fast moving local media space, we're experimenting with new formats like infographics and video. One of those projects is an executive interview series to highlight recent areas of coverage and top…
In the age of Infographics, BIA/Kelsey has decided to add some color to the many data points we devise throughout the year. This has been done to a limited degree over the past year, but we've now formalized the effort…
As Peter Krasilovsky posted this week, Apple made two acquisitions last week to advance its position in mapping and navigation. Locationary standardizes local business listings and HopStop -- a company we've been talking to for years -- specializes in navigation…
A quick scan through a summary of BIA/Kelsey's Media Ad View Plus unearthed a number of fun, interesting factoids about the local media ecosystem. Media Ad View is BIA/Kelsey's research product that offers a market by market view of the…
Foursquare just announced that it will now offer its Promoted Updates and Promoted Specials to a wider swath of SMBs. When we first covered the unveiling of these ad units (exactly one year ago), it was available to a list of…
Apple finally made some moves into the local mapping wars last week with the purchase of Locationary, which helps find business locations, and HopStop, which provides transit maps and travel suggestions. We'll go out on a limb and predict that…
Traditional media's rush into digital marketing services as an incremental revenue source is in full swing, with Hearst LocalEdge, GateHouse Media's Propel, Digital First's AdTaxi and GannettLocal among those taking aggressive stakes in the opportunity. Now smaller publishers are seeking…
You want vision? LevelUp CEO Seth Priebatsch says his loyalty/transaction marketing company will emerge as a partner for SMBs -- think authentication; orders and refunds; and analytics -- in the same way that Facebook Connect is a partner for media…
Is email still the anchor for customer engagement, given the rise of mobile, social media, texting, websites and big data? With people joking that they don’t even know what email is, you have to wonder. ExactTarget, which specializes in email…
Late last week I had the chance to talk to Telmetrics president and newly minted LSA chairman Bill Dinan about the newest installment of the influential Path to Purchase (PtoP) series. This one zeroes in on the travel vertical and specifically…
BIA/Kelsey has just released Media Ad View Plus. For those unfamiliar, it builds on our forecast data (example) among other sources, to calculate local media ad spending by category across U.S. ad markets. The starting point is the $132.5 billion…
During a Webinar yesterday, BIA/Kelsey's Senior Analyst Mike Boland, along with Marchex VP of Operations Travis Fairchild and Head of SEM Cody Kunning discussed how businesses and those managing online and mobile advertising campaigns can best maximize performance with Google's…
After lots of rumors, and a weekend article from the Israeli based Globes.co.il, Google has announced it acquired mobile navigation company Waze. This comes after a rumored Facebook acquisition (see our writeup), the drivers of which apply here in lots…
