Today at DDL, Call Genie Director of Product Evolution Gary Galinsky pegged the lineup of mobile ad formats (SMS, pre-roll audio, post-roll audio, banner, etc.) as "interruption marketing." The only way to skirt this is relevance, and like real estate,…
A lot has happened so far this week with directory assistance and voice search providers. Call Genie yesterday launched a new product suite. This includes three platforms that let DA providers, Yellow Pages publishers, carriers and search engines build branded mobile local…
Local retailers are increasingly going beyond store locators to drive sales. The extensions to store locators include brand locators, coupons, menus, trip planners, and even guides to where Wi-Fi, nonsmoking and RV parking can be found. A leading vendor in…
Citysearch made a recent announcement that it will partner with Scanbuy to offer a mobile application that lets users get information and promotions about local businesses by scanning bar codes placed outside their locations. Technically, it's not a bar code…
Michael Arrington scribes his vision for mobile social mashups in a TechCrunch post yesterday. He argues social networking could be the killer app of the mobile device, and one of the biggest beneficiaries of the expected surge in application development…
Yahoo! announced today at CTIA that it will integrate voice search capability into its OneSearch mobile search application. The new "OneSearch 2.0" will be powered by Vlingo, a speech recognition technology company that also received a $20 million B round…
"Human-powered" mobile search engine ChaCha announced today that it has integrated voice search capability. The company started in late 2005 as an online search engine that tapped human operators to return results, with the thought that directly answering natural language…
Local search platform provider Local Matters has announced it will acquire mobile search platform provider mobilePeople for a combination of cash and stock. In a nutshell, this will extend Local Matters' publisher partners' ability to sell mobile and DA-delivered voice…
M:Metrics released a study earlier this week that makes big claims about the iPhone's impact on the mobile market. It points to the high percentage of iPhone users who are accessing mobile data such as search, browsing and mobile entertainment.…
MediaNews Group CEO Dean Singleton is well known within the newspaper industry as one of the least sentimental businessmen among all the publishers. He’s taken a hard line against journalistic "excess," resulting in products that have been highly profitable but…
Apple has announced the latest upgrade to the iPhone line -- a new 16-gigabyte model. The new model will retail at $499 and join the 8-gigabyte model ($399). In total, this is the third iteration of the device (counting the…
In a significant development, AT&T’s Yellowpages.com is replacing Yahoo! Local Search for AT&T’s broadband and Internet customers. It is a move that will greatly enhance Yellowpages.com’s position in the space. The company recently told analysts it expects to attract 2 billion…
Last week, I finally had the chance to download the newest iPhone "firmware" (v.1.1.3) that was launched at Macworld. It included a number of minor enhancements to the overall usability of the device and some upgrades across its main functions. Perhaps…
The first devices that run Google's much-anticipated Android mobile operating system made a few appearances last week at CES. Here is the 'GW4' from Chinese mobile company Winstron: As we've mentioned a few times, Android along with the iPhone will…
has bet heavily on building a voice search platform for telecom carriers, Yellow Pages publishers and other providers of ad-supported directory assistance. Now the 150-person company, partially owned by YPG and just listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, has enhanced…
AT&T and Call Genie have extended their relationship to provide 1-800-YellowPages free DA users business category search capabilities. According to the press release, “This feature will give users of AT&T directory assistance the opportunity to search by type of business…
AT&T and Call Genie have extended their relationship to provide 1-800-YellowPages free DA users business category search capabilities. According to the press release, “This feature will give users of AT&T directory assistance the opportunity to search by type of business…
While the other telcos have divested their Yellow Pages units, AT&T maintains that there is real synergy in pursuing a three-screen strategy. Rather than selling the YP unit and using the proceeds to build out its network, a la Verizon,…
While the other telcos have divested their Yellow Pages units, AT&T maintains that there is real synergy in pursuing a three-screen strategy. Rather than selling the YP unit and using the proceeds to build out its network, a la Verizon,…
Google is simultaneously the most open and most shut business I can think of. On one hand, it is amazingly transparent. You walk around the two campuses in Mountain View and you can walk right by Larry and Sergey's offices.…
