Cox’s Kudzu, a local service rating and review directory, announced last week that it has implemented Facebook Connect. Users can now share their Kudzu reviews with friends by signing in via their Facebook account. Previously registered Kudzu users can also…
Five-year-old Yelp has been something of a phenomenon, and is a preferred rating and review directory for millions of people online and mobile in 24 cities. In December, comScore pegged its traffic at 7 million visitors, up from 2.8 million…
Oodle has been describing itself as a “social classifieds” platform for some time, extending its reach via deals with local powerhouses such as AOL, Comcast, Cox, Media General, Freedom and Wal-Mart. Now, it is set to make the hype more…
Oodle, the mega classified platform company, has raised an additional $5.6 million from its existing investors, which include Greylock Partners, Redpoint Ventures and JAFCO Ventures. The company has raised $24 million in total. Noting that Oodle has recently signed companies…
Google today announced the launch of its mobile social networking tool Latitude. This will be a component of Google Maps for Mobile and will work within native mapping applications of BlackBerrys, Symbian and Windows Mobile based devices (iPhone coming soon).…
I’m at the OMMA Social conference put on by MediaPost. It’s mostly attended by ad agencies looking to learn more about engaging users through social networking and blogging -- something they’ve probably achieved a C+ for as an industry. Some…
We’ve just announced the lineup for our Marketplaces 2009 conference, which is March 16-18 at the historic (and excellent) Century Plaza in L.A. We hope you find it as compelling as we do. It is probably a “must attend” event by any…
Yelp is often dismissed as a bar and restaurant site for recent college grads in San Francisco. But site usage released by the company suggests it has rather broad usage and shouldn’t be so readily pigeonholed. The site also says…
Following up on Peter Krasilovsky's post this morning, The Wall Street Journal has taken a look at Facebook's efforts to better monetize its network. This has been an ongoing challenge for the company. The newest efforts involve deploying its growing…
There is a whole new wave of new Facebook apps, many built around the new Facebook Connect feature that lets users pull relevant data from Facebook profiles. That will change things. Up to now, however, Facebook hasn’t really had much…
New Canadian local search destination Weblocal.ca has launched. The site is the product of a partnership between Canadian publisher Transcontinental and social/local pure play YellowBot (see profile). The site is one of Transcon's first moves into online local search. As…
TKG has a relatively new Twitter page. After going on a binge of following people this week, the ratio of following to followers is woefully out of whack. If I haven't been able to find and follow you yet, jump…
Closing remarks at the Warrillow Summit Toronto yesterday gave advertisers targeting the small and medium-sized business market some hope despite the alarming descent in optimism on the current Canadian economic situation. A recurring theme over the past two days of…
We’re just about ready to go with Interactive Local Media 2008, which is Nov. 19-21 in Santa Clara, in the heart of Silicon Valley. It should be a very important, game-defining event -- and the first one for The Kelsey…
Getting people to submit reviews is hard. We’ve seen incentives such as $5 coffee cards (a lot), $10 gas cards and direct donations to charity (Insider Pages’ current model). People complain that reports that are stimulated by such efforts aren’t…
As Peter Krasilovsky examined a few weeks ago, MySpace launched the beta version of its self-serve pay-per-click ad platform last night. Called MyAds, it will offer a number of text and display ad creation tools and targeting options within the…
As a result of its partnership with Microsoft last October, Facebook has integrated a Live Search box that lets users search the Web in addition to searching within Facebook's own walls. This can have some unique local benefits, according to…
After some disappointing metrics coming out of the contextual ads it places on MySpace, Google has begun to look at other ways it can serve ads in online social communities. This could essentially involve a more granular look at not…
OK, we’ve got the format(s) and “best and brightest” speaker roster set for Interactive Local Media: Extending Local Channels, which is Nov. 19-21 in Santa Clara, California, next to San Jose. At the top of the list is Angie Hicks,…
Between TechCrunch50 and DEMO, this week has seen its fair share of company launches. Start-ups both delay and push forward their launch dates to line up with these events. So essentially we get a month's worth of new companies all…
