The small-business advertising arms race has gotten hotter in recent weeks, as companies eye a chance to add Google and Yahoo! search solutions, and other services to small-business marketing budgets once totally contained by Yellow Pages. First we had ReachLocal’s…
Last week, we wrote about The Seattle Times Co. and its new “Network search,” which is powered with FAST. This week, we are covering The Boston Globe’s Boston.com and its new “Federated” search solution, powered by Google. Federated and Network…
One big takeaway from the NAA Marketing show last week in Orlando was that newspapers are ready to build up a zillion niche products that allow them to leverage their editorial talents. But not much progress, or even attention, is…
The smart “post Web” money is looking at health care (and green solutions), right? But based on Health 2.0: User-Generated Healthcare, a conference that took place March 2-4 in San Diego, the subject may no longer be search engines or…
Google’s Print Ads program, which sells contextual display space in print newspapers, is now working with 750 newspapers, according to Stephanie Davis, Print Ads head of publisher development. Davis was speaking on a panel at this week’s NAA Marketing conference…
The 19-company Yahoo! newspaper consortium is set to launch beta tests with two newspapers of Content Match, an AdSense-like product. The beta tests are expected to be followed by a launch throughout the entire consortium in September, according to Lee…
This morning I noticed something vaguely different about Google. Just like when a friend or significant other changes something like a haircut, and you get an overall sense that something is different but you can't pinpoint it. Finally I saw…
“Free one touch directory assistance” from Google’s free directory assistance service, Goog-411, is being advertised in Office Depot’s newspaper circulars as a main feature on GE Dect 6.0 Digital Cordless Phones. The ad copy spells it out: 1- Use the…
Google News has launched a very Topix-like search of local media and blogs via city name and ZIP code. The service includes semantic search. “We’re not the first news site to aggregate local news; we’re doing it a bit differently,”…
Today’s big news is Microsoft's unsolicited takeover bid for Yahoo!. The $44.6 billion bid represents a 62 percent premium on Yahoo!'s closing stock price yesterday, which was affected by Yahoo!’s depressing earnings announcement, in which Yahoo! said it would lay…
In case you haven't seen it yet, Google's home page today commemorates the 50th birthday of the Lego block. These custom logos for various holidays and anniversaries are always interesting (particularly the one shown on Louis Braille's birthday in 2006).…
Pagesjaunes France has announced it will take a dramatic pricing approach in its largest urban markets where it will cut print costs by 20 percent while raising online costs on average by 50 percent. The goal of the pricing program…
FAST Search and Transfer, whose “enterprise search” makes every element of an organization searchable, is being sold to Microsoft for $1.2 billion after the Oslo-based company severely missed sales goals and was forced last year to lay off a large…
One of the quietest but apparently most successful producers in the local search space has been GeoSign, owned by webpreneur Tim Nye. The Canadian company has incubated TrueLocal, which aggregates local online databases, and is also invested in mobile directory…
One of the many reasons the Internet has bloomed in the U.S. is that the administration, under the leadership of Ira Magaziner, former head of U.S. Internet policy, allowed the World Wide Web to grow without putting unnecessary restrictions on…
Auto dealers and real estate brokers (and agents) are increasingly contending with mission creep for their Web needs that require them to have two or more Web sites. Part of the problem is that they must conform to standardized requirements.…
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.…
Google has been hosting a day-and-a-half local symposium here for local media, directory and vertical partners (and potential partners). Roughly 120 execs have come to the invite-only event -- the glamour of the Google-plex campus, and excellent food and drink, making…
It is hard for me to comprehend, but we are finally finished with ILM:07. We were grateful to have had 650 interesting and enthusiastic attendees from all over the world, 72 stimulating speakers, a full load of sponsors and an…
At the ILM:07 conference last week in L.A., we saw lots of great mapping demos from Google, mobilePeople, et al. But it was hard to nail down how maps and their related services (ZIP codes, neighborhood mapping and other spatial…
