R.H. Donnelley announced on its third-quarter earnings call Thursday that concurrent with first-quarter earnings next year it will pay a dividend equal to 25 percent of free cash flow. The publisher took some heat recently when it used money that…
On Friday, I had the opportunity to spend some valuable time with Richard Zurawski, president and GM of Telmetrics, a leader in the increasingly important call measurement business. As my colleague Charles Laughlin, program director of The Kelsey Report, said today,…
Idearc’s Superpages.com is rolling out video around the U.S. after a limited test of sales channels and production in Seattle, San Francisco and L.A. The tests, which Kelsey's Charles Laughlin reported on in July, involved fewer than 100 customers. Unlike…
According to an article appearing in this month's Association of Directory Marketing Flash newsletter, the three major U.S. directory industry trade associations are moving in the direction of a merger. In August, the ADM board hired a consultant, Charles Rumbarger,…
National advertising dollars remain mostly elusive for independent Yellow Pages publishers. They get just 5 percent of total revenues from national, as opposed to 14 percent for incumbent publishers. But working to change the situation is the CMR Gateway, an…
National advertising dollars remain mostly elusive for independent Yellow Pages publishers. They get just 5 percent of total revenues from national, as opposed to 14 percent for incumbent publishers. But working to change the situation is the CMR Gateway, an…
Canada's Yellow Pages Group announced this morning that it will expand its relationship with Google to become the first Canadian-based reseller of Google AdWords. This is a significant escalation of YPG's relationship with Google, which basically involved sharing content with…
Name the three countries that ZenithOptimedia predicts will be the fastest-growing ad markets by percentage growth from 2006 to 2009. Not even your ad agency friends are likely to get that question right. I have always taken umbrage with any company that…
Big names, interesting people, compelling research. Forgive the commercial message here, but we’re set to deliver the goods at The Kelsey Group’s Interactive Local Media 2007 (ILM:07), Nov. 28-30 in L.A. I think there’s something for everyone. And this year,…
AgendiZe last week announced a new widgetized version of its save & share functionality for small-business Web sites. Peter Krasilovsky mentioned it briefly last week, and it's been since covered in a few places. But I finally had the chance…
AgendiZe last week announced a new widgetized version of its save & share functionality for small-business Web sites. Peter Krasilovsky mentioned it briefly last week, and it's been since covered in a few places. But I finally had the chance…
For those who weren't able to attend DDC last week, you can see the recap of coverage here on the blog. There is also my quick take on one of the show's main themes on the YPA's Local Search Guide…
It's sometimes useful to track search terms as an indication of demand and popularity of products, both online and off, as Chris Smith has done in his column referenced yesterday by John Kelsey. In the case of Yellow Pages, however,…
It's sometimes useful to track search terms as an indication of demand and popularity of products, both online and off, as Chris Smith has done in his column referenced yesterday by John Kelsey. In the case of Yellow Pages, however,…
Two articles. Two perspectives. Two headlines. Yesterday, Chris Smith wrote in Search Engine Land the following headline, "Google Trends: Yellow Pages Will Be Toast in Four Years." He went on to back up his thesis using statistics. "My gut feeling…
My feeling about this week's DDC2007 conference is that everyone was able to come away with what they wanted to hear. For instance, we heard that usage is declining, but Paul Gordon of Catalyst Paper said that demand for Yellow Pages…
The churn rates for low-end local businesses are incredibly high. Why is that? WebVisible CEO Kirsten Mangers told Directory Driven Commerce attendees the reason we don’t see high conversion rates for low-end advertisers is their Web sites “really suck.” It…
The churn rates for low-end local businesses are incredibly high. Why is that? WebVisible CEO Kirsten Mangers told Directory Driven Commerce attendees the reason we don’t see high conversion rates for low-end advertisers is their Web sites “really suck.” It…
While I am in Reston, VA, attending Kelsey's Directory Driven Commerce conference, I thought it would be a good time to start talking about our next show, which I am co-producing: Interactive Local Media 2007. The show is being done…
Idearc Media announced today it is buying the Switchboard online directory asset from InfoSpace for US$225 million. This is the latest in a series of moves by Idearc to own more elements of a comprehensive IYP/local search platform. The overarching…
