When Insider Pages was sold to IAC's Citysearch, it seemed like it was probably a distress sale. Many of the Yellow Pages/ratings and review sites of 2004-2006 were falling apart at the same time. Since then, however, Insider Pages appears…
Online menus are a good thing, and a number of companies, mostly regionally oriented, have tried to aggregate them and sell advertising and delivery services around them. I am a big user of MenuShark in my area.At least two companies…
France Telecom is finally pulling the plug on the 26-year-old Minitel service, which it launched in France in 1982. (Actually, Minitel is really 15 years older than that according to SEC filings: "Under an advertising sales agreement entered into in 1967,…
On Thursday's second-quarter and first-half earnings call, Yellow Pages Group CEO Marc Tellier made it abundantly clear that his company’s acquisition of Volt Information Sciences was driven by the need to secure strategic technologies and not to gain a toehold in…
TMP Directional Marketing, an interactive and print advertising agency specializing in local services and franchises like HoneyBaked Ham and The Men’s Wearhouse, is seeing a slight rise in verticalization, more performance-based solutions and ever increasing use of online promotions to…
Local.com said during an earnings call today that it now has 3,500 direct advertisers, largely sold by a team of 100 outside sales personnel. It has also reached a plateau of more than 18 million monthly unique visitors from organic…
This week Canada's Yellow Pages Group acquired directory-related assets from Volt Information Sciences for US$178 million. Volt has been a technology partner to YPG for seven years. It offers technology for database management and customer relationship management, and it also owns the independent…
R.H. Donnelley posted its first-half results today. While ad sales are clearly trending negative, the company was able to report modest revenue and EBITDA growth. Ad sales, however, are the best indicator of how the business is performing. The following…
Frank Jules believes there is a clear shift from print to online taking place. And the best way for publishers to make a successful transition is to move from selling individual products to selling a bundle of products based on…
New CEO Scott Klein presented Idearc Media's first-half results and previewed his plans for reorganizing and reenergizing the company. The main theme of the presentation was a “Journey of Transformation,” which is truly what Idearc needs based on the results of…
Yell Group saw an 11.3 percent rise in its share value yesterday (to 79 p) following its first-quarter 2009 earnings (its financial year ends March 31) announcement, in which the publisher topped its U.S. guidance, fell a bit short in the…
AT&T Advertising & Publishing saw a 3.3 percent first-half revenue decline, to US$2.82 billion. Part of the decline reflects the sale of the L.M. Berry operation to Local Insight Media, and the resulting lost revenues. That deal closed early in…
Now that the 3G iPhone and App Store have arrived, the iPhone is decidedly more appealing and user friendly for both mainstream users, and for companies of all sizes to create and deliver mobile apps. The previous post explored how…
Today R.H. Donnelley unveiled a new local feature called City Pages within its DexKnows.com Internet Yellow Pages site. The aim of these landing pages is to aggregate listings and consumer reviews for local businesses in key metros. A prominent feature of…
BT Directories has made a bold move to bolster its position in the U.K. online directory business by acquiring Ufindus from the Scottish online services firm Iomart, the company announced today. One news outlet reported the purchase price at GBP 20 million. Ufindus,…
Idearc Media has made the decision to discontinue 28 competitive directory titles in Florida, Tennessee and Texas, and has eliminated 200 positions as a result. The company will also close nine sales offices, each associated with the independent directory titles…
TKG has learned that local online industry veteran Mark Canon has accepted the position of president-new media at Yell, the U.K.'s leading directory publisher. He will start in July and take over for the retiring Eddie Cheng. Canon brings a…
Today The Kelsey Group unveiled a new name and brand for our September conference. What used to be known as Directory Driven Commerce is now Directional Media Strategies. In most respects, nothing has changed. The conference is still Sept. 15-17…
This morning Idearc Media announced Scott Klein as its new CEO, replacing interim CEO Frank Gatto, who returns to his former role as executive vice president of operations. Klein comes from a technology and consumer-product background, and is currently an operating…
There has not been all that much fresh coverage of the rumor, reported earlier this week, that Microsoft may acquire Yell Group, the U.K.-based international publisher with operations in the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain and Latin America. We have…
