I am always leery of reports that point to a “Scandinavian miracle” (or a “Massachusetts miracle” or what have you). But a December 2007 NAA Growing Audience report has some valuable details about how Schibsted Media, the Scandinavian publishing giant…
I recently had the chance to talk with Antoine Toffa, founder and CEO of online video platform VideoBloom. Toffa had previously founded Trip.com which was bought by Galileo in 2000 for $326 million and eventually rolled up into what is…
Following up on this morning's post, BuzzSpot has launched today as the first company that will take advantage of Google's new TV Ads product. The company is being launched by Steve Espinosa, eLocalListing director of product development. As an SEM/SEO…
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…
Citing data from the latest Industry Usage Study, the Yellow Pages Association is trying to overcome some of the myths and misperceptions about who uses print Yellow Pages, how often and why. In a press release issued today, the YPA…
Google has been quietly testing TV ads over the past few months through its AdWords SEM platform. Basically this involves the ability for advertisers to upload an existing video ad and specify target audiences and ad budget, which is then…
Earlier this week, my colleague Charles Laughlin posted an entry about the beginning of the YPA annual conference titled "YP Industry Pledges Counteroffensive." That headline pretty much captures what was an upbeat event that attracted 600 attendees. As YPA President…
Local community and recommendation site Angie's List received $35 million in funding today from Battery Ventures. This comes a day after local rating site Grayboxx sold its assets after failing to get enough traction around its more automated local ratings…
There are a number of new or re-energized hyperlocal efforts out there, trying to crack the code. New efforts are expected shortly from Outside.in and SmallTown. Ongoing efforts are being made with AmericanTowns, which counts Idearc as a lead investor,…
The Yellow Pages Today April workshop featured a divergent view of how best to sell the White Page product line. While some differences exist, due in part to the products offered in the core White Pages product such as those…
I just discovered (via Andrew Shotland) that local rating site Grayboxx has sold its assets to BayAdvisor. The company had an interesting idea in its algorithmically derived "implicit ratings" for local businesses -- the benefit being review generations in categories…
Google’s ambitious effort to take its bidding system across media might be hitting a bump in radio. The company’s program started out fairly well when it bought dMarc (since renamed Google Audio Ads) for $102 million plus incentives in 2006.…
Today I had the chance to talk with Dave Brewer, bus dev director of online video production company PixelFish. The company specializes in local and national brand video advertising, but we spent most of the time talking about local. PixelFish…
Trulia, the real estate portal, has added a new “Street View” feature that enables home buyers to not only check out a house, but also navigate up and down the street and neighborhood. The feature was built on the API…
The rise of Web-oriented behavioral targeting and the tough economics and unwieldiness of user diaries and phone calls have pushed radio rating giant Arbitron to focus less on radio station ranking and more on providing qualitative data about specific local…
The focus of the Yellow Pages Today April workshop was on White Pages with the underlying theme of how the product can survive and the regulatory environment that will either help or hinder its growth or decline. The opening session…
Cox Communications' regional local search site Kudzu today became the latest to resell video production capabilities to its SMB advertisers. The company had already offered the ability to show video along with business profiles or listings, but SMBs had to…
The leadership of the Yellow Pages Association came out swinging against its growing number of critics and doubters at yesterday's kickoff of the group's annual conference in Las Vegas. Chairman Dave Swanson (also CEO of R.H. Donnelley) gave a passionate…
On the heels of its $7 million B round last month, 3-D mapping provider Everyscape, announced today that it will expand its coverage to San Francisco, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. It now covers 15 total cities including its first batch,…
We thought there must be a reason why VoiceStar, Marchex's pay-per-call unit, had such a prominent presence at the North American Dealer Association show in February. Now we know: The company has just formed a reseller partnership with The Cobalt…
