There has been lots of talk at search marketing conferences about social media marketing (SMM) and social media optimization (SMO). This involves everything from starting a blog to optimizing your content with link bait and other hooks to get exposure…
Zillow continues its march up the real estate value chain with a new feature that allows house buyers to apply for mortgages. The mortgage service, like everything else on Zillow, is ad-supported and free to both buyers and lenders. It…
Idearc Media announced yesterday that it has named Briggs Ferguson president - Internet, replacing Eric Chandler, who departed in January to accept a position in another industry. Ferguson spent five years at IAC Citysearch. He left in March 2007, replaced by…
I use My Yahoo! as a personal portal to browse headlines within the long list of RSS feeds I've set up. I find it's easy to personalize and set up news feeds, weather, e-mail, team schedules, movie times, etc. In…
The Association of National Advertisers Directory Committee has used a very public method to challenge North American Yellow Pages publishers to do more on research and transparency. The committee issued an "open letter" today urging directory publishers to expand syndicated usage…
Spas have always been a leading advertising category for city guides and other local sites. In many cases, they are virtually the only breakthrough for “services.” The rest may be dominated by restaurants and bars. But the spas themselves have…
The current distribution of the AT&T’s Real Yellow Pages produced by Dex (R.H. Donnelley) will no longer include the Chicago Metro Residential White Pages. According to the release: “Local residential listings are already included in the Chicago Neighborhood directories that…
Google announced today that it has expanded its coverage of six cities in Street View, and has added 13 more: Albuquerque, NM Anchorage, AK Austin, TX Cleveland, OH Fairbanks, AK Little Rock, AR Madison, WI Nashville, TN Rockford, IL Richmond, VA…
One of the most significant announcements in the past year about the Yellow Pages business was made by PagesJaunes. In order to get in front of the faster migration from print to online that is occurring in France's major cities,…
YouTube launched a series of new analytics features today, known as Insight. The product gives video producers more detailed information about where and when their videos were viewed. For now this drills down as far as state and country (using…
If Facebook is really the next marketing platform, the guys at Loladex will have guessed right. The new rating and review company, formed by two alumni of AOL Search and Yellow Pages, had initially been incubated as a destination site…
Lawrence, Massachusetts-based Yellow Pages publisher LocalTel has partnered with Google’s AdWords program to sell keywords on Google and Google Maps, and for ads to appear on partner sites within Google’s AdSense network. According to the press release, “ Through a…
The balance between merchants and brands is being shifted by the increasingly common use of enhanced “product locators,” which adds store locations, maps -- and frequently promotions such as coupons -- to the mix, says Lauren Freedman, president of The…
Last week at SES New York, I had the chance to catch up with Alex Muller, CEO of new mobile shopping search product Slifter. The mobile application allows users to search for products that can be found in local stores,…
I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the Easter holiday talking with friends and family about the economy and how they are dealing with the budget crunch we are all experiencing. One of the common threads of all these…
We knew it was coming sooner or later. Google has begun to allow users to upload video directly into the Local Business Center. Companies such as TurnHere and eLocalListing were already uploading this content for their SMB clients via direct…
More and more, people are looking at what Google can’t (or won’t) do. One thing Google isn’t doing is selling a lot of ads on a hyperlocal basis. If you look for a plumber in Tribeca, you are likely to…
Local Matters has announced a new publisher platform called Guidespot. The company works with a global who's-who list of publishers to power their IYPs and online sites. This move extends its capability include community and UGC-driven local guides. This comes…
SES New York is winding down and there has been a lot of attention paid to local -- much more so than in past SES shows. Specifically there was a track on day 1 that John Kelsey and I ran,…
Do you really need to have raised millions of dollars to succeed in selling search solutions to small businesses? It is a question that I often ask myself. Dan Hobin’s G5 Search Marketing in Bend, Ore., is profitable without having…
