Planet Discover, the pioneering local search and Internet Yellow Pages vendor, won’t sign new contracts with local media outlets that compete with Gannett newspaper and TV properties, according to sources. Gannett purchased Planet Discover in May 2006, but up to…
YouTube has launched a new video ad format it has been testing for months (see past post). These ad units, known as inline ads, involve translucent windows that are overlaid on video content for about 10 seconds near the beginning…
White Directory Publishers, a division of Hearst Holdings, announced a marketing partnership with Jingle’s 1-800-FREE411 making it the first independent publisher to resell sponsorship products on the 1-800-FREE411 media channel. The deal with White Directory comes on the heels of…
We have been discussing the issue of the potential for Internet Yellow Pages offered by print publishers. The question is whether IYPs can be sufficiently significant to merit the necessary investment. At our recent Drilling Down on Local conference, one of…
We have been discussing the issue of the potential for Internet Yellow Pages offered by print publishers. The question is whether IYPs can be sufficiently significant to merit the necessary investment. At our recent Drilling Down on Local conference, one of…
There is no doubt that online video is blowing up. With increased online use and investment levels on the supply side, have come innovation and experimentation with respect to monetization opportunities, such as dynamically placed inline ads being developed by…
We know well that online search has considerable effect on local offline purchasing behavior. Likewise, it's clear that the majority of retail purchases happen offline, while a growing percentage of research is occuring online. Now, iProspect has released interesting figures…
I am in the middle of researching an Advisory on major metro markets, why they are such a challenge for Yellow Pages publishers and what, if anything, they can do to reverse the slide. In the course of doing research…
User ratings and reviews are among the hottest areas of local search (video and mobile being the others) in terms of media attention and funding. But there are still significant barriers to cross and challenges inherent in corralling a user…
Service referral sites like ServiceMagic and Angie’s List have gotten some traction. But by no means are they dominating the business. What will it take? Ashish Mohole, cofounder of start-up GetVendors.com, thinks the key is to guarantee that users get…
Citysearch earlier this week announced it will partner with MenuPages to integrate its menu content into local restaurant listings. I finally got the chance to catch up with Rob Angel, Citysearch VP of merchant products, yesterday to ask what this…
I spent some time on the phone this afternoon with Stuart McKelvey, CEO of TMP Directional Marketing, to ask for his key takeaways from TMP's recent local shopping research conducted via comScore's online panel of 3,000 consumers. The finding that…
Last week, we raised the issue of the potential for Internet Yellow Pages offered by print publishers. In a world where people seem to be routinely going to Google, Yahoo! and a few other sites for all their information needs,…
Amid the many redesigns we're seeing in local online media, Yahoo! Local today announced a series of functional and aesthetic enhancements. They are mostly meant to accentuate and motivate more user-generated content and social search tools but also include a…
Google Maps will launch a feature next week that will allow any Web site or blog to more easily plant an embedded map anywhere on its site. This will essentially allow SMEs to more easily integrate a "find me" map…
We're seeing no shortage of commentary throughout the blogosphere on the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index, which shows Yahoo! beating out Google in overall customer satisfaction for its online network of products. But another notable data point many…
Gannett’s “Information Center” project to overhaul its newspapers with user-generated content and data-driven services is making some progress, per this month’s Wired magazine piece by Jeff Howe. Since I first reported on the initiative in November 2006, the company has…
Summary My column for Search Engine Watch this month, Pimp My Vertical Search, takes a look at some of the directions being taken in vertical search, particularly in autos. Autobytel has begun to do some interesting things with its recently…
Web exec Bill Day, who formerly led WhenU (a behavioral targeting firm), About.com and Prodigy, was announced yesterday as Marchex’s new chief media officer (an interesting title). The position is a new one for the publicly owned company, which isn’t…
Marchex continues to expand its local advertising and content capabilities with its acquisition of VoiceStar, the pay-per-call and call tracking company. The VoiceStar acquisition adds more than 100 local advertiser aggregators, including Comcast, The Cobalt Group, R.H. Donnelley/Dex and Yellow…
