U.K. directory publisher Yell is launching an overall redesign to its online directory today that follows the trend of building an immersive online Yellow Pages experience. The new site includes 3-D maps and street cam. Working with partners C3 and…
Web site vendors may be well-positioned to jump-start Groupon-like "deal-a-day" offers. Analog Analytics and Adility, for instance, are seeking to leverage their respective media and sales channel relationships for deal a day. Now jumping into the pool is Utah-based Matchbin,…
Cox Enterprises has sold 25 percent of AutoTrader.com to Providence Equity Partners, a company that manages $22 billion in its portfolio and whose Web site says it likes to take equity shares “between $250 million and $2.5 billion.” Terms were…
If you do a search on a doctor, you may come up with five or six spammy, ad-supported links. But now Insider Pages, a property of IAC’s Citysearch, has launched DoctorFinder, a new service that hopes to simplify the complex…
Real estate and rental agents get into big trouble if they mouth off about a neighborhood’s quality-of-life issues. The most they can do is point to Web sites that provide some general stats (i.e., school info, crime stats and market…
We’ve seen a marked increase in the number of inquiries we’ve been getting from clients regarding the use and implementation of call measurement platforms. We have long believed that the “call” is a critical element of any local search model…
When it comes to hyperlocal, the problem may just be that the local reporting doesn't reasonate with the community as much as the old community papers did. That's the feeling behind Main Street Connect, a new company launched by a…
When it comes to hyperlocal, the problem may just be that the local reporting doesn't reasonate with the community as much as the old community papers did. That's the feeling behind Main Street Connect, a new company launched by a…
News aggregation is being approached in every which way, driven by the long-tail possibilities of search optimization, and less and less local output from newspapers, TV and radio. The content creator sites, hyperlocal sites, blog aggregators and portals have also…
The U.S. Local News Network says that its San Diego News Network site is launching a weekly print edition of its best news stories. Print editions have been looked at by other sites to raise visibility for the site and…
Regional press reports suggest that Yellow Pages Group New Zealand may be up for sale. The company was scooped up by private equity buyers (CCMP Capital Asia and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan) in March 2007 for more than NZ$2 billion.…
Cox Enterprises reports that AutoTrader.com's revenue declined three percent from 2008 to 2009,but increased its total revenue by one percent to $629 million, largely due to the addition of print operations formerly managed by AutoTrader Publishing. The company considers its…
On the heels of Groupon's $135 million round (and $1 billion valuation), Living Social has stepped up to the plate with a new $14 million C round, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with U.S. Venture Partners, Grotech Ventures and Steve…
For the past year and a half, we have been answering questions about and consulting with our clients on sales transformation and consultative selling (see here, here and here). One of the key aspects of many of the questions we…
The deal-a-day phenomenon pioneered by Groupon has spawned direct attacks on the model from a wide variety of companies. Newspapers, social sites and others are all going at it. But how about gift card providers? Adility founder Thomas Cornelius, a…
The local and community news “aggregator” space is poised to become increasingly important. Local news staffs, obviously, are being whittled away with the declining economics of local news. But there is more local content than ever, via blogs, pro/amateur content,…
Craigslist has always been murky about revenues, and remains a free site for most categories. It only charges a commercial rate for recruitment, with listings costing just $25 in 17 markets and $75 in San Francisco. Fees for apartment listings…
Outside.in, a major aggregator of local blogs, has begun the integration with CNN that was announced last December at our Interactive Local Media conference in L.A. First up is integration with CNN’s home page, weather page and profile page. On…
For the past few years, the U.S. Yellow Pages industry has been playing a nationwide version of the arcade game "whack a mole" -- beating down one opt-in or opt-out legislative initiative after another with a metaphoric sledgehammer. For the…
One of the hottest topics across the tech media and blogosphere (besides iPad and Facebook updates) continues to be social location based services. It was a big theme at Twitter's seminal Chirp event, Foursquare's escalating valuation, and continued speculation over…
