Longtime U.S. independent publisher White Directory (owned by Hearst Corp.) has launched a complete rebranding, dropping the old "Talking Phone Book" in favor of "LocalEdge." The company says it plans to phase in the new brand over the next 12…
The Yellow Pages Association released some details of its 2008 U.S. usage study, which showed a substantial drop in print references, mostly but not completely offset by online Yellow Pages usage growth. Print references, measured for YPA by KN/SRI, dropped about 8 percent…
Thanks to everyone who came out to L.A. for the Marketplaces 2009 conference this week -- and to everyone who followed us on the blogs and Twitter. We had a great time. Here are some top-line takeaways. 1. The vertical…
Thanks to everyone who attended Marketplaces 2009, and a special shout out to those who took part in the Twitter conversation. You can check out most of the tweets from the show here. Elsewhere, Andrew Shotland talks about the value…
Oodle CEO Craig Donato led off day three of Marketplaces 2009 describing how classified advertising has gone through an evolution over the past five years, progressing from simply importing them online, to making them searchable and finally today integrating classifieds…
Vertical networks can leverage their knowledge of their consumers to sell marketers wide-ranging research and media programs, according to Active Network CEO Dave Alberga, who keynoted at the Marketplaces 2009 conference in Los Angeles. Alberga, a former Citysearch executive in…
Citysearch CEO Jay Herratti, in a keynote at Marketplaces 2009 in Los Angeles, stressed that there are four things local sites need to focus on: being "more local," "mobile," "social" and "balanced." “Local is really an evolution,” he said. “Now…
Promotional services that boost SMBs run the gamut from coupons to prizes. The most popular are free offers, discounts off total amounts, and prizes/free gifts, said Matchpoint CEO Peter Adams, who was speaking at Marketplaces 2009. Adams noted that when…
AOL Yellow Pages has greatly benefited from search engine optimization, with 50 percent of its traffic coming from SEO, according to Chris Spanos, GM, local search, who was speaking today at Kelsey’s Marketplaces conference in Los Angeles. “We have a…
At the end of the second day of Marketplaces 2009, my colleague Matt Booth made a statement and then asked a follow-up question. He said, "most of what I've been hearing from the podium is optimistic. Don't people realize that…
In a session at Marketplaces 2009 this afternoon on building local online content and services, the oft-cited challenge of scalability took center stage. “The trick with local is to operate at scale,” said Matthew Berk, Marchex's executive VP of product…
Rob Curley and Chris Jennewein of Greenspun Interactive gave a lively presentation this morning at the Marketplaces conference representing the yin and yang of product features and business models. This is often in a state of imbalance at online newspaper…
NCI President and CEO Dan McCarthy told attendees of Marketplaces 2009 in Los Angeles today that "local marketing spend is going to be reduced tremendously. It will have a big impact on all marketing budgets,” he said. “Local media starts…
Saw this article today -- more evidence that residential White Pages are verging on extinction. AT&T has gotten the nod from Ohio's utility regulators to eliminate White Pages from co-bound White/Yellow phone books. First, stand-alone residential White Pages books will go (many…
Marketplaces is under way with the opening keynote from Jeff Berman, MySpace president of sales and marketing. MySpace has made some inroads to attracting SMBs to use the social network as a marketing platform. Most recently, this has included its…
One day after R.H. Donnelley released its 2008 results showing a sharp drop in ad sales, Idearc followed suit today with annual results that also reflect a very tough Yellow Pages environment in the United States. The big news in…
Tim Armstrong, AOL’s new CEO, is a very big believer in local, with personal investments in a New York-area hyperlocal site (Patch) via his Polar Investments. Moreover, in his previous role as head of sales for Google, he frequently commented…
Related to the previous post, Lee Gientke, OrangeSoda's director of partner development, blogs today about local intent for mobile searches. This is a good preview of the comments we'll hear next week from Gientke and 12 other speakers during our…
As debt maturities loom in a tight credit market, the directory publisher R.H. Donnelley announced today that it has retained the financial firm Lazard to "assist in the evaluation of its capital structure, including various balance sheet restructuring alternatives." On a conference…
In the second major product launch in as many days, Google has released Google Voice. This will be an online calling service that utilizes voice over IP (VoIP) technology to deliver free and cheap calls. Similar to services like Skype,…
