Events for newspaper industry executives are clearly challenged right now. Today, I learned via Vin Crosbie’s Facebook thread that the World Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum had to “postpone” their annual conference, which was set for March 22…
WebVisible announced today that it is hiring Kevin Ryan as its new chief marketing officer. Ryan, a longtime friend of The Kelsey Group and conference speaker, was previously global content director for Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Strategies. At…
We got news this week of two directory publishing operations shutting their doors, a reflection of the challenges of running a competitive directory publishing company in the face of a difficult economy and intense competition from incumbent publishers and the…
A week after announcing being knighted as an AdWords reseller and working with Google to offer video ad creation to its advertisers, SpotMixer has been integrated directly into the Google TV ads dashboard. This will position it more directly…
Local product data provider Krillion announced a deal today that will distribute product ads and inventory content across Topix's hyperlocal news network. This will take the form of a geographically targeted "local best deals" section on many Topix pages. As…
AT&T Interactive, the new division that's behind the company's popular YPMobile iPhone application, has added a voice search app to its roster. Called Speak4It, the application allows users to speak local search commands into the phone to receive map-based search…
SMBLive CEO (and blogger) Matt Howard has come up with a new metaphor for local search that I have to say I haven't heard yet. I won't steal his thunder, but I'll point you to his analogy, which mostly focuses…
Following Yodle's $10 million C Round funding announcement yesterday, I had the chance to talk to founder Nathaniel Stevens. The funding, for one thing, is a good vote of confidence for Yodle and its market opportunity, despite the current economic…
AOL continues its evolution into a multi-pronged media company with the launch of MediaGlow, a new vertical division made up of 70 branded and non-branded niche sites, such as When.com, AOL Autos and TMZ.com. The company expects to have more than…
We’ve just announced the lineup for our Marketplaces 2009 conference, which is March 16-18 at the historic (and excellent) Century Plaza in L.A. We hope you find it as compelling as we do. It is probably a “must attend” event by any…
WebVisible and Nielsen's jointly produced research on local search shows there is still a gap between user behavior and SMB advertising. The annual survey was just released, including responses from 4,000 U.S. Internet users and 261 SMBs. Here are some…
Cincinnati Bell just received approval from the Public Utility Commission of Ohio to forgo delivery of print residential White Pages directories except to those who request a copy. This fits into a trend that has been brewing for some time, and was…
The Yellow Pages Association has launched its own blog, apparently to add its voice to the ongoing blogosphere debate on the future of Yellow Pages. The blog's first post from YPA President Neg Norton explains the rationale for the blog…
Pegasus News, the Dallas hyperlocal site, was seen as a great model for other markets when Fisher Communications, a leading broadcaster in Seattle and the Northwest, bought the site in July 2007. But the roiled market in broadcasting apparently stifled…
Yelp announced today that it will launch Yelp U.K. From the release: Now people in the UK can use Yelp to read and write reviews about great businesses in their neighborhood. Locals are able to share their opinions on everything…
A few weeks ago, in a stimulating interview in The Wall Street Journal, Clayton Christensen said the bad times will bring out more innovation. "If you give people a lot of money, it gives them the privilege of pursuing the…
SMB video ad creation company SpotMixer announced a partnership today with Google to push its videos into Google's content network, and TV Ads programs. This essentially makes SpotMixer a designated AdWords reseller and gives its advertisers the ability to push…
If any company had the local and regional footprints to build a local editorial network, it would probably be Gannett, with its 85 newspapers. If Gannett were to go that route, I always thought the conduit would be USA Today.…
ComScore has released its Video Metrix data for November, showing a staggering 40 percent year-over-year increase in online video viewing (measured in time spent). Number of videos viewed also jumped 37 percent to 12.7 billion videos for the month. To…
I won't say I agree with everything Chris Smith says in his column today in Search Engine Land, which offers 10 ideas for saving the Yellow Pages. But I do agree with a lot of it. In fact, much of…
