Yelp launched its local review site in Australia today and cofounder Jeremy Stoppelman traveled to the country for the occasion. Since 2004 the company has accumulated a database of more than 22 million reviews, none of which has included Australian…
Yellow Medya, formerly Turkey Yellow Pages, announced a partnership today with the world's largest travel site, TripAdvisor, in Turkey. The Yellow Pages publisher will integrate TripAdvisor onto all its platforms, including online and mobile. As a result, it will have…
Yelp’s S-1, which was issued last week as a run-up to a $100 million IPO, reveals a lot of new data about the reviews leader. The big question about Yelp has been whether it can grow against increased pressure from…
It is an article of faith that small businesses drive the U.S. economy, acting as incubators of innovation, and leading all forms of employment growth, especially for immigrants determined to raise their living standards. I’ll always remember New York Mayor…
Facebook has become an important marketing channel to SMBs, according to InfoGroup's quarterly Small Business Marketing Outlook. Twenty percent of those surveyed said Facebook was extremely/very important, and 24 percent said it was somewhat important. Twitter is important, too. Twenty-four…
Angie’s List issued an S-1 this week as it seeks to raise $75 million from an IPO. The S-1 is full of details about the 16-year-old service reviews company. Its massive, $60 million national ad campaign over the past 18…
Specialized verticals are a major part of the new marketplaces environment. One vertical we like is TeachStreet, a portal that helps consumers find teachers, and then helps sign them up and process payments. Along the same lines is TakeLessons, a…
Online retail spending reached $37.5 billion, up 14 percent from a year ago, according to comScore's latest quarterly study. Highlights from comScore's study include: The 14-percent growth in the quarter was primarily a function of an increase in the number of…
The new breed of lead providers for services appears to have slowed down. While Angie’s List is all over the air waves, building its consumer base for an expected IPO, and ServiceMagic is performing well for IAC, and expanding, not…
Yelp is heading down under to Australia via a partnership with the directory company Sensis where it will integrate Sensis' local business listing data into its site. In turn, Sensis' local sales force will sell Yelp.com.au to Australian SMBs. Neither…
David Krantz, president and CEO of AT&T Interactive, announced the launch of AT&T's "Deal of the Day" program this afternoon at the BIA/Kelsey Deals 3D conference. The program is being offered initially in three markets: Atlanta, Dallas-Ft. Worth and Los…
Writing about Google+ wasn’t an option. When an 800-pound gorilla makes a frontal assault on Facebook, Skype AND Twitter, sending the tech punditry into breathless buzz and sparking curiosity about the potential seismic effects on social networking, well, that warrants…
BIA/Kelsey's DMS ’11 event is shaping up nicely as a summit of leading innovators in small-business marketing and advertising solutions. Anyone selling directly to SMBs or building solutions for those that do should attend this event. The premise of DMS…
Four-month-old, Cincinnati, Ohio-based SmartyTags has a decidedly different approach to the technology of QR codes. Rather than just focusing on the technology, its focus is on how best to use them as a marketing tool, track uses of each code…
The Internet services and online marketing solutions provider Web.com launched a new interface this week that may eliminate the need for SMBs to create two websites, one for Internet local search and another for mobile. Web.com's mobile website detects when…
The Deals space is so hot, yet there are many unanswered questions about it. We know it will be big, but who really knows what it is going to look like 18 months from now? With that in mind, we…
Just Dial, a local search engine company in India, raised approximately $10 million from SAP Ventures and Sequoia Capital Global Equities. The Mumbai-based firm was founded by VSS Mani in 1996 to connect potential buyers of products and services with small businesses.…
Yodle, a third-party SMB reseller, announced yesterday that it acquired ProfitFuel, a company that provides search engine optimization services to small businesses, for an undisclosed sum. David Rubin, previously CEO of Profitfuel, will now join Yodle as senior vice president…
There are some occasions when you need to hire someone right away. At least that’s the hypothesis of Ginjex: The availability engine,” a new ad-supported U.K. directory that focuses on real-time hiring. Launched by Mark Riley, a former exec with…
Over the past year, American Express has embarked on a series of initiatives centered on digital advertising intelligence for SMBs. These include SearchManager (via Clickable) for SEM and multiple social media experiments with Facebook and Foursquare. Now, its small business-focused…
