Solocal Group CEO Jean-Pierre Remy offered directory publishers a vision for print to digital transformation built on a strong focus on building content, vertical segmentation and a relentless focus on execution. Remy was the keynote speaker at the Local Search…
Chip Perry, the visionary who was asked by Cox in 1997 to facilitate its own disruption with the launch of AutoTrader --going right after its print classified revenues -- has resigned as President and CEO of Cox Enterprise's AutoTrader Group.…
In keeping with tradition, BIA/Kelsey released its annual "Picks and Predictions" report this week, offering a collective view on the events that will drive the 2013 agenda in our local media coverage areas -- directional, interactive, mobile, social, vertical and video.…
The French search and directories firm PagesJaunes has expanded its presence in the dining vertical by acquiring Chronoresto, a site that allows consumers to order takeout food online. The acquisition follows the company's strategy of building deep content and transaction capability in…
Hurricane Sandy forced millions of North-easterners out of their travel routines, closing down regular transit routes and services. It also spurred a boomlet in online and mobile searches for alternative transit, as well as weather. HopStop, a 20 person, four-year-old…
Increasingly, a lot of the mobile discussion is oriented towards ecommerce. But what does a major vertical site do with mobile when it doesn’t sell anything online? AutoTrader, the leading auto site, doesn’t sell cars online. “We basically sell advertising,”…
A few years ago, it became apparent that IAC's ServiceMagic had stalled. While the 1,200 person company has continued to show growth, and had expanded to several international markets, it was clearly vulnerable to new challengers, ranging from Angie's List…
Retailers own the local experience with customers. But the brands they sell have a stake in local targeting, too, typically supporting it via coop advertising. Other methods to get in front of local customers are less dependent on their retailers.…
Telmetrics and xAd are out with the third installment of their Mobile Mobile Path to Purchase report administered by Nielsen. As the first two reports focused on travel and overall results, this one looks at consumer mobile habits around finding…
Before too many days pass in travel recovery mode, I wanted to get some of my thoughts down from BIA/Kelsey's sessions at the EASDP Congress in Toledo Spain on Friday. As background, we programmed and ran the second day of…
Pay for Performance is the Holy Grail in SMB advertising. SMBs only want to pay for leads that their advertising programs deliver. But moving SMBs from inclusion to performance has never been easy. Recent progress in lead quality assessment has…
Rounding out the first day of our SMB Digital Marketing Conference in Chicago was a panel well versed in the realities of working with local and regional advertisers. Darnell Holloway, Manager, Local Business Outreach, Yelp Shawn Riegsecker, Founder and CEO,…
In a reflection of the industry's ongoing interest in developing SMB promotional and loyalty services, Yodle founder Nate Stevens' venture fund announced last week that it is putting $1.7 Million into Punchey, a new mobile-oriented payments and promotions platform. The…
Trulia, which provides real estate Web and mobile leads, display advertising and real estate-oriented social media services, has followed in the footsteps of its rival, Zillow, and issued an S1 in preparation for going public and raising $75 Million. Zillow's…
Two schools of thought have broken out about loyalty programs. The first is to build a collective currency for points or other loyalty incentives that can be used anywhere in the network. This is the approach taken by players such…
Zillow's consumer-first approach, which took housing listings out of the hands of the brokerage by posting them on the Web, has since been applied in several local segments: mortgage, home and trade, insurance, recruitment, etc. Now along comes CarWoo, which…
Before there were Meetups, Great Courses, TakeLessons.com and online dating services, The Learning Annex held sway. Launched 30 years ago in New York City, The Learning Annex provided classes on everything under the sun, and a way to meet people.…
Constant Contact has made a really big bet on presence management with the acquisition today of SinglePlatform, a provider of a one-stop "write once, read everywhere" presence management network that provides parsed searching capabilities and services for 600,000 SMBs, including…
Repair.com launched its online repair scheduling tool today which allows potential customers to view and compare open appointments using data from its parent site, National Electronics Warranty, LLC. The new venture is an extension of its parent site that provides…
Zagat is Google's great equalizer against Yelp. Google has now demonstrated why it paid $151 million for Zagat last September by including Zagat, which formerly cost $4.95 a month (or $24.95 per year), as part of its new rollout of…
