Google has been quietly testing TV ads over the past few months through its AdWords SEM platform. Basically this involves the ability for advertisers to upload an existing video ad and specify target audiences and ad budget, which is then…
Earlier this week, my colleague Charles Laughlin posted an entry about the beginning of the YPA annual conference titled "YP Industry Pledges Counteroffensive." That headline pretty much captures what was an upbeat event that attracted 600 attendees. As YPA President…
Today I had the chance to talk with Dave Brewer, bus dev director of online video production company PixelFish. The company specializes in local and national brand video advertising, but we spent most of the time talking about local. PixelFish…
Trulia, the real estate portal, has added a new “Street View” feature that enables home buyers to not only check out a house, but also navigate up and down the street and neighborhood. The feature was built on the API…
Cox Communications' regional local search site Kudzu today became the latest to resell video production capabilities to its SMB advertisers. The company had already offered the ability to show video along with business profiles or listings, but SMBs had to…
YouTube launched a series of new analytics features today, known as Insight. The product gives video producers more detailed information about where and when their videos were viewed. For now this drills down as far as state and country (using…
We knew it was coming sooner or later. Google has begun to allow users to upload video directly into the Local Business Center. Companies such as TurnHere and eLocalListing were already uploading this content for their SMB clients via direct…
The CBS-TV owned and operated stations are making a pitch to local bloggers and hyperlocal sites to add value to their sites with various news headline and video widgets, and take a share of ad revenues. The CBS effort to…
The small-business advertising arms race has gotten hotter in recent weeks, as companies eye a chance to add Google and Yahoo! search solutions, and other services to small-business marketing budgets once totally contained by Yellow Pages. First we had ReachLocal’s…
Last week, we wrote about The Seattle Times Co. and its new “Network search,” which is powered with FAST. This week, we are covering The Boston Globe’s Boston.com and its new “Federated” search solution, powered by Google. Federated and Network…
SMB-focused video ad platform Jivox launched today, along with a $2.7 million seed round led by Opus Capital. Jivox joins the hot local merchant video advertising space with a self-serve ad creation and placement engine for SMBs. This includes ad…
Mixpo's Glenn Pingul has an interesting column in Search Engine Land today about online video's growing relevance as an ad vehicle for SMBs. He hits on all the main points, discussed here in the past, about video's benefits for local…
Spot Runner has gone into the local reseller channel in a major way by acquiring Weblistic, a company headed by Ketan Shah (and whose president is Yellow Pages Commando Dick Larkin). The company has 50 employees and is headquartered in…
Earlier this week, I had the chance to meet with local video production house TurnHere and take a peek under the hood. The company is working on an advertiser facing production management platform that will help it scale up to…
When a local team headed by ad agency and PR veteran Brian Tierney bought The Philadelphia Inquirer and related holdings 18 months ago, it was seen as a possible model for how “new thinking” could transform the newspaper industry. Since then,…
ComScore Video Metrix announced today that December saw 10 billion online video views -- the largest number to date. There were meanwhile 141 million total unique users to video sites. Google sites led in both categories. This general trend has…
I liked the 2003-2007 concept of a “local info hub.” The idea was to think beyond the original business boundaries of newspapers (and Yellow Pages). Now that concept has been fancifully enlarged to a “local info and connection utility." The…
When veteran newspaper design consultant Alan Jacobsen called last year to tout his new classified video site, Real People Real Stuff -- “the marriage of Craigslist and YouTube” -- I thought it was kind of fun but didn’t have very good…
Lately there has been a noticeable rise in the amount of attention and investment paid to online video sites that specialize in generating "how-to" videos. These include: ExpertVillage (acquired by Demand Media last June) VideoJug (received $30M last May) HowCast…
In what amounts to yet another vote of confidence for local merchant video producer TurnHere, the company has announced a $7.5 million cash infusion from Venrock and Hearst Interactive Media. It's also a vote of confidence for the red hot…
