UBL’s Co-Founder, CEO, and Chairman, Doyal Bryant said “UBL’s partnership with MomentFeed represents a boon for brands worldwide and serves to support our Company’s objective of providing best-in-class local SEO solutions for our global customer base. By combining the power of Universal Business Listing’s expertise in listing syndication and claiming, along with our patent-pending ClaimCard? solution, with MomentFeed’s robust marketing platform and PinSync technology for setting accurate map points across local sites and mobile apps, we have created what we believe is a true game-changing paradigm for companies to effectively reach and engage customers where they work, live and play, however they may choose to connect.”

This partnership is beneficial to any brand (national and/or local) with multiple locations. This partnership is designed to assist brands that have a broad range of challenges across multiple networks and channels that they use to communicate with their consumers, whether it be social and/or mobile.

Robert Blatt, CEO of MomentFeed, said, “The partnership between UBL and MomentFeed will help SMBs manage the digital identity of their physical locations and make sure consumers can easily get the right information about these businesses across channels and ultimately get to the locations.”

To read more about the new partnership click here for the press release.

The post UBL’s New Partnership with MomentFeed Offers Combined Local Solutions for SMBs appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

UBL’s Co-Founder, CEO, and Chairman, Doyal Bryant said “UBL’s partnership with MomentFeed represents a boon for brands worldwide and serves to support our Company’s objective of providing best-in-class local SEO solutions for our global customer base. By combining the power of Universal Business Listing’s expertise in listing syndication and claiming, along with our patent-pending ClaimCard? solution, with MomentFeed’s robust marketing platform and PinSync technology for setting accurate map points across local sites and mobile apps, we have created what we believe is a true game-changing paradigm for companies to effectively reach and engage customers where they work, live and play, however they may choose to connect.”

This partnership is beneficial to any brand (national and/or local) with multiple locations. This partnership is designed to assist brands that have a broad range of challenges across multiple networks and channels that they use to communicate with their consumers, whether it be social and/or mobile.

Robert Blatt, CEO of MomentFeed, said, “The partnership between UBL and MomentFeed will help SMBs manage the digital identity of their physical locations and make sure consumers can easily get the right information about these businesses across channels and ultimately get to the locations.”

To read more about the new partnership click here for the press release.

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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 and make them part of an integrated marketing campaign.

As QR codes have advanced with the introduction of Microsoft Tags and Datamatrix codes adding to the existing QR codes introduced by Toyota’s Denso Wave, interest in how best to utilize them has increased particularly among local businesses as another direct way of tracking their media spending. We are now seeing QR codes appear on real estate signs, outdoor boards, storefronts and even on wine bottles.

Most small businesses, however, have been challenged by using QR codes because each program required a new code and often they had to pay per code and for each scan making them difficult to use and manage. What local and national advertisers have been looking for is a more accurate way of tracking QR code usage beyond how many scans were received.

“SmartyTags has developed a platform with analytics that helps address many of the early concerns about using and managing QR codes,” says J.B. Kropp, CEO of SmartyTags. “Much like SEM dashboards, SmartyTags can not only tell advertisers the number of scans, but where the scan took place, what mobile platform was used and what time of day the scan occured — all important to maximizing media spending and evaluating the success of campaigns in various locations or media.”

Coming from a marketing background, SmartyTags’ platform approach shows local and national advertisers how best to utilize the QR code by offering such options as connecting to a special Web site URL, which may contain promotional offers or more detailed information, simple contact information, a Facebook “like” button for a product or service, a simple text message, a prepared Twitter message, online video or delivery directly to a shopping cart. “Our platform provides a simple self-serve format that is easy to use and understand. We also host and develop campaign elements that can be rotated in and out making the process even easier to manage,” says Kropp.

One of the new features being introduced by SmartyTags and others is the notion of a single QR code or tag where the creative link can be changed eliminating the need for multiple codes. In the case of small and medium-sized businesses, they may only need a few codes and may only receive a few hundred scans over a month’s time. Eliminating the need for new codes for each execution makes using QR codes more attractive to a wider number of local advertisers. Offering a managed solution providing campaign development and creative flexibility, based on timing or campaigns, will truly allow QR codes to catch on with SMBs and drive the usage deeper in the local space. With the continuing growth of smartphone adoption and QR code reader applications, QR codes are well-positioned to become a vital part of local media campaigns.

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“Content is king.” It’s one of the oldest, most frequently trumpeted maxims in media. Original work commands a premium, while aggregation and curation are merely commoditized collections for easy distribution…or so the thinking goes. Only, what happens if the script is flipped? That’s the question that Martin Nisenholtz, senior VP of digital operations at The New York Times, pondered in a recent keynote address at NAA mediaXchange in Dallas.

Nisenholtz believes that the news ecosystem is now inverted. Content reigned in the print and portal eras, but “platforms won in Web 2.0.” If there is any lingering doubt, take a quick look at the valuations and market caps of leading digital platforms (Google, Facebook) as compared with top publishers, and the “who won?” debate summarily ends.

Largely open platforms such as Google, Twitter and Facebook (though debatable) capitalized on a confluence of drivers to control Web 2.0: broadband acceleration, mobile growth, open-source tools (SaaS) and flexible standards for “re-mixing data” (i.e., RSS).

If Web 2.0 has been decided, is the game entirely over? Nisenholtz isn’t willing to concede the point just yet. In fact, The Times new digital subscription model (don’t call it a “paywall”) is one attempt to cultivate a “web of managed links” by finding a “new equilibrium between content and platforms.” Another is Ongo, a personalized news service that customizes the reading experience across multiple sources and categories. The Times, Gannett and The Washington Post each have a financial stake in the platform.

Nisenholtz insists that these are platform-agnostic efforts to control and moderate content flow, not lock it down. Where the “lock down” is occurring is with audience data because, as Facebook, Twitter and Groupon valuations have shown, he who controls the audience data controls the money. As an example, The Times no longer participates with any ad networks.

But an elephant-in-the-room question persists: Ongo is a paid platform ($6.99 per month). Facebook, Twitter, The Huffington Post Flipboard, Instapaper, Pulse, Zite and numerous others are not. If The Times’ publishing contemporaries don’t move in lockstep to similarly control their content, then profuse free options will continue to exist. And if that’s the case, why would anyone pay? This is one of many reasons why Ongo launches with few guarantees. And a reason why fellow media execs may be reticent to join.

It’s all part of the tangled “web of managed links” that Nisenholtz is trying to weave.

The post NAA mediaXchange: NYT’s Nisenholtz Envisions a ‘Web of Managed Links’ appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

I recently attended a webinar hosted by SalesBlogcast that featured social media company BizBrag. My reason for attending was to learn how small and medium sized-businesses can take advantage of social media. Based on our Local Commerce Monitor research, 32 percent of SMBs said they plan to use a social site, while 31 percent indicated they plan to place links or ads on social media sites. What previous waves of LCM data have shown is a high desire for social media but lower actual spending, indicating a pent-up demand to spend in this category. My theory has always been that social media is often intimidating to those less familiar with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogging and posting news features. All these activities take time and a certain level of technical expertise to manage them while also running a business.

Enter BizBrag. CEO Brian Smith made it his mission to try to develop a single platform where SMBs can manage all their social media activities including e-mail marketing. “With so many social media outlets, with varying ways of inputting data and broadcasting information, BizBrag’s goal was to create an easy to use all-in-one platform. The goal is to help small businesses create ways to draw activity to their Web sites by creating more ways to be found on search engines via blogs, news articles, and social media posts.” Small businesses create a BizFolio that shows all their activity and provides a simple description of the company. The dashboard feature allows the company to create news articles and posts about their company showing them where they can post their information. Enter a news story (Called a Braggit), check a few boxes on where it can be posted, upload an e-mail list, and then hit submit.

BizBrag is two months out of beta and now gaining speed with 1,000 advertisers signed on since going live. Leveraging its social media expertise, BizBrag has been active in working its social media network to get the word out to SMBs. Smith pointed out, “if the pace of inquiries and new advertisers signed on in the last two months is any indication, we seem to have hit the mark with small businesses trying to figure out an easy way to start and manage a social media campaign.”

The post Social Media Made Easier for Small Businesses: A Conversation With BizBrag appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Three years ago, BIA/Kelsey created the Marketplaces research program and conference because we saw that local advertising was quickly “verticalizing.” Indeed, money and talent have poured in for the new breed of vertical products that would take their place among existing vertical success stories, such as AutoTrader, Cars.com, Realtor.com and ServiceMagic.

The Marketplaces 2010 conference reveals just how fast the industry has evolved. This year’s event, now under construction, is set to highlight all the major trends in Marketplaces, including:

• AOL’s $50 million investment in Patch.com, and ongoing transformation of its Mediaglow vertical properties (and Mapquest)
• eBay’s renewed efforts to build up classifieds as entry-level e-commerce via Kijiji, eBay Motors and other services
• Examiner.com’s  big bet on local/vertical content, and its network of 26,000 “examiners.”
• Groupon’s “smart mob” theory of local commerce, backed by a $32 million investment, that allows hundreds to make a volume purchase of local services and products.
• Redbeacon, AlikeList and others’ efforts to remake ServiceMagic-like home and trade leads with social media
• Adify and Pulse360’s  bid to verticalize ad networks for local merchants and national brands
• OpenTable’s big bet on mobile to let diners make reservations wherever they are.

The two-day conference takes full advantage of its location in sunny San Diego. It includes rich research presentations, top-flight demos of the latest services, and a preconference showcasing all the best tools of Marketplaces 2010. Come to San Diego March 22-24 to learn, enjoy the unbeatable networking and participate. You can register at early-bird rates here.

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS (in Alpha)

• Ethan Anderson, CEO, Redbeacon
• Jeff Beard, CEO, Localeze
• Rick Blair, CEO, Examiner.com
• Jon Brod, EVP, AOL*
• Craig Donato, CEO, Oodle
• Jim Delli Santi, CEO, AlikeList
• Todd Dubner, SVP, NCI
• Russ Fradin, CEO, Adify
• Krista Glotzbach, VP, Vast.com
• Mark Goldstein, Chairman, Loyalty Labs
• Martin Herbst, GM, Kijiji U.S., eBay
• Scott Jampol, Senior Director, Marketing, OpenTable
• Jaan Janes, CEO, Pulse 360
• David Kidder, CEO, Clickable
• Steve Larsen, CEO, CallSpark
• Andrew Mason, CEO, GroupOn*
• Colin Pape, CEO, ShopCity
• Ben Saren, CEO, CitySquares
• Craig Smith, President, ServiceMagic
• Mat Stover, CEO, Local Matters
• David Vazdauskas, President, Local Thunder

*keynote

The post NEW: The Hot Lineup for Marketplaces 2010 (March 22-24, San Diego) appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Last year in Seattle, we had 500 attendees, and it was pretty great. This time, with a full year of our Marketplaces research program under our belts, we’ve added a lot of twists and turns, and some exciting formats, including keynotes, in-depth “duo” discussions,  focused panels, a Leads Summit, a Mobile Verticals SuperForum and a “Parade of Verticals.”

Every speaker has been handpicked by us — “no empty suits,” OK? And then there is the great networking that is the hallmark of all our shows.

Try this out for size (in alpha):

Keynoters: Jay Berman, MySpace; Jay Herratti, Citysearch; Chris LaSala, Google; and Chris Spanos, AOL

In-Depth Duos: Dan McCarthy, NCI, with Chip Perry, AutoTrader; Rob Curley with Chris Jennewein, Greenspun Media; Matthew Berk, Marchex, with Larry Fitzgibbon, Demand Media

Leads Summit: Kevin Laws, Vast.com; Tom Mohr, ResponseLogix; and Anna Zornosa, Dealix (Cobalt)

Parade of Verticals: Dan Hobin, G5 Search Marketing; Mike Rutz, Angie’s List; John Triplett, A.H. Belo; and Tony Wills, Allmenus.com

The Mobile Verticals SuperForum: Walt Doyle, Where.com; Tom Kenney, Verve Wireless; and Dinesh Moorjani, IAC (with more to be announced).

Great Featured Speakers: Peter Adams, Matchpoint; Frank Bell, IT Strategists; Craig Donato, Oodle; Emad Fanous, YellowBot; Adam Leff, BogoPod; Michael Oschmann, 123people; Rob Paterson, Friday Holdings; and Andrei Uglar, Weblocal.ca/Transcontinental Media

Here’s the URL to sign up. There are special rates through the 18th (i.e., this Saturday).

The post Our Lineup for Marketplaces 2009, March 16-18 in L.A. appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

What’s surprising about MapQuest is that it remains the industry leader, even though it has been overshadowed by more cutting-edge mapping services from Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. It has 46 million to 48 million unique visitors a month. Yet it’s in the odd position of “catching up” to its rivals before its technology and distribution lag causes permanent damage.

“Since the end of June, we’ve been following an entirely new road map,” says Christian Dwyer, MapQuest senior vice president and general manager. Dwyer notes that the arrival of smartphones and GPS has added entirely new elements to the business. It isn’t just about printing out maps anymore. And it isn’t just about releasing the API either. You need to go “live” with saved information now, he says. That changes things.

The September launch of a beta of MapQuest Local, which incorporates data from lots of AOL vertical properties (autos, jobs, city “best of” content, etc.) is pivotal to the company’s efforts. The service has had 3 million unique visitors since its introduction.

The strategy’s second leg is the launch of My MapQuest, a personalized version that starts every search from a saved home (or business) address. My MapQuest has been available since the end of November.

“We want to help users on the front end of discovery rather than strictly be a place on the Web for directions,” says Dwyer. “We want to [provide information on] where, how and what is nearby.” The company will also “extend MapQuest to the mobile experience.”

A horde of additional changes will take place in early 2009, with the incorporation into My MapQuest’s home page of lots of personalized, localized content. Content offerings will include spatial maps, traffic, weather, a business directory, gas price info and even an AOL Careers job search widget centered on addresses that are searched. All of it will be offered via RSS feeds.

“It is about much more than the business listings piece,” says Mark Law, vice president of product development, a mapping veteran recruited from Yahoo. “We are going to be a one-stop shop for all local content” — something that is being syndicated to sites such as Yelp and Flickr.

Law sees the introduction of the RSS feeds and the ability to save content as key to making MapQuest a resource that goes beyond the commute or the overnight trip. “It is going to really drive hyperlocal,” he says. The launch of a MapQuest Twitter feature also moves along this path, as users will be able to constantly update conversations (“the crash on the 805 is really gruesome”).

The post MapQuest Goes Into Web 2.0 Overdrive appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

This time around, it has also been exciting to see thousands of people “request” in-person appearances by candidates via Eventful; to watch the McCain campaign use Topix to reach rural voters; and to see the Obama campaign use Centro’s local network to place geotargeted, online video ads.

I checked in with my longtime colleague Karen Jagoda, who runs the nonpartisan E-Voter Institute, to see what she’s excited about. Jagoda reminded me that it is more than a cliché that all politics are local. Some of the newest, local-oriented innovations have included:

• Encouraging people to use campaign Internet tools to organize house parties to watch the debates or special speeches;
• Virtual phone banks where volunteers could download phone numbers to call and
functionality to report back on results (all from their own house);
• Online contests to win a chance to be with the candidate, which included people everywhere;
• Online tools for people to engage others in their community to contribute, volunteer for
phone banks and walk neighborhoods;
• Making it easy for people to find local volunteer events from the Web site.

Jagoda feels one of the biggest changes is the use of online video at the local level. “Obama created his own YouTube channel, which allowed him to post videos focused on very specific locations,” she says. “People uploaded material and generated their own local following, but probably not as much broke through as some might have expected.”

There was also an interesting effect with TV advertising. A lot of it got more play on the Internet than on the local station. McCain especially created niche ads that were ostensibly for TV, but more intended for their Internet audience (and the press).

But some things remain the same. The E-Voter Institute survey of political consultants found that the Internet remains a second-tier way of reaching rural and blue-collar voters, she says. To reach out to these groups, the campaigns used fund-raising pitches for $5 as ways to include as many low income people as possible. Some of these people are students and retired people who are likely voters, she says.

Have local Web sites benefited from the largesse of the campaigns? Jagoda says it is too soon to tell.

The post All Politics Are Local: A Talk With E-Voter Institute’s Karen Jagoda appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Blyk is a free mobile operator targeting young people (ages 16 to 24) and funded by advertising. Brands pay Blyk to help them reach their target audiences while users get interesting messages, cool stuff, free texts and voice minutes. Users receive six SMS/MMS per day in exchange for 217 texts and 43 minutes of voice calls each month.  Accounts can be topped up once the free usage runs out with standard mobile usage fees.

The company was founded in 2006 by former president of Nokia phones Pekka Ala-Pietilä and award-winning film producer Antti Öhrling. Blyk entered the U.K. in mid-2007 and by April 2008 had already reached more than 100,000 members. The company plans to go pan-European in 2009 potentially reaching 40 million young consumers.

A couple of presentations touched on some interesting case studies that gave national marketers some compelling reasons to look twice at this emerging mobile platform.  Executions ranging from straight promotion to previews on ads before they air on TV and books before they’re released show the broad utility of this type of opt-in platform. The level of engagement gained through the transparent relationship between Blyk and its users creates a number of opportunities for advertisers to gain valuable insight into the elusive 16- to 24-year-old market.

From an affinity and subcategory targeting standpoint, the model is unique in its depth and breadth. New members go through a lengthy registration process that includes a detailed questionnaire. The objective is to create highly relevant matches with potential advertisers to create an optimal user experience. The transparency of the interaction is what drives the users to share more personal data than even social networks are able to get a grip on.

One presentation showed some interesting McKinsey research that indicated a 26 percent lift in mobile advertising acceptance among consumers if there was a reward attached to it. For cash-strapped 16- to 24-year-olds, it’s known that a phone registers highly in the reward category. In a case study presented by Janet Kestin, co-chief creative officer at Ogilvy & Mather, a community of Blyk users were asked if they were OK with the advertising in exchange for phone usage. Seventy-one percent of those users responded that they were “cool” with it as long as it was relevant to their lives.

Big national brands like Boots, Penguin Publishing and L’Oreal that have experimented with the platform have seen tremendous results with average clickthrough rates of 29 percent (ranges between 12 percent and 43 percent). Not bad, since the mobile advertising average clickthrough rate hovers around 3 percent to 6 percent.

Blyk is a great example of a phone company that is thinking like a media company. Check this link for some innovative campaigns that have already been executed on Blyk’s network. Some of them clearly demonstrate how this platform could turn up serious volume and innovation on mobile marketing.

With the addition of coupons and GPS targeting, a whole new opt-in local media channel targeting 16- to 24-year-olds emerges.

The post Blyk’s Deep Opt-In Mobile Model appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.