CitySquares, the Boston-based city guide company, is prominently featured in the “Small Business” section of The Wall Street Journal today (subscription required). The subject? Its frequent use of volunteer advisors (something we have firsthand knowledge of, actually). The article boasts…
Hyperlocal sites are often run by earnest people who have just enough naivete about them to put in the hours and chase the dream, right? Former Yahoo and NJ.com exec Susan Mernit probably doesn’t qualify. But Mernit, a 10-year resident…
Motorists in Melbourne, Australia, can now navigate their city in 3-D using the Whereis navigation system, produced by Sensis, Australia's leading directories publisher. Whereis is rolling out 3-D city models this week. The product focuses on Melbourne's central business district.…
European Directories SA has named Ben Legg as its new chief operating officer. Legg comes to EDSA from Google, where he was COO of European operations. EDSA is a major directory player in Europe, with market leadership positions in Austria,…
I've just returned from the Association of Directory Publishers midyear meeting in Orlando, Florida, where roughly 150 operators and vendors gathered to network and share best practices in a challenging time for independent publishers. One publisher I spoke with said…
I participated in a webinar sponsored by DataXu discussing how the development of display ad exchanges will make real-time bidding for display ad units and impressions similar to the current SEM process by making it more open, targeted and technology…
We've crossed the 40-speaker landmark for BIA/Kelsey's Interactive Local Media 2009 event. The show reflects renewed optimism in the marketplace, and has generated a lot of healthy buzz. ILM is the culmination of this year's research and analysis, and takes…
Speaking at TargusInfo’s recent Online Lead Quality Summit in Las Vegas, Senior VP and GM Greg Hanson said Tree.com is “taking a multichannel marketing approach that will provide synergies between all the brands. “There is a lot of engagement before…
If people repeatedly mention a restaurant or dish on Twitter, odds are it’s going to be because they like it, right? One or two mentions might be trashing it. But 20 to 30 will likely go the other way. That’s…
Vertical development is all about serving micro-segments that have been under-served by horizontal media such as Yellow Pages and newspapers. One area that’s been largely missed to date is the nail salon and hand care market. And that’s exactly the…
From the department of transparent marketing ploys comes an effort by 192.com, a UK Internet directory service, demanding an opt-in regime for phone book distribution in Britain. This is neither a unique nor an indefensible position. Many environmental groups around…
Matchbin, a venture-backed firm based in Bountiful, Utah, is banking on aggregating rural and exurban audiences by providing community media companies with a full slate of advertising and social tools, rather than just one-dimensional local search. The six-year-old, 40-person company,…
An otherwise obscure article caught my eye this afternoon. The Wall Street Journal reported that “Paranormal Activity,” a small independent movie made on the microscopic budget of $15,000, is experiencing roaring success commercially ($7 million gross last weekend) due to…
Newspapers have often had lobby stores selling T-shirts and other items. They’ve also long experimented with online stores. Reprints of the presidential election results sold especially well last November. Last year, The Philadelphia Inquirer launched an especially aggressive store that…
The Nordics directory publisher Eniro last week announced a reorganization to a "more rational corporate structure." The new plan divides the business into three functions that cut across all the company's national operating units -- Products and Services, Operations and…
This coming Wednesday, BIA/Kelsey will host a free webinar about reputation management and how it's becoming a growing area of local online ad spend. It will feature commentary from BIA/Kelsey's Matt Booth as well as executives of Marchex and SMBLive.…
Geotargeting is one of several criteria that advertisers base their buys on. But as the technology has become more accurate, it has become increasingly standard. According to a study of the online display ads in four cities by comScore, roughly…
A few notable items are emerging from this week's CTIA Wireless I.T. and Entertainment conference. I personally didn't attend because of the focus on infrastructure, entertainment and enterprise (fleet management, medical, etc.). But there is some overlap with mobile…
Angie’s List, the Indianapolis-based premium services directory that charges members to access and participate in reviews of local service businesses, said it has crossed the 1 million member mark. The threshold has been reached after a major ad campaign on…
