Admission Corp. has sold its Spotlight Ads division to Cobalt Group, which provides services to over 40 percent of U.S. auto dealers. The company retains control over its intellectual property and Marketplaces businesses, which account for a small piece of…
If you believe at all in the “marketplace” vision of next generation commerce, it is hard to dispute that Yahoo! remains front –and- center as a verticals factory. This core strength of Yahoo!’s is especially important to note in the…
At this writing, Idearc Media's stock was trading higher (up about 28 percent at noon Eastern) after an earnings announcement that shows the company has managed its costs well enough to grow EBITDA, while its revenues continued to slide. Here…
Thanks to all who attended and participated in last week's Drilling Down on Local conference in Seattle. The show was a large success. Here is a recap of coverage from the TKG blog in case you missed any posts. You…
Yellowbook has unveiled a new television ad campaign, replacing the kinda cheesy Kung Fu ads (sorry, David Carradine, you did what you could) with a much slicker campaign that focuses on promoting use of Yellowbook's online directory (which is also sporting…
Steve Ballmer has officially walked away from what would have been the biggest tech deal ever, citing that Yahoo!'s price was too high. Coverage from the Merc.
Today at DDL, Call Genie Director of Product Evolution Gary Galinsky pegged the lineup of mobile ad formats (SMS, pre-roll audio, post-roll audio, banner, etc.) as "interruption marketing." The only way to skirt this is relevance, and like real estate,…
The first day of the Kelsey Drilling Down on Local conference included a somewhat unusual panel with four entrepreneurs in verticals. They talked about the nuts and bolts of building truly local verticals. These vertical pioneers shared their war stories…
Dan Pulcrano closed out Day 2 of Drilling Down on Local ’08 with a presentation to expose attendees to the wild west of the geo-domain space. Pulcrano, owner of numerous city sites such as Seattle.com and SanJose.com, argued that the…
During yesterday’s afternoon session focused on Auto at Drilling Down on Local ’08, the panelists nearly universally said U.S. automaker giant General Motors was the furthest along in figuring out how to leverage the Web. Mitch Golub, president of Cars.com,…
Speaking this afternoon at at The Kelsey Group's Drilling Down on Local conference in Seattle, Kurt Weinsheimer, GM for Local Marketing Services at Spot Runner, offered a simple set of rules for effectively selling to small businesses. Target the right customers. …
The winners in online real estate will be those that partner with brokers and agents to be part of their businesses, said Jamie Glenn, Trulia VP of product development, during a real estate panel at DDL. Selling clicks and leads…
There is a tendency for speakers at a large conference to want to sell (they would say "educate") the audience about their companies' products and services. I know I'm guilty of it. Nevertheless, it is refreshing when a person making a presentation…
A leading auto vertical and Google sat on stage together this morning and provided some insight into how they might coexist. Cars.com President Mitch Golub made clear that sales and customer service will serve as an effective firewall that will…
Zillow.com's founder Rich Barton used the analogy of the explosion of verticals to the storming of the Bastille and the strong desire for consumers to take control of the decisions in their lives, especially those with big financial implications. The visionary…
Wave V of The Kelsey Group’s annual consumer tracking survey, User View, was just completed in March. The survey asks online consumers about 30 questions, covering topics such as information sources used for local shopping, level of Internet usage and participation…
In an executive interview today with the "Father of IYP," Pat Marshall, Yellow Book's chief new media officer talked about his re-entrance to the IYP space and what Yellow Book is looking for new business partners. In all fairness, Marshall,…
In a session called "The Online City: Close Up on Seattle" here at Drilling Down on Local, The Seattle Times' Patricia Lee Smith reiterated a point made earlier by the LA Times' Rob Barrett, which is that online newspapers cannot…
The Drilling Down on Local conference kicked off this morning with a presentation and conversation with Rob Barrett, the LA Times' VP of Interactive. The underlying theme was how the Times is reengineering its online product to be ... an…
Mixpo today announced a new platform that brings together video production, editing and tracking/analytics. The production dashboard has drag and drop functionality for ad creative including existing still images and a library of stock footage, and Mixpo's signature call to…
