The latest news on the sale of Yellow Pages Group (New Zealand) is that a partnership of the private equity KKR and Australia's Seven Network has made a final offer of about NZ$2.2 billion, which is about 9 times the…
A close second to video in terms of getting "airtime" here at the Drilling Down on Local show, has been (a two-way tie between) social media and mobile. Leading up to the conference, there has been a lot of conversation…
Video has taken center stage at Drilling Down on Local '07. Actual local video ads are getting a lot of play on the jumbo-tron screens that flank the stage both between sessions and during some presentations. This has been…
Earlier this week I was rereading the transcript of the Nordic directory publisher Eniro's Q4 2006 earnings call, and I paid a bit more attention to an item I had glossed over the first time through, when I was more…
Nick Veronis, managing director of Veronis Suhler Stevenson, says he doesn't see a "dollar for dollar" transfer between incumbent media in the local arena and their Internet offspring, but publishers are in a position to make money online. "The big…
Yellowpages.com unveiled the first screen shots of its IPTV Internet Yellow Pages channel at Local '07 yesterday. The shots show a colorful video service that enables users to select and browse by popular categories, with details of nearby businesses also…
Yahoo! EVP Hilary Schneider, during her opening keynote to Kelsey Local '07, emphasized that the company is really zeroing in on local to play a major role in Yahoo!'s growth plans. Local search's share of overall search within Yahoo! went…
Just got a press release in my inbox from Yellow Book announcing that it would begin publicly disclosing audited circulation figures for all its directories with distribution greater than 100,000. In the release, Yellow Book makes the claim that it…
The "little guys" at the local level are generally obscured in both the "organic search" and "paid" rankings of the search engines. A search for "home improvement" in "San Diego," for instance, yields just two local contractors in 10 slots.…
The America East show the largest regional event in the U.S. newspaper industry took place last week in Hershey, Pennsylvania, with 1,200-plus attendees. I'd sum it up by saying that the attendees' mostly small and medium-sized markets remain…
Skype officially launched version 3.1 earlier this week. As we wrote about a few weeks ago, this includes a new feature that lets users find local businesses. This has clear synergies with its core product and represents an opportunity to…
We noted with interest the recent move by Canada's Yellow Pages Group to introduce a companion directory in the Calgary, Alberta, market along with this year's core directory. YPG's decision to introduce a companion book may be related to a…
Getting down to the final wire.... we think the Local '07 program in Santa Clara next Tuesday and Wednesday is looking really good. Piper Jaffray's Safa Rashtchy is the latest big add. Safa will be talking about PJ's new report,…
A new compact between Monster and Adicio, a classified vendor that previously insisted on newspapers' "independence" from Internet verticals, seems likely to evolve the world of classifieds even faster. The deal was unexpected Monster has recently grabbed the key…
Pegasus News, the social network site based in Dallas, made a deal with Fox4 TV for a mutual content swap that would fill Pegasus' news hole, leverage its features (weather, etc.) and increase awareness about it in the community. At…
AOL launched a beta version of its new local search product today. Though MapQuest has served as the de facto centerpiece of its local search functionality, AOL has trailed behind its search and portal competitors in having a dedicated local…
Microsoft announced today that it has agreed to acquire Tellme, a Mountain View, California-based voice search provider. Yesterday, Microsoft and Tellme briefed The Kelsey Group about the pending acquisition. Neither side would disclose the size of the deal, but we…
While I'm spreading rumors about online giants today, I might as well be fair and include others in the fun. The San Jose Mercury News has more on the rumored Google phone. Just as Microsoft would gain ground in mobile…
Rumors are swirling about a potential Microsoft acquisition of Tellme Networks. The latest is a Wall Street Journal article (sub. req'd) that reports a possible sale price of US$800 million (here is coverage from TechCrunch if you don't have a…
Eric Grilly, president of MediaNews Group Interactive and a major driver of the Yahoo! consortium for HotJobs, has left his position to take a new job as head of Philly.com, the Web site for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia…
