A9's CEO (and last year's Drilling Down keynoter), Udi Manber, who famously told me "local search is not a solved problem," is apparently leaving for Google, according to John Battelle. This is obviously a blow to A9 and raises a…
A new forecast adds further fuel to the local shopping fire (sorry). According to this article, Jupiter says: The amount of money consumers spend online is expected to increase 75 percent by 2010, with the Internet influencing nearly half of…
Advertising in video games has been on our long-term radar screen. It will take a while before it has relevance to local, but it's an interesting area where a lot of development is happening, and where an ad revenue stream…
Here's a long eWeek piece raising the question, "When o when will users take to the mobile Web in earnest?" Indeed, until they do there can be no effective mass mobile marketing. My belief is that the user experiences that…
As user reviews and other forms of user-generated content become a bigger phenomenon online so does the prospect of what might be called "review fraud." Word of Mouth guru Pete Blackshaw of the newly formed Nielsen BuzzMetrics points me to…
Google is integrating its Google Talk/IM functionality into GMail. It doesn't replace Google Talk (because there's no VoIP yet). But it does: Potentially differentiate GMail Offer the first (that I know of) browser access to IM/chat Potentially expose more GMail…
Just because it's fun to speculate about such things — and there's a history here — I'm repeating hearsay. SiliconBeat discusses an unsubstantiated rumor about a possible Google acquisition of now tainted "social networking" (read: dating) site Friendster. Back in…
While I didn't actually watch the Super Bowl, I did of course watch the commercials here. (You can also watch and vote for favorites at AOL.) I counted at least three ads touting mobile content: Motorola/Verizon, Sprint and ESPN; in…
What is FON? No it's not a Spanish dessert — that's flan — although it is based in Spain. FON is an effort to build a global Wi-Fi network of hotspots with existing broadband connectivity — "members" are referred to…
This piece in Reuters discusses the VW-Google partnership to develop a "prototype vehicle which features Google Inc.'s satellite mapping software to give drivers a bird's eye view of the road ahead." Nvidia is also part of the deal. There's lots…
Yesterday we wrote about network-affiliated local television stations using their Web sites as distribution points for network content. NBC Universal has announced it will redesign all of its local station Web sites to handle multimedia content such as video and…
One of the more controversial issues in the Yellow Pages business is the subject of companion directories. At last year's Directory Driven Commerce event, Joe Walsh spoke adamantly against the increasing number of mini directories and their impact on the…
With online newspaper revenues and traffic on the rise, newspapers are increasingly putting more emphasis on their online news production. More specifically we're seeing an overhaul of many newspaper operations to change the mind-set that online is an afterthought. Its…
Social search is something that has gained a lot of attention and business activity in the past year, especially from Yahoo! (Flickr, MyWeb, 360). The next logical place for social search is video, and it already has been applied to…
With all the media coverage and business activity surrounding online video, and with the Super Bowl coming up, one would expect the annually hyped set of ads to get some broadband play. PaidContent has a roundup of where you can…
Following Neal's comments earlier about direct distribution of content that could increasingly render middleman distribution channels unnecessary, CBS has done something similar with its famous "Survivor" reality show. Though CBS is a distribution channel itself, in this case it is…
Amid gloomy reports (WSJ sub. req'd) about the health of print newspapers, there's some very good news in online revenues and traffic growth for newspaper sites. According to Nielsen and the NAA:Both the overall number and percentage of Internet users…
Speaking of "click-to-call," here's a Mercury News piece on Google's "click-to-call" initiative. According to the article, the company is working with Florida-based VoIP Inc.Click-to-call is not PPCall. There are many companies using click-to-call, which is about connecting calls between individuals…
Recently I found myself "stuck" with some extra tickets for a Coldplay concert in Sacramento. So I did what everyone told me to do — put them up on Craigslist. Not a nibble. At the same time I posted the…
Swedish search and directory company Eniro has signed an agreement with Woize International to use the U.K.-based firm's technology to offer a click-to-call feature on its online product porfolio. You can read the press release here. Eniro plans to offer…
