When Yahoo! Answers launched it was immediately clear that people would be asking for local recommendations and seeking answers to questions with local implications. Now, consistent with Yahoo!'s strategy to push user-generated content from anywhere within Yahoo! to anywhere else…
When StepUp launched a couple of years ago with the intention of delivering real-time inventory information and product availability to the Internet it was met with considerable skepticism, along the lines of "yeah, how are they gonna do that?" and…
Here's a fun and timely one: The Windows Live Local Super Bowl mashup. (So there's a football pun/joke in there, but I'm going to leave it alone.)Here's the official MSN/WLL word on the site:[MSN has] created a Super Bowl mashup…
A couple of days ago I met with Simply Hired. Beyond some interesting things that they were telling me about their roadmap, I was fascinated by the "vertical"' vs. "horizontal" search discussion we had. My personal belief is that the…
I saw this article this morning but was racing out to a meeting at StepUp.com and so I didn't have time to do a post earlier. From Reuters:The Paris-based World Association of Newspapers, whose members include dozens of national newspaper…
Google's well-publicized earnings announcement yesterday overshadowed another notable piece of news about the company. The San Jose Mercury News reported that Google is working with Florida-based VoIP Inc. to possibly add voice calling to its network of offerings, which can…
My colleague Charles Laughlin posted about the YellowPages.com "Need Something" ad campaign when it officially launched earlier this week. Here's more on the size and reach of the campaign from ClickZ. You can view the online ads here and the…
Search Engine Journal covers the recent GeoVector/Mapion announcement about "point and search" mobile local technology in Japan. From the GeoVector announcement:With Mapion Local Search, users can now walk down the street anywhere in Japan and point at over 700,000 objects…
OK, not exactly. But yesterday's financial results showed the company was subject to the same pressures, market trends and unreasonable expectations that have confronted other Internet bellwethers such as Yahoo! and eBay. I had expected Google to beat expectations. But…
As expected, the merger of R.H. Donnelley Corp. and Dex Media closed today. Dex Media is no more, and RHD is now the third-largest U.S. directory publisher, with combined revenues of roughly US$2.5 billion. You can read more about the…
EarthLink has apparently finalized its deal with Philadelphia to provide what amounts to wholesale wireless/Wi-Fi access that can then be resold to ISPs (which would then sell to consumers). So this isn't "free" Wi-Fi, but reportedly EarthLink would only be…
To add to Greg's post last week about My Yahoo!, there was an interesting article in The New York Times yesterday about the site's usage and strategy. The Times reports that as of December, there were 30 million Americans that…
It was reported late last week that Verizon has settled the strike by 300 CWA workers in upstate New York. Here is an article with details.
YellowPages.com has launched its long-awaited advertising campaign to generate awareness and organic traffic. The site is jointly owned by AT&T and BellSouth, and the agency handling the campaign, GSD&M in Austin, also does work for AT&T Yellow Pages (formerly SBC).…
News Corp.'s True Local search engine has gone live in Australia. Its purpose is to compete with Sensis and it's "powered" by News Corp.-owned newspapers. This is an interesting thing for U.S.-based newspapers to consider, but perhaps impossible for them…
America Online has decided to make another push into broadband. Built on top of third-party partnerships with BellSouth, Time Warner Cable, Qwest and AT&T, the company will offer high-speed access across the U.S. AOL had limited success with this the…
Google went live tonight with version 4 of its toolbar for IE (Firefox version coming soon, I'm told). You can take a look at the laundry list of features and upgrades here. Worth noting from my point of view are…
Almost everyone is using the term "social search" to describe a rash of "Web 2.0-style" offerings (whether product features or new sites) that try to blend community with another application (e.g., search, shopping, etc.).Here's a post by Danny Sullivan (SEW)…
Having just returned from a Yellow Book "summit" with the national ad community, it is fair to say that the national agencies are viewing the company in a new light. The reason? Yellow Book showed significant strength in the first…
No time to discuss now. Check out a screenshot of the test. More to come later. Precious little additional info in this article.
