LOCAL MEDIA WATCH. The Nexus of All Things Local

PaidContent reports that a new social networking site for Teens called Tagged has received funding. Little is revealed about the business model, but it will be difficult for anyone entering the space to gain market share from MySpace. The average…

Seeking to match some of the very impressive high-resolution "birdseye" photography now available through Windows Live Local, Google has improved the resolution on some of its aerial coverage. Here's the latest from the Official Google Blog: We're always trying to…

This is a very interesting piece from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer quoting Yahoo!'s CFO Susan Decker on the implied unliklihood that Yahoo! will gain any significant search share from Google in the immediate future. Recall, however, that overall Yahoo! is number…

BusinessWeek Reporter Ben Elgin provides a nice overview of Yahoo!'s "differentiation strategy" (vs. Google) using community and "social search." (I believe JudysBook has tried to TM the term "social search.") We wrote about Yahoo!'s broader social strategy and how it…

This doesn't have anything to do with local per se, but Ask.com is supposed to being helping make IAC a local powerhouse (together with Citysearch). I'm reminded by this that I need to catch up with them on a range…

SiliconBeat and John Battelle raise the question (citing Yahoo! employee Amr Awadallah's reasoned speculation) of whether Google will hit or fall short of estimates. I think the company will hit its targets (but it still may loose if it doesn't…

Loren Baker at Search Engine Journal reports on a large-scale deal between ReachLocal and FTD local florists: ReachLocal and FTD Florists are working together on a customized local search campaign in which 20,000 FTD merchants will be advertising on Google…

Gary Price has a link-intensive piece today at Search Engine Watch discussing the proliferating tools in real estate search. It's quite thorough and worth a read definitely. Real estate is one of the most interesting verticals since it's map-intensive, involves…

Here's a very very long article in the NY Times (reg. req'd) from Sunday about the elusive "millenials" (people born between 1980 and 2000). If anyone believes that the consumer behavior model and the media landscape isn't fragmenting and radically…

This article made the rounds on Friday (ClickZ). The thrust of this Kevin Newcomb piece is that the paid search auction model is flawed and inefficient for less sophisticated marketers: "We want to educate advertisers about the fact that in…

Here's an interesting discussion in MediaPost (reg. req'd) about the tension between "programmed" (read: scheduled) TV and the emerging model of "on-demand" TV (whether online or off). The theme: consumers still want programmed TV. Implied in this discussion is the…

I've already written too much about Google in a single 24 hour period. But what the heck . . . Google has further personalized its news site by offering "recommendations" to those who are signed in. Here's how it works:…

Here's a rebranding case study—call measurement firm DCCI changing its name to telmetrics—that appeared in Ken Clark's YPTalk blog/newsletter. Call tracking will become more important and more central to integrated online-offline campaigns in the very near future. Call tracking will…

Now this isn't PPCall, it's call connection (eStara). . . but this DMNews piece offers a case study of sorts on how Chrysler is having success connecting potential purchasers to local dealers: ...80 percent of calls generated through the click-to-call…

Here's a broad ClickZ article about media fragmentation, consumer control and video coming to local. These are all themes of the upcoming Drilling Down event. Also eMarketer compiles data from Tacoda-sponsored research showing that behavioral targeting beats contextual. The data…

An interesting piece in today's New York Times about HD radio. Better described as "digital radio", the technology allows broadcasters to fit three additional channels in the space now occupied by just one. A digital signal also allows for much…

WiMax is coming to Wisconsin (and then beyond). Some form of broadband will likely cover almost 100 percent of the U.S. within 3 to 5 years. Why? Because there are many competitors seeking to provide that access. That's also why…

What started out as an act of resistance toward the Bush Administration's effort to obtain porn-related search data, has now turned into something of a PR coup for Google. I don't think this was a calculated move but there's a…