Gillian Heltai, comScore's senior director, presented new search data showing that while local search is still growing, its trajectory is slowing down. She broke search into online and mobile. Year over year, online search grew 9 percent online to 19.3…
Moderator Peter Krasilovsky led a session Monday afternoon on how several leading vertical sites are successfully leveraging social media. As sites that are focused on a specific business, profession or user need, verticals will typically contain a directory, specialized editorial…
Our audience might be upset that Jed’s Burgers, a fictitious business set up for the Yext PowerListings demo isn’t real. What may be more upsetting is the fact that 20 percent of local searches will return the wrong information. Lerman…
SMB marketing companies have forgotten that local businesses still see calls as a key driver of new business. That's the opinion expressed by Marchex Executive VP Matthew Berk during today's session on "Converting Calls to Local Sales." To succeed in…
When it comes to Local Yokel Media’s business focus, it's all about 15 miles. That’s because 80 percent of consumer spending is done within 15 miles of home. CEO and Founder Dick O’Hare shared that fact at this afternoon’s session…
It’s obvious that the deals business is going to quickly move to a broader set of offerings. But how? That was the question posed today at ILM West in San Francisco. Belo Interactive GM Joe Weir noted that deals remains…
Court Cunningham, CEO of Yodle, made news at ILM West this afternoon, announcing a three-year deal with Canada's Rogers Communicationsduring a 15-minute Q&A with BIA/Kelsey analyst Bobbi Loy Luster. Rogers is a leading communications company in Canada. Its deal…
Local Search Association President Neg Norton announced today at ILM West in San Francisco that the trade group would work with BIA/Kelsey to produce its annual conference, April 21-24 in Boca Raton, Florida. Norton said the LSA is committed to…
During a late morning panel on Day 2 of ILM West, local video providers batted around the opportunity in bringing video advertising to the "other 99 percent" of small merchants. "We know it's evolving," said moderator Steve Passwaiter of this…
In the midst of ILM West happenings, call measurement ad provider Telmetrics announced today that it's bringing its m.Call platform to iOS. M.Call gives local search publishers and app developers the ability to capture data around the phone calls they're…
The emergence of deals has reinvigorated local merchant promotions, but traditional promotions leaders think they can absorb some of the best parts of deals as part of their “offer cloud” while strengthening their existing direct marketing businesses, according to panelists…
Dan Hess, CEO of deals aggregator and research company Local Offer Network, played mythbuster at ILM West, using data to set the record straight on where the market is moving…and where it isn’t. Hess is convinced that there is still…
Dex One Chief Strategy Officer David Sharman shared with us today some of the key challenges the longtime traditional directory publisher is facing as it evolves its business into the digital world. The primary challenge that he sees in the…
Search engine marketers are no longer selling calls to merchants but conversion. Prior discussions among industry insiders focused on calls, but according to a Manta survey, 49 percent of merchants named referrals as the most valuable lead source. This was…
Two compelling speakers made the case this afternoon at ILM West that newspaper companies can successfully transform into digital media businesses. One problem is that most newspaper companies are not willing to make the tough decisions necessary for this transition.…
Day 1 at ILM West came to a close with a session on how SMBs are using Facebook and social media. This most notably culminated with "3 big ideas" for driving social commerce, from Oodle CEO Craig Donato. These are derived from…
Venture capital leaders at ILM West in San Francisco today expressed optimism about the environment but said there are some challenges coming up. “It is a great time to start a company and fund a company,” said Michael Yang of…
Today at BIA/Kelsey's ILM West conference, prolific Wall Street Journal tech blogger Kara Swisher acknowledged many of the challenges for local media, but was quick to point out that none of these is new. Some of the sleeping giants moving…
137 billion. That's how big the local media market is. Steve Marshall and Matt Booth highlighted findings from "Wave XV" of BIA Kelsey's Local Commerce Monitor during this morning's session, "New Directions for Interactive Local Commerce." Not surprisingly, there is…
When Bob Pittman launched his career in radio decades ago, he touted the virtues of advertising’s “big three” -- radio, TV and newspapers. All these years later, during his keynote address at ILM West 2011, Pittman was still bullish on…
