Broadband: Plug 'n' Play

There are lots of broadband data -- seemingly contradictory -- now running around in the market. Pew says: Growth has slowed and will be flat. Nielsen says it's up and continuing to grow: "Two out of every five Americans has…

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Consolidation in Nordic Market

The Swedish publisher Eniro AB is buying its Norwegian rival Findexa A/S for a combination of cash and new shares worth roughly 7.9 billion Swedish kroner (about US$1.01 billion). The deal will further strengthen Eniro's position in the Nordic market,…

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Local Matters at DEMO

The DEMO conference is happening in SoCal this week (not there, trying to get some writing done) and there are some interesting developments that concern local: Local Matters announced its next-generation local search platform. I saw a very early version…

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Local Action and Google Classifieds

There are lots of things happening and announcements in the local space. However, I'm in the thick of conference schmoozing so I'm just stealing a few moments to mention something that Peter Zollman reported to me about Google launching classifieds…

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So Many Stories . . .

It was a very interesting day yesterday at DDC2005, which saw keynote speeches from Dex Media's George Burnett and YellowBook's Joe Walsh (both of which seemed to elicit strong reactions) and videotaped interviews of SME advertiser interviews about their advertising…

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Manic Monday News Roundup

Almost everyone from The Kelsey Group is in Denver for most of this week for our annual directories/Yellow Pages conference, DDC2005. I'm still working furiously to get some things accomplished before I join them tomorrow. So, for now, here are…

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Google Wireless ISP?

Google wi-fi broadband network? -- Om Malik hypothesizes. This would be potentially very appealing for both for consumers and advertisers (creates more reliable geotargeting). "Appealing?" Perhaps that's too tepid -- more like boom chaka laka!If it was free (Google might…

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Coen Downgrades U.S. Ad Forecast

We noted several stories last week that reported Universal McCann's longtime ad forecaster Bob Coen had downgraded his 2005 U.S. advertising outlook, which was issued in December 2004. The revised outlook calls for U.S. total advertrising growing by 5.7 percent…

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Redfin: Maps + Monetization

While Housingmaps is a novel "mashup" (third-party data on top of maps) Redfin is the real thing. The folks at InfoSpace alerted me to this when I was visiting them in Seattle last week. This is EXACTLY what we've been…

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Newspapers' Impressive Local Reach

Nielsen//NetRatings issued some very interesting findings late this week that should give newspapers a considerable boost. The company found that "online readers in nine of the top 10 local markets were loyal to the city's top newspaper Web site." In…

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Ask/IAC Launches Own Network

It's official: Ask launched its own bidding engine/network. But the company still wants to preserve its Google relationship: "Ask Jeeves plans to continue to display ads from Google's network but will feature them below the listings generated from its own…

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The Emergence of the Social Web

Perhaps I'm obsessing over this whole user-generated content phenomenon -- and I don't want to overhype it. But in my view, this is one of the most interesting things happening online. I tried to capture the phenomenon in the context…

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Yahoo! FUSE-ing Local Content

Yahoo!'s "FUSE" (Find, Use, Share, Expand) strategy is more apparent in what might be called Yahoo! Local 2.0. The newly launched site, which I was fortunate to preview during a hectic SES conference, combines an impressive and rich array of…

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ILM:05 Agenda Is Done

My apologies to all those who've been repeatedly asking me about the ILM conference and speaking opportunities. I've been buried in work. The agenda is completed. We started with 30+ panels and whittled down, condensed and compacted them into 22…

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RHD Reported in Pursuit of Dex

The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that RH Donnelley is in talks to acquire Dex Media, an acquisition that would propel RHD into the third position in the US directories market, behind SBC and Verizon, ahead of BellSouth and…

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Google Wi-Fi Imminent?

Paid Content reports Google is: reviewing bids received from multiple technology vendors for the development of a national DWDM fiber network, an optical switching fabric that would cover the entire continental U.S., and ultimately the globe. Here are more details…

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The Emergence of the Social Web

Perhaps I'm obsessing over this whole user-generated content phenomenon—and I don't want to overhype it. But in my view, this is one of the most interesting things happening online. I tried to capture the phenomenon in the context of Yahoo!'s…

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