... according to comScore. Here are the latest numbers. As we've pointed out in the past, actual local searches could be greater. Local searches are defined in this study as "searches conducted by consumers on the local or directory (Yellow…
Today I had the chance to sit down with Mike Hogan, CEO of online coupon platform provider ZiXXo, to follow up on a discussion we had at DDC. We previously wrote about the company here. ZiXXo is working on a…
OK, that headline is a little bit ahead of the facts, but the question is a legitimate one for the Yellow Pages industry. As we report in this week's Local Media Journal, Canada's Yellow Pages Group has moved its publishing…
In this week's Local Media Journal, we write about Australian publisher Sensis' recent decision to drop the "Pages" from its "Yellow Pages" brand, thus reshaping the brand into one that is truly platform agnostic. Along with this re-branding comes the…
For the past couple of days, I've been besieged by "comments" that look like they are from small businesses that are complaining about Merchant Circle's aggressive voicemail promos. Merchant Circle is a new company that is designed to generate small-business…
Spot Runner, the year-old company that uses the Internet to inexpensively produce and place local TV ads for small businesses, has revealed some new directions. While it is still pursuing ad campaigns with local businesses, which number "in the thousands,"…
The partisans have come out of the woodwork to defend the future of classifieds — and specifically, newspaper-dominated classifieds. Following are short takes from comments sent to The Local Onliner. (It is worthwhile to look up the full comments.) Jay…
Yellow Pages companies are increasingly eyeing classifieds as the final piece of a "local advertising hub." The "inevitable" convergence of classifieds and Yellow Pages was explored at Kelsey's Directory Driven Commerce conference in Los Angeles Sept. 19-20. I gave a…
Caribe Acquisition Holdings, the incumbent directory publishers in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, has purchased ACS Media Income Fund. ACS Media is the largest publisher of print and Internet directories in Alaska with 10 print titles throughout the state.…
There is a great promotion for Yahoo! and Yahoo! Local going on right now. Or at least the concept is great. But it doesn't work.When I signed on to Yahoo! tonight, it touted that I could print out a free…
Yellow Pages executives don't exactly have their heads in the sand. They know that print references are going down. But in their opinion, the industry is still likely to survive and even thrive, thanks to its strong ROI and concomitant…
At a time when telcos like Verizon are divesting their Yellow Pages unit to help pay for the deployment of IPTV networks, AT&T Directory President Denny Payne makes a passionate case that the parent company ought to keep its Yellow…
Windows Live Expo, Microsoft's entry in the classifieds war, has upped the ante against Google Base, Yahoo! and the rest of them by signing with AdMission (formerly iPix) to use its Spotlight Ads technology.While advertisers can still post ads for…
Ike Harris, president of BellSouth's Advertising & Publishing Group, kicked off Day 2 of DDC with a keynote that stressed the opportunities afforded by changing industry and cultural dynamics — thought by some to be a threat. There is a…
Mobile search has been a growing topic in the local media space and was batted around during an afternoon breakout session on voice and mobile directories. We are still in an experimental stage of mobile search, defined by hardware restrictions,…
DDC today was packed full of sessions — the morning containing mostly keynotes and the afternoon divided into smaller breakouts. After introductory remarks from John Kelsey, conference chairperson Charles Laughlin took the podium to lay the groundwork for the biggest…
The Directory Driven Commerce conference kicked off tonight with a session to discuss many of the points raised in Charles' previous post. Earlier in the day, we spent some time at the Santa Monica offices of emerging SEO/SEM provider for…
I am writing from Los Angeles as we prepare for our DDC2006 conference, which begins tomorrow. I plan to kick things off tomorrow with a discussion of key themes we see driving the industry today. These are among the topics…
Don't have many details yet, but I did learn on Friday that Canadian Phone Directories, a PE-backed independent directory publisher in Canada, plans to launch a Toronto directory in competition with Yellow Pages Group, Canada's dominant directory publisher.CPD was formed…
At a presentation on Friday for the San Diego ad community, Microsoft reps played up local targeting as a key feature of its new adCenter, which is vying to win market share against Google and Yahoo! Search. Microsoft reps noted…