Here are this week’s highlights from the TKG blog, in case you missed any posts. Click below to read each post in full.

Stepup Alum Launches DriverSide, a Car Maintenance Site
There is a sudden glut of sites that allow people to register their cars and get specific service information and recommendations about them. First, there was Autobytel’s MyRide. RepairPal launched last week. This week, it is DriverSide, which is being developed by Jad Dunning, an executive with StepUp through its acquisition by Intuit, and Trevor Traina. The site, which has 20 staffers and is funded by Catamount Ventures, is designed to meet consumer needs between purchases and simplify automotive ownership. (read more…)

Idearc Discontinues 28 Independent Titles
Idearc Media has made the decision to discontinue 28 competitive directory titles in Florida, Tennessee and Texas, and has eliminated 200 positions as a result. The company will also close nine sales offices, each associated with the independent directory titles being discontinued. The company remains in the business of publishing independent directory titles and continues to publish them in 34 markets around the country. (read more…)

New Palore Data: Top States for Local Reviews
The latest nugget of data from Palore examines the average number of restaurants by state that have reviews written about them. Looks like Massachusetts takes the cake (sorry, bad pun). This is somewhat binary as it looks at restaurants that have at least one review. If a restaurant has one review or 100, it is counted as having reviews (the only alternative being no reviews). So there are lots of possible drill downs such as what states or sites lead in average volume of reviews per restaurant. (read more…)

Local Online Video Market to Reach $1.5B by 2012
Many market forecasts have attempted to size the U.S. online video market, which consists of ads that are tied to a growing subset of online music, sports and entertainment clips. These forecasts project the market will grow to between US$4 billion and US$7 billion by 2012. A TKG forecast released yesterday specifically breaks out the local portion of this. (read more…)

What Is the Opportunity With Geodomains?
In two weeks, Associated Cities will host its annual GeoDomain Expo at the W Hotel in Chicago. It will be produced by The Kelsey Group, and we hope to have a good presence at the show and learn more about the geodomain opportunity and the growth potential still to come in the space. (read more…)

The Huffington Post Goes Local
The Huffington Post has a certain glamour about it and is able to attract an “A” list of contributors. There is always something interesting on it, and its readership is apparently between 3 million and 8 million unique. Now it is going to go local, with a launch in Chicago this summer, and at least a dozen local sites in all, per founder Arianna Huffington in an audio interview by The Guardian. (read more…)

Canon Crosses the Pond, Joins Yell Group
TKG has learned that local online industry veteran Mark Canon has accepted the position of president-new media at Yell, the U.K.’s leading directory publisher. He will start in July and take over for the retiring Eddie Cheng. Canon brings a varied background to Yell, having been an Internet Yellow Pages pioneer at Switchboard, with subsequent stints at AOL and Autobytel. (read more…)

Yahoo!’s AMP Network Set to Launch for Newspapers
Yahoo! is set to place contextually relevant display ads with its newspaper consortium, which now represents 40 percent of all newspaper circulation. The new AMP program for newspapers begins by the end of 3Q at the San Jose Mercury News and SFGate. (read more…)

Location Awareness: It’s Not Just for Mobile
There is lots of talk this week about the next generation browser, now that Firefox 3 has launched. On Friday I got the chance to meet with Ryan Sarver, Skyhook Wireless director of consumer products, who has some notable efforts in progress to bring the company’s Wi-Fi positioning technology to the browser. (read more…)