BIA/Kelsey – Local Media Watch

Month: October 2008

  • New Kid on the Block for Canada Local Search

    New Canadian local search destination Weblocal.ca has launched. The site is the product of a partnership between Canadian publisher Transcontinental and social/local pure play YellowBot (see profile). The site is one of Transcon’s first moves into online local search. As the fourth-largest print publisher in Canada, most of its publishing assets are in consumer magazines…

  • ‘Local Mobile’ Heats Up: A Look at Verve Wireless

    Local publishers, seeing the boom in text messaging and the Web surfing capabilities of the iPhone, are taking mobile more seriously as a channel for their content and advertising. Clearly, the mobile opportunity for local publishers has now gone beyond banners to embrace text messages, e-mail, video and integration with the ad networks. At this…

  • Follow The Kelsey Group on Twitter

    TKG has a relatively new Twitter page. After going on a binge of following people this week, the ratio of following to followers is woefully out of whack. If I haven’t been able to find and follow you yet, jump on and follow The Kelsey Group (user name: TheKelseyGroup). We’d love to have you follow…

  • Blyk’s Deep Opt-In Mobile Model

    Today at the Canadian Marketing Association’s Digital Digital Marketing Conference, there was quite a bit of buzz around Blyk, a Finnish mobile phone company with an interesting hybrid model for distribution. Blyk is a free mobile operator targeting young people (ages 16 to 24) and funded by advertising. Brands pay Blyk to help them reach…

  • Local ‘Green’ Sites: Just Getting Up to Speed

    When we think of emerging local verticals, “green” is one of the most promising, as environmental concerns have pushed up the interest of consumers in having safe, healthy products that have minimal impact on the environment. MSN, Yahoo, Hearst and The Washington Post Co. have each developed “green” guides. But green has a ways to go. Willem Maas,…

  • AT&T Yellow Pages Unit Changes Name, Expands Portfolio

    The Kelsey Group has learned that effective Nov. 1, AT&T Advertising & Publishing will become AT&T Advertising Solutions. But there is more to this than a cosmetic name change. AT&T has also reorganized the company and expanded its portfolio to make AT&T AS the primary channel for ad sales throughout the AT&T enterprise. Under the…

  • Vast.com Adds Performance-Based Marketing to Classifieds

    Are classifieds fated, by definition, to be “dumb” all-you-can-eat listings? Or can certain categories be remade as performance-based listings a la Google that bring best matches to the top, offering higher revenue in return for a better match and conversion? That’s the question posed by Vast.com, a San Francisco-based company working with “inventory” classifieds: autos, real…

  • Hulu Turns 1

    I didn’t realize when I declared my scientific experiment to go on an all-Hulu diet this week that the site turns 1 today. It seems like yesterday that the site launched as a joint venture between News Corp. and NBC Universal in the wake of criticism that they were missing the boat with online video. Since…

  • AT&T Sweetens Deal for iPhone Users: Free Wi-Fi

    AT&T has announced that iPhones will be allowed free Wi-Fi access at its 17,000 nationwide hot spots. This includes Starbucks, airports, hotels and lots of other public spots. This is especially good news for first generation iPhone users who don’t get 3G network access; the bump up to Wi-Fi speeds is a starker contrast for…

  • BuzzLogic Presents Proof Points for Blogospheric Influence

    Buzz tracking software firm BuzzLogic released a report yesterday, administered by Jupiter Research, which affirms the role of blogs in influencing purchasing behavior. These data come at a key time for BuzzLogic’s story, when Madison Avenue remains somewhat wary about advertising on blogs. The survey “Harnessing the Power of Blogs” (n=2000) reported an overall 300…

  • When Will RSS Get Some Love? Part II

    Following up on the post earlier this week, Matt McGee reports that Google has added an RSS feature for Web searches. As noted, Google already offers RSS for news alerts. This extends it to Web searches, which can be set up on the Google Alerts page. It’s unclear what the frequency of feed updates will…

  • Will the Three Major U.S. YP Trade Groups Become One?

    I’m here in San Antonio, Texas, having caught the tail end of the Association of Directory Publishers meeting, and now the Association of Directory Marketing’s event. One of the many questions floating around the U.S. Yellow Pages industry is whether the existing three U.S. trade associations will merge to gain efficiencies and, perhaps more critical,…

  • Online Experiment: Losing the Remote

    I just paid a $300 cable bill (three months). This is partly because I’ve had little time for bills, but also because my monthly bill is over $100. That includes basic cable channels plus the $40 package that bundles HBO. HBO is the only thing I watch in that package so essentially I’m paying $40…

  • When Will RSS Get Some Love?

    Over at the BIA Perspectives blog, Terence Thomas examines RSS adoption. It’s an important time to take a look at RSS, as more readers flock online to get their news and as more consumers adopt a mind-set of empowerment for all types of media. RSS falls in line with these trends and can be a…

  • Broadband Providers, SMBLive Team for Merchant Profiles, Services

    Broadband providers, especially those formerly associated with telco Yellow Pages, are trying to get back in the game of providing marketing services for small businesses. They’re looking to provide Web 2.0 directory-like profiles and search engine marketing services for small and medium-sized businesses with the idea of maintaining their subscriber accounts, and adding revenues from…

  • TKG Data and Analysis: A Weekly Recap

    Here are the highlights from the TKG blog last week, in case you missed any posts. Click below to read each post in full. Who Is Responsible for Yellow Pages’ Current Woes? Jim Hail, president and chief operating officer of Hagadone Directories and chairman of the Association of Directory Publishers, outlined what he believes has been…

  • American Classifieds Adds WebVisible’s Search Solutions

    Are the small-business “home and trade service” advertisers that populate PennySaver and American Classifieds a good bet to buy search packages? That’s the question being posed by American Classifieds, the second-largest classified publisher franchise with 6,000 editions. The company signed this summer with WebVisible to provide search tools and sales training for 600 sales reps.…

  • Who Is Responsible for Yellow Pages’ Current Woes?

    Jim Hail, president and chief operating officer of Hagadone Directories and chairman of the Association of Directory Publishers, outlined what he believes has been a systematic decline in the brand value of the Yellow Pages at this year’s ADP Mid-Year Convention in San Antonio. Prior to the break-up of AT&T there was strong support for promoting the…

  • Yellow Pages ‘Paper Termites’ Are Winning

    In an opening session of the Association of Directory Publishers‘ 2008 Mid-Year Convention in San Antonio, YP Talk Publisher Ken Clark gave a close-up view of how negative PR in print and online is eroding the perception of the Yellow Pages industry. Describing these sites as “slowly chewing away the credibility of the industry,” Clark described…

  • EveryZing: A Better Mousetrap for Video Search?

    EveryZing this week launched a new video player whose features carry the company’s emphasis on video search engine optimization, searchability and good content indexing. Like many of the other video search companies that employ a combination of video indexing technologies, EveryZing’s technology uses speech-to-text processing at its core. Its IP comes out of government research…