Here is a recap of posts from last week, in case you missed any. Click below to read each post in full.

App Store: 1 Billion Served (Almost)

At a rate of 900 apps downloaded per second, Apple is projected to hit 1 billion sometime next Saturday morning (it’s just over 930 million at the time of this post). Open app marketplaces are a key ingredient in the recent progress of the mobile industry, and Apple started the trend. See the live counter here, including a drawing to win $10 grand in commemoration of the milestone. (read more…)

New Life for an Old Format?

A new study by AOL’s Platform-A and Information Resources, Inc. reports that nearly 40 percent of shoppers would be very likely to use coupons accessed online. Additional findings from this survey indicate that, not surprisingly, newspaper coupons are most popular with older demographics (more than 80 percent of consumers aged 55 and older clip newspaper coupons). (read more…)

Canpages Makes Progress on Several Fronts

The folks at Canpages have been very busy lately. In addition to producing competitive print and online directories throughout Canada (where they go head to head with the formidable Yellow Pages Group), the Canadian independent directory publisher operates Immersifind, an IYP/local search platform that is built off Canpages.ca, which in turn was based on the Yellow.ca site that Canpages acquired back in 2006. (read more…)

More on Video Performance Metrics: Mixpo Joins the Conversation

The folks at Mixpo have posted some of the performance metrics they’re seeing from their online video ad product. Just yesterday, we heard from Brownbook that listings containing video were showing 5x to 9x response rates (CTRs) over those that don’t. (read more…)

Will Tweet for New Business: Part II (Plus Twitter Parodies)

Following up on last week’s post about utilizing Twitter for local advertising, Local Search News‘ Steve Espinosa argues that Twitter itself should provide better tools to do this. The gist of his argument is that local (or location) is inherent in telling people what you’re doing (i.e., “sitting on my couch,” “having lunch down the street,” etc.). So why not structure these tweets around business listings or pages — or at least provide pages where these currently unstructured tweets can point? (read more…)

U.K.’s Brownbook Launches Local Video Ads

In February, Charles Laughlin and I toured western Europe to meet with interesting mobile and local search companies. One of the more memorable meetings was with Brownbook, the U.K.-based site that is lowering the barriers for SMBs to establish a presence and advertise online (see past write-up). (read more…)
NAA 2009: McKinsey Details Newspaper Opportunities With SMBs

McKinsey & Co. consultant Ali Keshavarz, speaking at the NAA Annual Convention in San Diego, said he believes newspapers can add 20 percent to their online revenues by pushing harder on small-business accounts. McKinsey has been working on an SMB project with seven newspaper companies since last fall. (read more…)

Valpak Goes Mobile, Social

In an under-reported story, Valpak has begun to experiment with mobile distribution of its signature coupons. So far this has included an iPhone optimized Web site and next up could be a native iPhone app. This could come at the right time, when the mobile Web continues to grow via smartphone penetration, falling device costs and better software standards. (read more…)

NAA 2009: Google CEO Eric Schmidt on Local and Future of Information

Google CEO Eric Schmidt addressed newspaper publishers this morning at the NAA Annual Convention in San Diego, giving a high-level, thought-provoking talk (without apparent notes) about the future of information and the role that newspapers, search and consumers will play in it. (While I attended the event, the talk was streamed online here.). (read more…)

YPG Canada Launches for iPhone and BlackBerry

Canada’s Yellow Pages Group has become the latest North American directory publisher to launch an iPhone application. This joins every major U.S. publisher (most recently R.H. Donnelley), to announce new mobile products. Along with the iPhone app will be a BlackBerry application, which can be found in BlackBerry’s new App World (its answer to Apple’s App Store). (read more…)