The long-awaited merger agreement between the Yellow Pages Association (representing publishers) and the Association of Directory Marketing (representing Yellow Pages ad agencies, or CMRs) has been approved by the groups' respective boards. Now the deal faces membership approval, which appears…
Cablevision has made good on its threat to put the online version of Newsday behind a firewall, accessible only by print subscribers or online-only users willing to pay $5 per week. Classifieds will remain free. Newsday, purchased last May from…
Today I had the chance to talk to Multiplied Media, the company behind the fast moving Poynt mobile search product. In the past year, it has planted its stakes as the most popular mobile local search app for BlackBerries. Earlier…
Morgan Stanley Managing Director Mary Meeker gave her annual brain dump to the Web 2.0 Summit yesterday, painting a picture of a mobile-centric media world on the horizon. At the heart of her argument was the contention that location (mobile…
A BIA/Kelsey press release today reveals data from Local Commerce Monitor, indicating that 9 percent of small businesses use Twitter to market themselves. Thirty-two percent of SMBs meanwhile intend to use social media in their marketing in the next 12…
Smelling blood at the presumed decline of Yellow Pages, a number of sites have launched that provide leads to local service SMBs. You've got Angie’s List on the membership side. And ServiceMagic, Tree.com's DoneRight, Sears’ ServiceLive and a number of…
Apple announced fourth-quarter earnings today with profits of $1.67 billion ($1.82 per diluted share). This is up 47 percent year over year from $1.14 billion ($1.26 per share), beating analyst expectations of $1.60 per share. Much of this growth was…
JD Power, at its annual Automotive Internet Roundtable in Las Vegas last week, laid out a convincing case that Internet and mobile marketing has made major headway among local auto dealers. While digital media comprised just 7 percent of all…
CitySquares, the Boston-based city guide company, is prominently featured in the “Small Business” section of The Wall Street Journal today (subscription required). The subject? Its frequent use of volunteer advisors (something we have firsthand knowledge of, actually). The article boasts…
Hyperlocal sites are often run by earnest people who have just enough naivete about them to put in the hours and chase the dream, right? Former Yahoo and NJ.com exec Susan Mernit probably doesn’t qualify. But Mernit, a 10-year resident…
Motorists in Melbourne, Australia, can now navigate their city in 3-D using the Whereis navigation system, produced by Sensis, Australia's leading directories publisher. Whereis is rolling out 3-D city models this week. The product focuses on Melbourne's central business district.…
European Directories SA has named Ben Legg as its new chief operating officer. Legg comes to EDSA from Google, where he was COO of European operations. EDSA is a major directory player in Europe, with market leadership positions in Austria,…
I've just returned from the Association of Directory Publishers midyear meeting in Orlando, Florida, where roughly 150 operators and vendors gathered to network and share best practices in a challenging time for independent publishers. One publisher I spoke with said…
I participated in a webinar sponsored by DataXu discussing how the development of display ad exchanges will make real-time bidding for display ad units and impressions similar to the current SEM process by making it more open, targeted and technology…
We've crossed the 40-speaker landmark for BIA/Kelsey's Interactive Local Media 2009 event. The show reflects renewed optimism in the marketplace, and has generated a lot of healthy buzz. ILM is the culmination of this year's research and analysis, and takes…
Speaking at TargusInfo’s recent Online Lead Quality Summit in Las Vegas, Senior VP and GM Greg Hanson said Tree.com is “taking a multichannel marketing approach that will provide synergies between all the brands. “There is a lot of engagement before…
If people repeatedly mention a restaurant or dish on Twitter, odds are it’s going to be because they like it, right? One or two mentions might be trashing it. But 20 to 30 will likely go the other way. That’s…
Vertical development is all about serving micro-segments that have been under-served by horizontal media such as Yellow Pages and newspapers. One area that’s been largely missed to date is the nail salon and hand care market. And that’s exactly the…
From the department of transparent marketing ploys comes an effort by 192.com, a UK Internet directory service, demanding an opt-in regime for phone book distribution in Britain. This is neither a unique nor an indefensible position. Many environmental groups around…
Matchbin, a venture-backed firm based in Bountiful, Utah, is banking on aggregating rural and exurban audiences by providing community media companies with a full slate of advertising and social tools, rather than just one-dimensional local search. The six-year-old, 40-person company,…