IAC announced today that SeamlessWeb founder Jason Finger will take over as CEO of its CityGrid Media unit April 12. CityGrid Media includes the CityGrid ad network and Citysearch, Urbanspoon, Insider Pages and BuzzLabs. Finger was a founder of SeamlessWeb…
Here’s what we’ve been waiting to announce: Google Offers’ head Nitin Mangtani will join our great list of keynoters at ILM East March 26-28 in Boston. We believe Mangtani’s appearance marks one of the first public debuts of Google Offers,…
Yelp is IPOing today at $15 a share, allowing it to raise $123 million on a valuation of $900 million -- $400 million more than it was apparently offered by Google a couple of years ago. We know from the…
ILM East is coming back to Boston March 26-28 with a lineup of doers and innovators who are transforming and redefining the local space. Highlights include a featured keynote from industry legend Ted Leonsis (Groupon vice chair/AmEx board member/sports team…
CBS plans to build deeper local online content by commissioning specific local topics for articles from thousands of writers at Examiner.com. Both parties were mum about whether revenue sharing is involved but did note that writers will receive a payment…
Some cities have unique professional communities that make them a company town with its own media. Washington D.C., of course, is a government town, well served by Bonneville’s WFED-AM. Similarly Huntsville, Alabama, is a space town; Los Angeles is a…
Citysearch is getting into the deals space, offering a mix of curated daily deals, coupons and other offers from providers such as Groupon, The Dealmap, Restaurant.com as well as from its own base of thousands of advertisers. CityGrid advertisers may…
Local.com has dramatically upgraded its destination site, with soft colors, an excellent user interface and renewed focus on three core categories -- “business,” “coupons” and “events.” The categories are clearly aimed at driving organic traffic from its intended audience of…
AOL’s Patch gave a progress report today on its $50 million hyperlocal initiative. The site said it now has 100 hyperlocal sites, and will launch 400 more over the next six months. It also said it plans to hire at…
ShopCity, a storefront and marketing platform for SMBs, hopes to jumpstart its reach via a new “City Manager” program that allows local media partners to secure local URL rights owned by ShopCity (i.e., ShopMountainView.com) and market its services. City Managers,…
The latest attempt to make hyperlocal a sustainable reality came today with Allbritton Communications’ launch of TBD.com, a hyper metro site for the Washington, D.C., area. Allbritton, which has sunk “under $5 million” into the project to date, hopes it…
The Sacramento area is fast becoming Ground Zero for local blog networks. McClatchy’s Sacramento Connect, a project carved from The Sacramento Bee, is a content connector for 70+ area blogs and Web sites. It started incubating last summer and was…
Scripps’ HGTV Network, which reaches 99 million U.S. households on air, and 5 million unique visitors per month online, announced today that it is partnering with Cox’s Kudzu in a broad agreement with many moving parts. The deal will provide…
Yelp has added to its international portfolio, following up on its May launch in France with a launch in Germany. Berlin and Munich are Yelp’s first German markets. Fifteen additional German markets have been seeded with “scout” reviews, but won’t…
Groupon announced today that it will work with McClatchy, the third-largest newspaper chain, in 28 McClatchy markets. The rollout begins this month in Sacramento and Kansas City. Other McClatchy markets will be added over the next several months, possibly including…
Living Social, the No. 2 "deal a day" site after Groupon with $44 million raised, announced today that it has expanded beyond the U.S., adding London as its 27th market. Additional U.K. sites in Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool are up…
Living Social, the No. 2 "deal a day" site after Groupon with $44 million raised, announced today that it has expanded beyond the U.S., adding London as its 27th market. Additional U.K. sites in Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool are up…
IAC’s Citysearch will keep its www.citysearch.com Web site and brand, and IAC’s local units will still be managed by the Citysearch team, but the local organization has been renamed “CityGrid Media.” IAC’s local units include Citysearch, the CityGrid ad network,…
IAC’s Citysearch will keep its www.citysearch.com Web site and brand, and IAC’s local units will still be managed by the Citysearch team, but the local organization has been renamed “CityGrid Media.” IAC’s local units include Citysearch, the CityGrid ad network,…
Local consumers are presumably in buying mode when they are researching where to have dinner, attend an event or go to the movies. How about when they are researching directions to get there? In fact, mass transit directions in themselves…
