Newspapers increasingly see an opportunity to sell SEO/SEM solutions to local advertisers. Such efforts probably began in earnest last year with members of the Yahoo! consortium using Yahoo!’s platforms. Others have been working with WebVisible and other resellers on a…
Google News has launched a very Topix-like search of local media and blogs via city name and ZIP code. The service includes semantic search. “We’re not the first news site to aggregate local news; we’re doing it a bit differently,”…
Amid all the noise about Microsoft and Yahoo!, one of the unanswered questions has to do with MS’ intent toward the recruitment business -- a business that actually has some relationship with Microsoft’s core enterprise solutions (as opposed to its less…
Today’s big news is Microsoft's unsolicited takeover bid for Yahoo!. The $44.6 billion bid represents a 62 percent premium on Yahoo!'s closing stock price yesterday, which was affected by Yahoo!’s depressing earnings announcement, in which Yahoo! said it would lay…
Classifieds can now be sent in via text messaging thanks to SMS Pal, a text message classified ad company. The service costs 99 cents for every listing and is charged back as a premium SMS message to the user’s carrier.…
The Los Angeles Times and the rest of the Tribune Co. have been going through a very public belt tightening. The most recent round of cutbacks apparently played a role in the departure of Editor James O’Shea. But when it…
Gannett has named PointRoll chief Chris Saridakis as its new senior vice president-chief digital officer, reporting to longtime vet Jack Williams, who has been named president of the division. PointRoll is a rich media ad agency that Gannett purchased in…
Small-town newspapers and radio stations sometimes get into businesses that media companies in larger markets rarely do. They publish directories, develop Web sites, provide Internet access -- you name it. Thousands of newspapers are still family-owned. Increasingly, though, more are controlled…
The Kelsey Group has generated considerable attention (and some confusion) in the media and on the blogosphere from a statement that appeared in an Advisory issued by our Marketplaces program on Jan. 4 offering picks and predictions for 2008 (each…
FAST Search and Transfer, whose “enterprise search” makes every element of an organization searchable, is being sold to Microsoft for $1.2 billion after the Oslo-based company severely missed sales goals and was forced last year to lay off a large…
Local small-business advertising has been largely synonymous with Yellow Pages. But a compelling case for the rise of classified-and-vertical marketplaces is made by Oodle CEO Craig Donato. (It is a position that we obviously admire, having just launched our Marketplaces…
It was perhaps inevitable, but the first newspaper has made the decision to abandon print and go “online only.” The Cincinnati Post, a 126-year-old paper owned by E.W. Scripps, published its final edition on Dec. 31 at the end of…
It is hard for me to comprehend, but we are finally finished with ILM:07. We were grateful to have had 650 interesting and enthusiastic attendees from all over the world, 72 stimulating speakers, a full load of sponsors and an…
Jonathan Weber started his career in traditional media as a writer and editor at the Los Angeles Times, but the new media bug got hold of him. He was the cofounder and editor in chief of the Industry Standard, which…
Executive Interview: The Leading Edge: Auto Advertising in Transition had very much the same ring to it as yesterday's session on real estate in transition. At The Kelsey Group's ILM:07 event, the final panel each day was on two of…
Amsterdam-based Spotzer, which creates multimedia video ad campaigns for small and medium-sized businesses, announced it has acquired a 10 million euro (US$14.8 million) investment from the U.S. venture capital firm Sierra Partners and European Directories, a print and online directory publisher…
Angus Frame, editor of Globeandmail.com, presented an interesting CaseCamp study this evening in Toronto. He showed how the many twists and turns it took to implement one simple social media aspect to the site have paid off. Globeandmail.com launched its…
Interactive Local Media: 07 is ready to roll Nov. 28-30 in L.A. That’s next Wednesday through Friday! The show, which is being produced in partnership with SES Local, has attendees from all over the world. One exec told me he…
Amazon yesterday launched a $399 electronic black-and-white e-reader called “Kindle” that can quickly download books and customized versions of newspapers, magazines and blogs over a limited-use free EVDO network. Seven newspapers are included in the first batch of content: The…
Freedom Interactive President Michael Mathieu told attendees of Piper Jaffray's Global Internet Summit last week in Laguna Beach, California, that his sales teams are focusing on selling a broad array of local marketing products to medium-sized businesses (i.e., a notch…