CityVoter, the provider of a “best of” platform for broadcasters, is now in 25 cities, working with key TV station groups such as Belo, McGraw-Hill and Tribune. The five-year-old, 12-person service, which is backed by Allen & Co., has gone…
Small businesses seeking to pick, choose and install Web applications for their Facebook Pages and Places can now easily do so with Appbistro, a new site that provides app makers an iTunes Store-like model (right down to the 70/30 revenue…
Scheduling is seen as the next wave of online marketplace services for SMBs, encouraging sticky usage, premium features and, in some cases, highly contextual advertising. Scheduling vendors such as Agendize, Full Slate, MaxiPage and X Time are actively syndicating solutions.…
Angie’s List, the premium ratings and review service for home and medical services, has announced that it has raised $22.5 Million from institutional investors as it prepares for an IPO within 18 months. Investors in this round include some public…
MerchantCircle is joining the ranks of companies creating local and vertical content, including Demand Media, Associated Content, Examiner.com, AOL’s Seed and Patch, Perfect Market, Helium, Brafton Media and others. MerchantCircle’s new Local Content Studio is being led by Andy Halliday,…
Appointments are seen as the next frontier of e-commerce and advertising, as online and mobile-centric consumers increasingly look for the immediacy of booking electronically. The appointment space is a competitive one, however, as several companies jump on the opportunity --…
The Swedish software company 3L System Group has acquired California-based Pagenator LLC, a company that has built software enabling the automatic production of social media fan pages at high volumes. This deal enables 3L to offer directory publishers the ability…
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,…
I had the opportunity to meet with Yext CEO Howard Lerman and President Brian Distelburger to talk about their recent product additions and approach to the SMB marketplace. What struck me as I entered their NYC loft-style office is the…
Twitter today made two big hires (via TechCrunch) in an effort to "ramp up the advertising platform." Dan Coughlin joins as Eastern U.S. sales director, while Amanda Levy will be his Western U.S. counterpart. Coughlin spent the past few years…
EBay is pushing to do more to integrate the flagship auction site and its Marketplaces products with ProStores, its online storefront software company. The effort to integrate ProStores is part of a broader effort to integrate its properties (i.e., eBay…
ReachLocal delivered its first quarterly report as a public company today, noting that its active advertiser count has climbed 27 percent from 13,200 to 16,700, and that its consolidated revenues grew 47 percent from $47.97 million to $70.362 million. It…
Small businesses are gaining the ability to interact with customers anytime, as e-mail marketing gives way to “the social graph,” says local marketing pioneer Perry Evans, who is introducing Closely Inc., a new firm dedicated to helping SMBs leverage the…
Small businesses are gaining the ability to interact with customers anytime, as e-mail marketing gives way to “the social graph,” says local marketing pioneer Perry Evans, who is introducing Closely Inc., a new firm dedicated to helping SMBs leverage the…
American Express Open is making a series of moves to extend its massive list of SMB credit card customers into broad marketing relationships that will fully leverage Amex’s powerful brand and relationships. The potential for Amex to be a marketing…
After a two-week beta period, MerchantCircle is out with a new mayorship title for its SMBs that are the most "networked." One mayorship is given for every city/town and is achieved by engaging in the standard b2b activities of the site (connecting with…
American Express has announced the launch of SearchManager, a unified SEM platform that will be powered by Clickable. This is essentially a white-labeled version of Clickable's existing platform that gives advertisers a one-stop-shop dashboard for managing PPC campaigns (and Facebook…
ReachLocal has continued its efforts to add sticky usage for small businesses and diversify beyond reselling Google with the launch of “Bizzy” in New York, San Francisco and Dallas. Bizzy itself, which has a 21-person team, was launched by ReachLocal…
ReachLocal has continued its efforts to add sticky usage for small businesses and diversify beyond reselling Google with the launch of “Bizzy” in New York, San Francisco and Dallas. Bizzy itself, which has a 21-person team, was launched by ReachLocal…
Thumbtack, one of the new breed of service lead companies such as Alikelist, Redbeacon and HelpHive seeking to push aside leaders like ServiceMagic and Angie’s List (and the Yellow Pages), announced today it has raised $1.2 million, and now has…