Google is offering more people the chance to open gmail accounts. Formerly this was a viral affair (which was very very smart marketing). Now, Google appears to be seeking to leverage gmail as the basis for an expanding relationship between…
Two interesting articles, one by Brad Stone of Newsweek on the data providers behind mapping sites/functionality. Another by the NYTimes about 3-D mapping. This is where it's going. Just wrote about maps today and we'll be covering this at Drilling…
This is sort of amazing. I was reading about pinot noir wines on the NYTimes' Web site (perhaps I was too influenced by Sideways). The Times liked a particular New Zealand pinot, Peregrine Central Otago 2001, better than the other…
I recently noticed a press release on the merger of two relatively obscure publishers of Spanish-language Yellow Pages directories. The acquiring party is Hispanic Yellow Pages of America, backed by the private equity fund called Hispania Capital Partners LLC. The…
Published reports confirm that direct marketing company and database provider infoUSA (which provides the data for many of the top IYP/ local search properties) is seeking to buy online marketing firm Digital Impact. Digital Impact, which previously acquired search engine…
I recently noticed a press release on the merger of two relatively obscure publishers of Spanish-language Yellow Pages directories. The acquiring party is Hispanic Yellow Pages of America, backed by the private equity fund called Hispania Capital Partners LLC. The…
DoubleClick and comScore released the results of a study about the relationship between search and e-commerce. This is similar to the comScore-Overture study conducted last year. The new findings underscore those of the earlier Overture study and reinforce the idea…
For a very nice overview of the entire local search space, check out the Local Search Guide. More profiles and resources have been added. Here's the new stuff: "The Search Tools section of the Guide, which now includes a Mapping…
Both MSN and Ask Jeeves have announced that they're going to spend money on TV to try and grab some search market share. Yahoo! has been spending (on TV, outdoor, etc.) for some time on search (and local). Several surveys…
So Fathom Online reported a crash after the holidays in keyword prices. But over the long term, they're going up up up (so implied Google in a BizWeek article ). The trend of branding dollars entering search means continued price…
Will telcos be able to do to cable TV (IPtv) what cable TV is starting to do to telcos with IP telephony? And with the possible exception of SuperPages, will the remaining U.S. telco-YP owners spin off their directories to…
Google may begin to require users to register or otherwise provide personal information to use certain of its applications. An AP report attributed that idea to comments made by Google CEO Eric Schmidt during a four-hour meeting for Wall Street…
Here's an interesting piece in Wired News about the very real impact of ranking higher in search engine placement. It's mostly about optimization, but the same goes true for SEM. There's lots of data that show CTRs drop off significantly…
In addition to seeking personal information, Google representatives said they would do more direct sales (probably for larger advertisers) but would also focus on acquiring more local advertisers and creating tools to make it easier for those advertisers to adopt…
Tuesday??s article in the New York Times about Google??s million dollar employee incentives inspired Shawn Wiora, a former Verizon Information Services manager and Yellow Pages consultant, to send me an e-mail asking what might happen if directory publishers followed suit…
Empirical research has a habit of confirming what people already know. In this case, ShopLocal and The Dieringer Group released a study, which tracked consumer shopping during the final three months of 2004. The study found that so-called Web-to-Store shoppers?"those…
Yesterday Keynote Systems (formerly Vividence Corporation) released the results of a consumer survey that reported Yahoo!, MSN and Ask Jeeves making gains in search market share and user perceptions. The survey, based on observation and interaction with 2,000 consumers, found…
Check it out: maps.google.com. First impression: it's pretty robust and will rival Yahoo!'s SmartView. I will write about this more extensively later. Here's the public announcement: Today, Google released Google Maps at http://maps.google.com, a dynamic online mapping feature that enables…
Ask Jeeves has acquired Bloglines, a site that provides a range of functions associated with blogging. A search engine for blog content and an RSS aggregator/reader, Blogline's acquisition reflects the growing importance of RSS feeds and blog content to search.…
The fact that a smaller Yellow Pages publisher such as New York's Ambassador has adopted a fixed fee/guaranteed clicks program shows that momentum is building around this product concept. There are now multiple players ("small business aggregators") in the market…
