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ILM West: Google Exec Jeff Aguero Discusses Local Efforts

Google’s local efforts have grown tremendously under the direction of Marissa Mayer, and now encompass a wide range of products, including Google Maps; Google Places; Zagat; Google Offers; and Get Online, a new SMB initiative. At ILM West this week…

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Reading Yelp’s S-1: Rapid Growth Amid Challenges

Yelp’s S-1, which was issued last week as a run-up to a $100 million IPO, reveals a lot of new data about the reviews leader. The big question about Yelp has been whether it can grow against increased pressure from…

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Google Buys Zagat: Reviews Platform Is the Focus

Google’s march into local reached another milestone today with the acquisition of Zagat, a major international provider of high-end restaurant and lifestyle reviews in 100-plus cities. Zagat remains a major player in a reviews space it pioneered in 1979. In…

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Google Buys Dealmap; Validation for Aggregators?

Google has acquired Dealmap, a deals aggregator and exchange, and will presumably use it to complement its own sourcing of deals for Google Offers, the daily deal site now in New York, the Bay Area and Portland and coming soon…

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Facebook Deals Launches in Five Markets

Facebook today launched its Deals product as an "alpha" in five markets: San Francisco, San Diego, Dallas, Austin and Atlanta. The effort plays up Facebook's social connectivity, making it simple to "like" and share deals, and promote throughout the site.…

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Goby: Go Mobile (and Go Social), Event Marketers

Local consumers are looking beyond pure search when they are looking for family fun. That’s the unmet need that Boston-based Goby.com is trying to meet in its 350-category, events and family fun search site. The site is now reaching 500,000…

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Talkin’ ‘Tags’ With Yext CEO Howard Lerman

As my colleague Jed Williams has previously written, Yext’s Tags initiative is a big one, going up against Google Places with a broad (and "open") network of 20 participating Internet Yellow Pages and online directory sites, including AOL’s MapQuest and…

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Yay for Google’s (Reported) $5.3 Billion Groupon Bid

Google is reportedly set to pay $5.3 billion for Groupon, a spectacular investment that would give The Big G a compelling way to get close to local businesses, leverage Gmail and really rev up a social media paradigm (as opposed…

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Google’s Purchase of ITA: New Focus on Vertical Metasearch?

Google’s $700 million acquisition of ITA, a search leader in online flight reservations, doesn’t have a direct impact on local advertising and services. Its immediate impact is on rival metasearch-based travel solutions, especially Orbitz, which gets 40 percent of its…

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HopStop Explores Local Potential of Transit Directions

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…

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Fwix Drives Local News Aggregation Via Custom Algorithms

The local and community news “aggregator” space is poised to become increasingly important. Local news staffs, obviously, are being whittled away with the declining economics of local news. But there is more local content than ever, via blogs, pro/amateur content,…

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The Berry Co. Picks Yodle for Web Sites, SEO/SEM

The Berry Co., the SMB sales giant with 260,000 SMB clients, has partnered with Yodle for Web site creation and search engine marketing and optimization. The deal gives Yodle access to Berry’s 42-state reach and 885 print publications. Yodle, which…

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Centro Launches Transis, a Cloud-Based Ad Buying Service

Centro, the local and regional media service company, has branched off into Web-based support for ad management. The company today announced the launch of Transis, a new division dedicated to automating the “other 80 percent” of the display industry not…

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