A year ago, my colleagues Neal Polachek and Charles Laughlin predicted that Internet Yellow Pages as a percentage of total U.S. Yellow Pages revenues would climb from about 6 percent in 2006 to 24 percent in 2011. While the base is higher in most…
Following up on the previous post, Zillow also announced today that it has gotten together with Yahoo! Real Estate, Trulia and a handful of others to establish a standard format for home listings. This is hoped to lower the barrier…
Zillow made a few announcements today including the fact that it has reached the start-up rite of passage (or sometimes-PR stunt) of coming out of beta. But more important than this symbolic move are the reasons behind it. The company…
Urban Mapping, a very interesting company working on making mapping data more accurate, has released its API. This will essentially allow any local search site to better index local listings and improve its search functionality. As we've mentioned in the…
Following closely behind its integration of Citysearch content (including reviews) last month, Local.com announced today that it will integrate 2 million reviews from Yelp. This was made possible by Yelp's recent release of its API for local search sites…
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…
One of the quietest but apparently most successful producers in the local search space has been GeoSign, owned by webpreneur Tim Nye. The Canadian company has incubated TrueLocal, which aggregates local online databases, and is also invested in mobile directory…
Witnessing the rain that has drenched the Bay Area over the past couple of weeks begs the rhetorical question -- what could be more local than weather? Now with reports surfacing that weather.com is up for sale, one wonders if…
Earlier this month the Kelsey program directors -- Charles Laughlin, Matt Booth and Peter Krasilovsky -- offered up their predictions for 2008. These predictions present Kelsey clients a partial road map for navigating what could be a stressful and challenging 2008.…
An interesting op-ed piece in The New York Times on Sunday looked at the importance of “word of mouth” in defining individuals' candidate preferences. The essence of the article was that voters are swayed much more by what an acquaintance…
SEM reseller and campaign management firm ReachLocal today officially brought Google AdWords into its ad product toolbelt. This extends its offering to SMBs interested in search engine marketing or in cross-platform ad bundles. ReachLocal's online offerings to SMBs also include…
Kudzu, the service-oriented rating and review directory from Cox Search, has been under the radar for a while, while similar services (i.e., Judy’s Book, Insider Pages and Backfence) have run into some turbulence. But a recent visit with GM Tom…
In case you missed any posts over the past week, here is a recap. Click below to read each post in full. BT to Pursue Ad-Supported DA Model According to the Independent newspaper, British Telecom, apparently swayed by the rapid…
According to the Independent newspaper, British Telecom, apparently swayed by the rapid adoption of free directory assistance in the United States, plans to roll out an ad-supported DA service this year. The decision seems to be driven by a belief that…
The Mexican telecommunications giant Telmex plans to spin off its Yellow Pages and international operations into a new holding company called Telmex Internacional. "Telmex expects that the spin-off will become effective and further expects that the shares of Telmex Internacional will…
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…
Since at least 1997, when we gave a presentation at the YPA annual conference titled "Six Trends that Will Change the Yellow Pages Industry," we have been making forecasts and predictions about our market coverage areas. Tomorrow the program directors…
CBS Radio will begin selling inventory for audio and video ads across all its stations in a three-year deal it has signed with New York City-based TargetSpot, an 18-person specialized agency run by Kanoodle vet Doug Perlson. Union Square Ventures’…
CBS Radio will begin selling inventory for audio and video ads across all its stations in a three-year deal it has signed with New York City-based TargetSpot, an 18-person specialized agency run by Kanoodle vet Doug Perlson. Union Square Ventures’…
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…