In a session at Marketplaces 2009 this afternoon on building local online content and services, the oft-cited challenge of scalability took center stage. “The trick with local is to operate at scale,” said Matthew Berk, Marchex's executive VP of product…
Rob Curley and Chris Jennewein of Greenspun Interactive gave a lively presentation this morning at the Marketplaces conference representing the yin and yang of product features and business models. This is often in a state of imbalance at online newspaper…
NCI President and CEO Dan McCarthy told attendees of Marketplaces 2009 in Los Angeles today that "local marketing spend is going to be reduced tremendously. It will have a big impact on all marketing budgets,” he said. “Local media starts…
Saw this article today -- more evidence that residential White Pages are verging on extinction. AT&T has gotten the nod from Ohio's utility regulators to eliminate White Pages from co-bound White/Yellow phone books. First, stand-alone residential White Pages books will go (many…
Marketplaces is under way with the opening keynote from Jeff Berman, MySpace president of sales and marketing. MySpace has made some inroads to attracting SMBs to use the social network as a marketing platform. Most recently, this has included its…
The Marketplaces conference just officially kicked off. We'll be doing our best to live blog the event. First up, after the requisite intros and data presentations, is MySpace's Jeff Berman. Check back here for ongoing coverage. If you're at the…
One day after R.H. Donnelley released its 2008 results showing a sharp drop in ad sales, Idearc followed suit today with annual results that also reflect a very tough Yellow Pages environment in the United States. The big news in…
Tim Armstrong, AOL’s new CEO, is a very big believer in local, with personal investments in a New York-area hyperlocal site (Patch) via his Polar Investments. Moreover, in his previous role as head of sales for Google, he frequently commented…
Related to the previous post, Lee Gientke, OrangeSoda's director of partner development, blogs today about local intent for mobile searches. This is a good preview of the comments we'll hear next week from Gientke and 12 other speakers during our…
EMarketer has released a report on mobile ad growth in Canada. The numbers are growing at rates similar to those we see in the U.S. (see TKG U.S. Mobile Advertising Forecast) but on a smaller scale. We also see a…
Yahoo announced today from the South by Southwest show that its Fire Eagle geolocation service has launched a Facebook application. As we wrote when Fire Eagle launched, the service lets you identify your location in lots of ways, including mobile…
Some VCs are betting that consumers are ready to adopt car maintenance information and solutions on the Web -- especially as the bad economy forces them to hold on to their cars. Today, Allegis Capital, along with Catamount Ventures, said…
As debt maturities loom in a tight credit market, the directory publisher R.H. Donnelley announced today that it has retained the financial firm Lazard to "assist in the evaluation of its capital structure, including various balance sheet restructuring alternatives." On a conference…
In the second major product launch in as many days, Google has released Google Voice. This will be an online calling service that utilizes voice over IP (VoIP) technology to deliver free and cheap calls. Similar to services like Skype,…
Next week’s big conference in L.A., Marketplaces 2009, is likely to be something of a game changer. Great speakers, great signup list, great city and venue … and very hot topics. This time we’ve tinkered with the formula, a bit.…
Google today announced a noteworthy addition to the relevance algorithm that dictates what ads you see throughout its AdSense network. Known as Interest Based Advertising, essentially what it does is add behavioral targeting to a formula previously ruled by contextual…
Is it really so easy for the Facebooks and Wal-Marts of the world to use a national platform like Oodle or LiveDeal to successfully launch classifieds? Jay Schauer, a friend who runs Ad2Ad.com, doesn't think so. (Among other services, Ad2Ad…
On Thursday, OrangeSoda will host a free webinar (fizzinar) on local search. Specifically, it intends to explore some of the biggest issues facing national brands that try to practice local online ad targeting. Lots to discuss. They've asked me to…
LiveDeal, under new management, has moved away from its roots in Yellow Pages and classifieds, and begun a strategic focus on high-end SMB services. As part of its strategy, the company has been selling off many of its directory-related accounts,…
At The Kelsey Group, we’ve come to appreciate that our new owner, BIAfn head Tom Buono, is a major strategist. While Buono’s roots are in the finance of traditional TV, radio and newspapers, he’s mostly thinking about their next steps…