Venture capital king Frank Quattrone (the banker behind Amazon, Netscape and Cisco) has a message: IPOs have gotten too big, innovation is being stifled, exits are being delayed and firms need straight-forward advice, not Wall Street “casinos.” "Wall Street no…
Among the highlights of today's mobile session at OMMA Social were comments from location-based social networks Loopt and Brightkite. Both continue to evolve their product features and, by extension, the ad formats available to marketers. Loopt is on a roll…
Today I moderated a panel at MediaPost's annual OMMA Social show in San Francisco. A designated mobile session symbolized the topic's rising prominence relative to last year, when it was discussed (but not as much). Interest in mobile is clearly…
Canada's Yellow Pages Group has deepened its investment in verticals with its recent acquisition of Restaurantica, one of Canada's largest online dining communities. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but a report by Paul Steep at Scotia Capital suggests…
Topping the list of hot topics in digital media these days (besides iTablet rumors) is social gaming (i.e. Zynga), mobile social apps (i.e. foursquare), and mobile gaming. Mobile startup Booyah is combining all of them in an iPhone app called…
Having been in the trenches for the past year talking about multiproduct selling and how a consultative or collaborative sales process is a key component for selling multiple media, I keep hearing over and over again "I've been training on…
EBay founder Pierre Omidyar and former eBay VP Randy Ching are setting up a local public affairs and civic news site in Hawaii, where Omidyar lives, according to a post on Omidyar's blog that was picked up by paidContent. Former…
By Steve Passwaiter and Rick Ducey For broadcasters, it is an article of faith that “localism” is a point of differentiation that adds value to their operations. Localism tends to mean local news, sports, weather, traffic, local events, coverage of…
The Berry Co. (formerly Berry and Local Insight Media) has unveiled a revamped organization and business model aimed at greater efficiency and support of a new "client--focused" strategy, the company announced last week. As a result, the company is slimming…
Most of the money spent on mobile ads is from brand advertisers and agencies. And the targeting methods they use, via ad networks, are mostly borrowed from the online tactics they know best. This involves branding and some direct response,…
Digital media is more cannibalistic than complementary and is seriously eating into the demand for traditional news sources such as newspapers, TV and news magazines, according to the third annual survey of news users done by Outsell Inc. The survey…
Lots of talk today about a BusinessWeek article that reports Apple is in talks with Microsoft to replace Google as the default search provider on the iPhone. This results from the growing turf battle between the two mobile heavyweights. What…
A legal battle over which law firm gets access to the outside back cover ad of the Baltimore SuperMedia Yellow Pages directory underscores that print Yellow Pages ads can still produce a return on investment worth fighting over. According to…
Norwegian browser maker Opera Software today announced it will acquire mobile ad exchange AdMarvel for what TechCrunch is reporting to be $8 million in cash plus a $15 million earnout. As an ad exchange, AdMarvel has transparency across many ad…
G5 Search Marketing has broadened its vertical focus beyond self storage and now also serves senior housing, multi-family and student housing with its search services. All are aimed at “mid-market” players. The company reports that its client base has grown…
Serial Web entrepreneur Mark H. Goldstein has been the founder of such sites as Kmart’s BlueLight and Impulse Buy. More recently, he invested in green ecology-based ventures, but he grew bored and came back to ecommerce with Loyalty Lab and …
In what is an ongoing humanitarian and mobile story, mobile donations made to Haiti earthquake aftermath relief have exceeded $22 million. This has been a quickly accelerating total, as news reports mid-last week were boasting $7 million. More importantly, the $22 million…
Germany’s Kennst Du Einen, an SEO site that helps local businesses get top search rankings and collect recommendations in the mode of Yelp and ReachLocal, says its run rate reached the 1 million euro mark level in 4Q 2009. That…
MerchantCircle has registered its millionth SMB, Nassau Avenue Nails of Islip, NY. Owner Danielle Biegler found out about MerchantCircle after searching for other local businesses nearby, and will receive a lifetime MerchantCircle tools, cool MerchantCircle gear and a new sign.…
Rumors have been flying that Google is poised to buy Trulia, “the real estate search engine” that competes with, among others, Zillow (which just said it is aiming to IPO in 2011). But according to reports by attendees, no information…