Online Case Study: Gib Olander Buys a House
The future of real estate agents is a special cause of mine, since my wife is with Century 21. So whenever I hear someone has bought or sold a house, I always ask them: “How was the agent experience? What…
OK, Here’s the Lineup for Seattle, April 30-May 2
It’s been a lot of fun putting this together -- a “who’s who” lineup for Kelsey's Drilling Down on Local: Marketplaces, which takes places April 30-May 2 in Seattle (a favorite city). This show, entirely inspired by the in-depth analysis…
Seattle Times Co. Launches ‘Network Search’
One big takeaway from the NAA Marketing show last week in Orlando was that newspapers are ready to build up a zillion niche products that allow them to leverage their editorial talents. But not much progress, or even attention, is…
‘Local’ Surprisingly Prominent at Health 2.0
The smart “post Web” money is looking at health care (and green solutions), right? But based on Health 2.0: User-Generated Healthcare, a conference that took place March 2-4 in San Diego, the subject may no longer be search engines or…
Yelp Gets a Boost
Yelp! has announced that it got $15 million in a fourth round of funding led by DAG and existing investors. The company also sent some growth metrics: October '07 -- 5M Unique Visitors December '07 -- 6M UVs January '08…
Newspaper Next 2.0: The ‘Local Info and Connection Utility’
I liked the 2003-2007 concept of a “local info hub.” The idea was to think beyond the original business boundaries of newspapers (and Yellow Pages). Now that concept has been fancifully enlarged to a “local info and connection utility." The…
NADA Notes: AutoTrader, EBay Motors Local Market and Life Stage Marketing
This year’s National Automobile Dealers Association convention in San Francisco, Feb. 9-12, reflected the tough times that have hit the industry. Themes at the show didn’t go much beyond the convention’s official title: “Focus on Profitability.” But a sub-theme at…
Postmortem on PMA 08: Photography as a Search Vertical
I recently attended the Photo Marketers Association annual convention in Las Vegas. The PMA has been around since 1924 and has extended its reach to address an international mix of sub-verticals including photo retailers, professional photographers, mass merchandisers, professional labs,…
Comcast Scoops Up Vehix
Comcast announced today that its advertising sales division, Comcast Spotlight, will acquire automotive site Vehix (sans "dot com"). The company had a previous relationship -- financially and strategically -- and today's deal makes the marriage official. For Vehix, this ties the…
ServiceMagic Sees 20% Boost in Customer Requests
As a leading player in home verticals, IAC’s ServiceMagic is a company we watch with interest -- especially as IAC intends to split into five pieces. Arguably, it is the one company at IAC that really does straddle its home mortgage…
Matchpoint Buys GetVendors.com, Pushes Lead Gen
GetVendors.com, a California-oriented start-up profiled here last August, has been acquired by Matchpoint, a 30-person service, backed by Oak Investments and IdeaLab and incubated by a team of largely LookSmart veterans. Matchpoint got started a year ago and launched in…
Rural Verticals: The Shift of Small-Town Auction Advertising
Small-town newspapers and radio stations sometimes get into businesses that media companies in larger markets rarely do. They publish directories, develop Web sites, provide Internet access -- you name it. Thousands of newspapers are still family-owned. Increasingly, though, more are controlled…
Zillow Part II: Setting Standards
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 Sheds Beta Status, Announces Performance Metrics
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…
Update on Cox’s Kudzu: National Footprint, Beefed Up Local, AutoTrader Tie
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…
Consolidation in Discount Online Travel Space
In news that was supposed to be announced today but broke late last night, discount travel site Kayak has raised $196 million and acquired competitor SideStep. Techcrunch reports that deal is worth $200 million. The funding came from existing investors…
BooRah Upgrades Restaurant Site, Seeks Broader Distribution
BooRah, the Bay Area restaurant review site, has raised some seed funding from Storm Ventures and other investors (amount undisclosed) and plans to use the money to grow beyond its roots as a tech vendor for alternative newsweeklies. The…
Clear Channel Teams With Denver Multimedia for Online Video
Radio has virtually been a non-starter for local online sales, but a new video initiative by Clear Channel Radio, the nation’s largest chain with stations in 80 U.S. markets, might ramp things up. The video initiative, using Denver Multimedia (DMM) as…
Catzilla Focuses Search Efforts on Autos and Real Estate
Auto dealers and real estate brokers (and agents) are increasingly contending with mission creep for their Web needs that require them to have two or more Web sites. Part of the problem is that they must conform to standardized requirements.…
Yahoo! Reorgs Local Markets and Commerce
The way Yahoo! breaks up business segments is always instructive -- something we follow closely at The Kelsey Group as we do our best to sort out our Interactive Local Media, Marketplaces and Yellow Pages/Directional Advertising (“The Kelsey Report”) research…