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May 28, 2008

Will Microsoft Acquire a Directories Giant?

[UPDATED: Some disagreement in the comments over my use of a Compete chart below, so I've added data from ComScore].

Shares of U.K.-based Yell Group are up on rumors Microsoft has approached the directories publisher about a possible sale. The acquisition, if it came to fruition, would be Microsoft's first merger in the local business and residential look-up arena, and could be interpreted as a play for search share. For instance, Yell's online properties -- including Yell.com in the U.K., YellowBook.com in the U.S., and PaginasAmarillas.es in Spain -- could carry Microsoft Maps and local listings, along with geo-targeted advertising. And Yell's sales force could upsell local marketers on Microsoft's other channels.

Even so, YellowBook.com is hardly the leader in the space, particularly in the U.S.

According to ComScore, YellowBook.com's April traffic pales next to category leaders YellowPages.com (AT&T) and SuperPages.com (Idearc). SuperPages.com is the dominant online yellow pages player with over 30 million unique. However YellowBook.com boasts the highest growth rate, having bean-stalked 156 percent since April 2007 to over 14 million U.S. uniques.

And here's Compete's traffic comparison, which mainly goes to show how utterly hopeless an endeavor independent traffic verification still is.

What a sale to Microsoft would mean for Yell's working environment may be a point of some nervousness for the company's staff. The firm was just awarded a ninth place ranking on the Financial Times' list of the U.K.'s best workplaces.

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May 19, 2008

Jennewein Looks Forward to Post-Union-Trib Opportunities

I just got off the phone with Chris Jennewein, until recently VP of Internet operations at Union-Tribune Publishing Co., where he led Web projects like its SignOn San Diego-associated radio site. Chris and two close colleagues at the paper's Internet operation, Ron James and Jim Drummond, were laid off around a week ago.

Jennewein stressed he left "amicably" and "appreciates the opportunities I've had to develop innovative online products" for the newspaper firm. He said the company is "consolidating print and Internet operations."

He said he sees the change as "a chance to explore opportunities in online news and Internet media," noting his next gig could be at a more established company or a startup. Or, he may start something on his own. "It's only been a week," he reminded me.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 3:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 5, 2008

Kelsey Local Media Conference: Random Notes

I had a blast at the Kelsey conference in Seattle last week. In addition to news coverage from the event on FIM, Yahoo and The LA Times, here are a few tidbits I found interesting:

SubPrime Auto Loan Lead Gen Potential
Cars.com founder and CEO Mitch Golub suggested there's room for a new vertical in the local auto lead generation space: subprime auto loans. Because, according to Golub, 50 percent of car buyers don't qualify for prime loans, "I guess that's another vertical to be developed."

On Buy-in from Sales Partners
Ad product and service providers looking to attract small businesses and local advertisers need a way to connect with those clients. So, they forge relationships with yellow pages companies or newspaper publishers – companies with entrenched local sales forces that can go out and sell their Web video product or SEM services along with a YP or newspaper site ad.

Lots of deals along these lines have been made recently between vendors and publishers, but feelings are mixed as to the potential success of such partnerships. Golub told the Kelsey conference audience, vendors that think newspaper salespeople will readily go out and sell their products, are "smoking something funny." He was one of a couple execs at the conference who didn't shy away from tellin' it like it is.

But in a panel focused on local resellers, Carey Ransom, VP of business development for WebVisible indicated he's seen success in such partnerships, particularly when salespeople go beyond their regular pool of advertisers. "The ones that are stretching a little bit are the ones that are seeing the most success," he said.

On Selling to Small Businesspeople
During that "Local Resellers" session, SpotRunner GM of Local Marketing Services Kurt Weinsheimer reminded the audience that folks running small businesses have unique needs. "We're dealing with the head of sales, CMO, COO all in one person," he said. "They have very different questions and very different needs."

For instance, when selling TV, information about reach and frequency or points may be important to traditional media buyers at agencies, but it often goes over the heads of small business advertisers. "It's deer in the headlights when it comes to a small business," said Weinsheimer, adding that SpotRunner alters the type of data it reports to such advertisers.

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May 1, 2008

Direct Response Video for Small, Local Firms

Small and mid-tier businesses have long gravitated towards direct response marketing like yellow pages ads and dedicated phone numbers on late night cable ads. Startup Mixpo hopes they'll want the same action-oriented approach when it comes to Web video.

Online video advertising "is going to start going in that direction," suggested MixPo President and CEO Anupam Gupta. I met with the Seattle-based company yesterday morning nearby its headquarters before the Kelsey Group's local media conference kicked off.

"Whether it is [based on] CPA or cost-per-view, we'll see," he continued. The two-year-old firm sees great potential in the small and local online video sector, despite the array of competitive services going after the same pool of mom-and-pops, mid-size retailers, auto dealers and other smaller advertisers.

Measurable direct response mechanisms within embedded video and video ad units could give Mixpo an advantage. Advertisers can include lead-gen forms, track-able and geo-targeted phone numbers and other features, and alter ads dynamically to optimize or change offers. The platform enables video creation from repurposed TV spots and uploaded photos-turned-slideshows. The company also does custom video production.

Like others in the growing local video space, Mixpo is talking with a range of potential partners, from regional ad agencies to online yellow pages firms. The goal is connecting to small business clients through companies that already have relationships with such advertisers.

One distribution partner is Active Rain, a social site for realtors (i.e., people looking for easy, cost-efficient ways to create and optimize video of properties for sale). Some site users have tested the platform, which should be fully functional as an Active Rain offering ("powered by Mixpo") in a week or two, according to Gupta. The site will sell the videos for $30/per month, splitting revenue with Mixpo.

Spotmixer is yet another just-launched self-serve video company claiming it will "level the playing field" for video for SMBs. Others include AditAll, DMM, Spot Runner, EZShow and Visible World. TurnHere is also going after these smaller advertisers, though it's taking the custom video production route, and also working with lots of large brands.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 6:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 28, 2008

Obama Local Media Spending

Barack Obama's campaign paid over $145,000 to local media buying firm Centro in February and March, according to FEC filings. The Illinois Senator's camp paid the Chicago-based company $138,000 in February.

My guess is that money went towards a pre-primary effort aimed at Texas and Ohio voters in February. The campaign went through Centro to buy homepage placements on Texas and Ohio newspaper and TV sites. In addition to purchasing media for the effort, Centro produced the creative. So, just how much of those dollars went towards creative services and other costs for the video-enabled ads vs. actual local media is unclear.

I'll be discussing this campaign during a talk I'll give on local online political advertising Thursday morning at the Kelsey Group's Drilling Down on Local Conference. We'll also be distributing a booklet on how the presidential campaigns have used local online media during the primaries.

You can download a PDF version of All Primaries Are Local: 2008 Presidential Campaigns Buy Local Online for free today!

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 25, 2008

QuadOne Integrates Network Sites, Running Ad Test

I had a chance to meet with Dana Hayes, interim CEO for quadrantOne, yesterday. The online newspaper network was recently formed by Gannett Co., Hearst Corp., Tribune Co., and The New York Times Co. and recently added Yahoo's newspaper partner troupe to its list of publishers. In addition to heading quadOne, Hayes is also Tribune Interactive's SVP of sales. We talked about his goals for the nascent network, including his hopes for attracting big national brand advertisers that want local reach.

A couple updates on the progress of the network:

- About 150 network sites are fully integrated on the quadOne platform (technology supplied by Collective Media).
- 325 sites will be integrated by the end of June.
- A large retail advertiser is running an ad test on 6 network sites.
- 32 additional sites will be added to that ad run next week.
- Network publishers have dedicated pre-roll video inventory, in addition to standard display and rich media.

"We want to be positioned as a large niche site," said Hayes, who noted the network expects Olympics content to bring in lots of ad dollars.

Just as a side note: I've been working in or coming into NYC for work for over ten years, and I've never experienced an office building with quite so clandestine an operation as the Helmsley Building, on Park near Grand Central, where I met Hayes. Weird place. After getting a visitor's pass with a digital photo, I made it to the 10th floor, where I was told to meet him. The 10th floor receptionist told me to have a seat. A couple minutes later, another woman prompted me to come with her. She said I should go to the 7th floor. Once I got there, a receptionist lured me past a set of glass doors. Finally, I was at my destination.

I felt like I was meeting some highly-protected diplomat in an undisclosed location. Next time I'll bring my bug detection device....

Posted by Kate Kaye at 3:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 10, 2008

Newspapers Got 27 Percent Online Local Ad Rev in '07

In preparation for its upcoming conference in D.C., the Newspaper Association of America requested some preliminary data from Borrell Associates’ local online revenue study, expected in May. The NAA reported that, as found by Borrell, newspaper sites grabbed almost 27 percent of local online ad market share in '07, or over $2 billion in local online ad revenue. Paper sites also grabbed 26 percent of the$363 million spent on local video ads, according to the NAA's report.

Local YP and TV sites individually accounted for just under 10 percent of the market, and radio stations around 2 percent.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 21, 2008

ClickZ at Kelsey Local Conference in Seattle

As you may know, ClickZ News covers a lot of online local ad news and trends. The Kelsey Group is dedicated to local, and I have the privilege of speaking at their upcoming conference in Seattle, Drilling Down on Local '08 to be held on April 30-May 2.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 5, 2008

ETelemetry Helps Hotels Halt Bandwidth Hogs

Networking technology firm eTelemetry released a new tool today to help hotels stop guests from overusing their free Internet bandwidth, and someday it might be a new means of hyperlocal advertising.

Called Notify, the system monitors Internet usage within a hotel and sends a message directly to a user's browser to alert them if they're reaching a predetermined threshold. The system doesn't require a software download and appears as a clickable line on the browser page. While handy for monitoring broadband overhead, Notify might also be used as an advertising medium by the hotels to promote conventions or services, said Ermis Sfakiyanudis, CEO of eTelemetry.

"They will now have the ability to message and advertise in an unobtrusive way to share in the revenue that ordinarily they wouldn't have access too," he said. "It gives the advertisers the opportunity to microtarget, because you know exactly where the device is installed. It's in a hotel in Manhattan for instance."

But the devil is in the details, and it will probably be sometime before hotels could make use of third party ad networks to place the ads, and that’s only if advertisers become interested in hyperlocal targeting, according to Michael Greene, research associate with Jupiter Research.

"At this point limited to the hospitality sector and other close-linked systems, it doesn't provide the scale that a lot of advertisers would be looking for," he said.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 10:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 23, 2008

TurnHere Turns to Another IYP for Small Business Clients

Following deals with Idearc Media's SuperPages.com and IAC/InterActiveCorp's Citysearch, TurnHere (so far they're still indie!) signed with AT&T subsidiary YellowPages.com. Like those other relationships, the agreement pairs YellowPages.com local advertisers with TurnHere's network of videographers. In the case of this recent deal, TurnHere will produce videos about local and small businesses for the YP firm's Video Profile product.

Yellow Book USA also began testing video products for advertisers last year. Many believe it will take middlemen like yellow pages publishers or other online local service providers to guide local business owners toward Web video and educate them about it.

Indeed, partnerships like the ones with TurnHere introduce the video production firm to small and local advertisers they may not be able to easily attract otherwise.

The local online video thing seems to be pretty happenin'. Local online video and TV ad firm SpotRunner just snapped up GlobeShooter, another firm offering access to a network of indie filmmakers, videographers, photographers and producers.

Considering how many directories firms and others serving small and local advertisers are banking on video ads and profiles, it'll be interesting to see if this stuff really takes hold this year.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 10, 2008

Yahoo and Belo Expand Relationship to Include News Video

Partners Yahoo and Belo have expanded their relationship. Belo, which recently split its newspaper and broadcast operations in October, is now the exclusive provider of local news video to Yahoo News in all Belo TV markets but Dallas and Boise. These include Austin, New Orleans, Phoenix, Portland and St. Louis. Local news clips will run in local Yahoo News pages, and Yahoo will share ad revenue created through the clips with Belo.

According to a company press release, the deal gives Yahoo local news video in 18 of the top 25 U.S. markets. Belo was among the original members of Yahoo's growing group of newspaper partners and has distributed Yahoo's HotJobs recruitment listings on its paper sites since 2005.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 9, 2007

Earnings: Marchex Adds 20K New Local Advertisers

One interesting tidbit from Marchex's earnings call yesterday: the local online ad company claims to have brought in more than 20,000 new advertisers in Q3 through a combination of direct sales, aggregator partnerships (i.e. yellow pages and other regional small biz ad sellers), and the acquisition of VoiceStar. It now has 50,000 advertisers using its tools and advertising on its Web sites, and expects to grow that to 80,000 in two years' time.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 17, 2007

Superpages Goes Live with Local Video Advertising System

The local online ad market is getting busier, as Superpages.com has brought its Superpages Video advertising product out of beta phase and into national availability. Targeting local small-to-medium-sized businesses, Superpages.com will send a professional video team out to shoot an ad for a business, or repurpose existing video ads, and then make them shareable online.

If this sound familiar, it's because you've heard about such systems before on ClickZ, with companies like TurnHere, and local search companies like Yellow Book and CitySearch getting in on the game.

Superpages.com, which is owned by Idearc Media, launched its Superpages Video advertising product nationally after conducting its beta trials in Seattle, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay areas, but clearly one should expect that competition and price differentiation will play a hand in getting local businesses online with video ads, as they realize they have more than a few choices to pick from.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 4:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 18, 2007

Location-Aware Mobile Search

When you leave your neighborhood, or even time zone, your phone can sense you're in a different service area, yet targeting for advertising and search defaults to your home area unless you tell your phone otherwise. Through a partnership between Sprint and Microsoft, users on the Sprint network can opt-in to an integrated GPS location-aware mobile search service. Additionally, Microsoft will include a version of voice search with visual results by Live Search using Microsoft property Tellme available for download. GPS-enabled search is a permission-based service, subscribers do have to acknowledge the GPS functionality of the phone in order to take part.

While there was no advertising immediately announced about GPS-enabled search, it's ripe for geo-targeted ads. Sprint was an early adopter among U.S.-based carriers to allow advertising on deck. On the Microsoft side, it can't be too hard to make inventory available to advertisers here.

Posted by Enid Burns at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 12, 2007

Superpages and Verizon YP Boost Local, Social Offerings

Superpages.com and Verizon Yellow Pages owner Idearc Media Corp. has bought the LocalSearch.com domain, and invested $3.3 million in AmericanTowns.com, a network of community sites featuring local event info and other resources. Through this and other investments, AmericanTowns.com plans to expand its sites to over 22,000 U.S. towns.

One can expect an extension of Idearc's IYP directories into those sites, in addition to integration of content like business reviews into those directory listings. We've seen local search morphing with IYP and other listing services, and I guess the actual purchase of the LocalSearch.com domain by an IYP firm makes it official.

Carrying on its community focus, Superpages.com added a restaurant review app to the growing list of Facebook applications. The directory site has also added a new feature allowing people to compare merchant information like hours, products and areas serviced, using a drag-and-drop tool.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 20, 2007

Local.com acquired PremierGuide

Search engine Local.com has acquired online business director provider PremierGuide for approximately $2 million. As part of the agreement, Local.com purchased the outstanding shares of PremierGuide, which will now be a wholly-owned subsidiary of the search engine. Local.com. Malcolm Lewis, PremierGuide’s CEO, will become Local.com’s vice president, private label.

By purchasing PremierGuide, Local.com is getting access to over 350 regional media publishers, including Community Newspaper Holdings, GateHouse Media and Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, according to the company. Local.com plans to integrate PremierGuide’s technology and product with the company’s LocalConnect platform to provide private-label solutions to regional media, and improve site traffic by providing SEO-friendly local business listings.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 7:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Local CPMs Up for McClatchy Sites

An interesting tidbit came out of McClatchy's Q2 earnings call yesterday. VP Interactive Media Chris Hendricks was asked about CPM rate trends, and this was his response (see the full transcript on SeekingAlpha):

Generally at the local level, the CPMs are rising because it is a supply/demand type of business. As more advertisers want the inventory we have, we can push up rates. At the national level, they pretty much remain consistent. There is plenty of ad inventory out there for just general advertising as opposed to a specific local type of business.

Well, if an uptick in CPMs starts anywhere, it makes sense it's with the local advertisers that have been on their local newspaper sites ever since salespeople started throwing Web ads in as value-adds.

National advertisers, as Hendricks noted, have yet to be there with any gusto, so CPMs are flat. Might this change when Yahoo starts peddling newspaper inventory (including that of McClatchy's sites) to national advertisers? I'll have to ponder that one, but I'd bet there are plenty of people on both sides of that fence.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 17, 2007

Mixed Demo Messages on New WashPost Local Site

It's not surprising The Washington Post Company has launched a new hyper-local site focused on a county just outside D.C. The paper publisher did the same in April 2006 with its Express site, aimed at residents in the D.C. metro area.

The new site, LoudounExtra.com, seems to take a cue from Express, providing lots of info on stuff that wouldn't make it into the WashPost, like church events and local schools guides. It also includes local entertainment and sports content, and allows users to post comments.

The site doesn't seem to be quite as advanced as Express, which features map-based guides and organizes theater, nightclub and restaurant listings and reviews based on nearby metro stations. According to a New York Times article about the new site, "Readers will be able to download restaurant guides and other content from the site onto their iPods, phones and even video-game consoles. In late August, a new feature will let readers click on a street address and see all the closest events and news nearby."

More coverage, from Mediapost, notes a long-time advertiser in the print version of The Washington Post, local window seller Long Windows has "bought out most of the site for several months." The advertiser has a prominent presence, running a large square unit on the homepage in addition to a gigantic 336x850 unit on inner pages. Evidently more will advertise through small business sponsorships and in a "Deal of the Day" section, which isn't live on the site yet from what I can tell.

One interesting thing to note: While the site seems to be quite family/community/neighborhood-oriented in content (high school sports, schools, houses of worship, local politics and obits), the homepage masthead image (see below) seems quite gen-y/singles/hipster/nightlife-oriented. This image seems more appropriate for the Express site than the Loudoun site, whose main sponsor is a window company, obviously aimed at family-minded homeowners.

"Hey baby, you know what they say about a guy with Long Windows, don't ya?"

Something to consider, which the NYTimes story alludes to, is the recent demise of hyper local community site network Backfence, which got its start in Virginia communities and other nearby areas. The fact that WashPost had over a year to experiment with Express perhaps is an indication that the local community site thing works for the company, particularly when it comes to ad support. It probably doesn't hurt that the paper publisher has an entrenched sales force in the area with longtime connections to local businesses, while others that have experimented with models reliant upon wooing local ad dollars have not.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 26, 2007

Zimmerman and ImageSpan Partner for Auto Ads

Local car dealers have long been the source of some really annoying ads. After all, who doesn't remember some cheesy talking chimpanzees or some "Crazy Larry" guy claiming he has the best deals on cars cause he's "craaaazzzyyyyy," all touting the local car dealership? Nevertheless, auto industry advertising is a multibillion dollar business with a growing online component, and now Zimmerman Advertising and ImageSpan are partnering to help local dealerships… hopefully… make some better ads.

Zimmerman's Pick-n-Click Ads.com lets auto dealerships to create video or photo ads, while ImageSpan provides licensing automation technology and access to a network of 7,000 videographers and photographers. The idea is that dealers can choose from hundreds of automotive campaigns created by the automotive advertising agency, customize them with video or photos of their dealership supplied by ImageSpan video professionals, and then automatically license the content.

I can only hope that it'll be the end of Crazy Larry for good.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 3:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Mapping out Good Business

Tech savvy consumers are well aware of the usefulness of mapping programs to find the businesses they're looking for, and it's clear that businesses are starting to take a closer look at how they can improve their listings and woo consumers to them.

With that idea in mind, Google Maps is giving both sides of the fence new tools to help consumers reach good businesses but offering user ratings and reviews directly from its map system. Some time ago, Google Maps made it possible for businesses to list themselves directly onto its mapping platform, but now it's giving users the ability to rank those listings and even make comments on them. Using Google Maps, users can search for a listing, click on the "More Info" link, and then the "Write a Review" section.

With all the interest in maps, including having the ability to place ads directly onto them, I have to wonder if local social media sites like CitySearch, Yelp, Judy's Book, Backfence and others have a new battle on their hands as the map giants like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo push into their market in new ways.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 1:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 7, 2007

Online YP Continues Merger with Classifieds

The morphing of online yellow pages, local search and classifieds continues. Today's deal in which online yellow pages provider YP Corp. has acquired online local classifieds service LiveDeal only makes it a bit more official. (See the release.) LiveDeal, which will remain a standalone entity, benefits from YP's small and medium enterprise sales force, while YP gets LiveDeal's tech platform. The result, according to the companies, will be a service offering directories, mobile listings, classifieds and distribution of that content.

LiveDeal Founder and CEO Rajesh Navar will become president and chief architect of YP Corp., jointly operating the combined business with YP CEO Daniel Coury, who will remain in his CEO role.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 22, 2007

HotJobs Exec Departure from Yahoo Won't Affect Newspaper Group

So, as reported Friday, SVP and GM of Yahoo HotJobs Dan Finnegan has decided to leave the company. According to reports -- and as confirmed by Yahoo -- he was the guy at Yahoo who originated the newspaper consortium idea, which of course began with the notion of integrating HotJobs listings across newspaper sites, and has since evolved to include much more expansive plans for content and ad distribution.

The question I had for Yahoo was, does this affect the newspaper group? Nope, said spokesperson Emily Fox. Another insider familiar with Yahoo's newspaper operation told me pretty much the same thing.

It has, however, been implied that Finnegan, who was replaced by Hilary Schneider while at the now defunct Knight Ridder, was not happy about her move to Yahoo as SVP of its then-newly-formed Marketplaces unit -- and his boss. That division includes HotJobs.

"The minute she walked in, he was on his way out the door," said a source.

Fox didn't confirm any animosity between the two, but did tell me, "He had made a decision quite awhile ago that he was ready to do something else….He likes the new phases of things." The newspaper consortium has moved into the "process" stage, she said, thus, might be kind of boring for someone with his entrepreneurial spirit.

Finnegan was kind enough to give Yahoo plenty of time to fill his shoes, added Fox, noting he won't leave till the end of June.

Also, for the record, at a recent NAA event, Schneider said the newspaper consortium was up to 15 publisher partners.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 2, 2007

Niesenholtz: Still No Winners in Local

Peter Krasilovsky at the Local Onliner mentions some noteworthy comments Martin Niesenholtz made at the Yellow Pages Association conference yesterday in Las Vegas.

The digital chief at The New York Times called local “a huge untapped opportunity in the directories arena that no one -– including the portals –- has yet tapped.”

The ultimate victors in local "could come from many different directions: from the social networking side; from information businesses; from search; from startups; and, of course, from the directory players. So far no one has truly tapped and structured the input from local audience's. When that happens, it will be a game changer. I have very little doubt about that,” he said.

Clearly the VC money agrees, since we've seen no shortage of new local plays launch in recent months. And the constantly shifting alliances of newspapers and portals support Niesenholtz as well. It's a bittersweet message for the directory players, which have steadily rolled out feature enhancements and platform upgrades but failed to capture the imagination or clicks of Internet users on the scale they might've wished. Of course, the same goes for the field of craigslist killers -- remember them? -- local search players, local service directories, and citizen media platforms as well. In other words, for YellowPages.com and company it's not too late.

One area where the directory players continue to excel is in mobilizing their sales forces on behalf of Web platforms eager to reach local audiences. On Monday, Jingle Networks' 1-800-FREE411 struck a deal with a several groups of certified marketing representatives (CMRs, often run by Yellow Pages and other directories) to offer audio ad placements on its free directory assistance line. While not a mobile/traffic media victory, these deals help the directories maintain their grip on small business sales channels. In that scenario, they become the hub on a wheel that includes the various local digital outlets. Of course, mom and pop will only be willing to listen to so many options.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 2, 2007

Topix Switchup Aims to Bring Local CGM to Masses

Local news aggregator site Topix has added new functionality in the hopes of attracting more wannabe citizen journalists, and has officially switched to its Topix.com domain. In the longrun, more user-generated content and subsequent discussion will mean more ad space. Because Topix targets news stories by zip code, the site appeals to advertisers looking to reach hyper local markets.

For now, though, even with the new site features and domain switchover from .net to .com, Topix is sticking to the same ad model it's been using, mainly running Google AdSense ads. According to Topix folks I spoke with last week, the site earns $2 to $2.50 CPMs from AdSense on some pages.

That could change, though. As its pageviews grow, the site is considering building a sales force to sell to national and brand advertisers.

With its new site features, Topix is going after less savvy Web users, those who may find the prospect of creating blogs or uploading video or podcasts daunting. Users can submit stories via email to the relevant zip code @topix.com.

The site will rank top stories by popularity, but to reduce the possibility of system-gaming, popularity is determined by a story's ability to spur online discussions. To gauge this, Topix wil rank stories according to the number of comments received by unique users.

Topix is concerned that moving to the new .com domain could wreak havoc on its search results rankings. When I spoke with them recently, they suggested they would run both the .net and .com domains in unison until the .com site builds Google juice. It seems as though that's what they're doing since the .net domain doesn't redirect to .com at this point.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 22, 2007

Free MLS Listing Site for Home Sellers

Iggys House, the company that owns BuySide Realty, just launched a site that allows sellers to list their property free on the MLS (Multiple Listing Service), which sells over 70 percent of U.S. properties. Currently, an MLS listing costs c. $500 and can only be executed by a Realtor.

Seller ads, which can contain multiple photos and even video, will appear on Realtor.com, the largest database of homes for sale, as well as on services such as AOL, the WSJ, and MSN. A toll-free number and voice mail are provided with each listing for inquiries.

Iggys House CEO Joseph J. Fox has big expectations. “There is a lot of money at stake – about $65 billion annually in real estate commissions. This new model will have an immediate impact on the status quo. By breaking open the MLS we are providing over $500 million worth of services for free to millions of home buyers each year. For the 1.1 million people who try to ‘sell by owner’, we provide incredible exposure...For the over 400,000 sellers who pay a fee to be MLS-listed, we now offer it for free.”

So where's the money? The reasoning is that home sellers are on the verge of becoming home buyers. The service hopes to direct sellers to buy their next property on BuySide Realty, which launched in April of last year. That service shares 75 percent of its commission with the buyer, and helps guide purchasers through the process andn the closing.

The service is initially launching in 20 states, and plans a rollout to an additional 17 states in coming months, which Iggys House claims represents 84 percent of available homes. By year's end, the service will be national.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 1:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 16, 2007

Unusual Newspaper Homepage Ad

This ad just caught my eye while browsing local newspaper sites. Before loading the homepage, Arizona Daily Star's azstarnet.com displays a fullpage ad for an upcoming home show. I honestly can't remember seeing a newspaper site (besides the big nationals, maybe) do this sort of thing. From what I could tell, it wasn't a timed ad that automatically loads the paper homepage; instead, the user has to click through to the site.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 16, 2007

Yahoo Adds Chicago Indie to Newspaper Group

This just in: It looks like Yahoo has added a tenth publisher to its fast-growing newspaper consortium. I just confirmed with the company that it's signed Paddock Publications, small indie publisher of The Daily Herald, a Chicago…er…daily.

I don't have any more details yet, but thanks to Classified Intelligence for tipping me off.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 14, 2007

Yahoo Consortium in Autos Next?

For such a seemingly dry topic, the online classifieds space sure does have people talkin'. Newspaper industry watcher Ken Doctor has the inside scoop on the next stage of the Yahoo newspaper partnership, into the auto arena (by way of Peter Krasilovsky over at The Local Onliner. )

"Word is that a number of the amigos will be meeting in Sunnyvale as early as this week or next around doing a new partnership with Yahoo" he writes. "The aim: a new push around used cars, harnessing Yahoo's search and lead generation powers, as the auto marketplace heats up." Doctor also writes of the potential competition for Cars.com, a Gannett/McClatchy/Tribune venture, and adds that Yahoo's current alignment with AutoTrader could alter as a result of a branching out of the consortium classifieds categories.

Krasilovsky adds, "Yahoo has a lot of auto manufacturer deals in place for national advertising, and these could theoretically trickle down to the newspaper sites." They sure do, and a recent custom site produced for Pontiac is an example.

A Ways Down the Road?
An auto classifieds network arising from the consortium could be a ways off, though, considering the HotJobs integration is "modest", according to Eric van Miltenburg, GM of Yahoo's Newspaper Consortium. He told me last month that "Users will start to see elements of the collaboration this year."

Video Classifieds?
Another thing on Web classifieds: yesterday's report from Borrell Associates (see ClickZ News coverage) on online local video advertising predicted many of the video ads featured on newspaper sites will be up-sells of classified ads in the future. One could certainly envision Yahoo's ad serving technology eventually powering something along these lines for its growing newspaper network or for listings on its own site.

After autos, surely, real estate won't be far down the road, either for the Yahoo partnership, another space with several pairings already in place that could be disrupted by a Yahoo network move. Of course, there's also a potential for display ads….Does it ever end?

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 23, 2007

Local.com to Buy IYP Ad Provider

Does the local media industry ever slow down? Today's news is that Local.com plans to acquire IYP provider soUno Directional Media Solutions for $2.25 million in cash plus $6.75 million in Local.com common stock. Considering the fact the firm has just 20 employees, soUno obviously isn't a huge yellow pages player. The company has 13,000 advertisers across the country paying $300 on average to be featured in its online listings.

Local.com already powers the IYP ad provider's search function, and said it will integrate soUno into Local.com, and give its advertisers premium Local.com placement. Mainly, this deal will help Local.com to build out its ad offerings and gives it an entry into the market of small business advertisers spending less than $500 per year.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 2:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 19, 2007

Vertical Search Auctions on Portals Coming Soon?

Will keyword bidding on Yahoo and MSN -- the search players with portals -- soon be carved into optional, more expensive vertical niches? It appears so.

At a lunch Yahoo threw this week to announce its new personal finance section , I asked a number of Yahoo executives if they'd considered a marketplace in which, say, a financial advertiser could bid for two tiers of keywords: one on Yahoo Search, and another higher bid for contextual search ads appearing only on search results within the personal finance section.

"It's certainly something we looked at," said Tanya Singer, director of product development, who spearheaded the project.

That amounts almost to a confession. With the recent introduction of Panama on the Yahoo side, and upgrades scheduled for MSN's auctionplace interface, the content portals would have to be nuts not to consider enabling more vertical SEM buys.

Google's not a portal, but it could certainly play along with buys aimed at specific sections such as Book Search or local, though that's a mushier landscape given the precision to which a local buy can already be targeted.

The end effect would be more targeted advertising, to be sure. But also more complicated search advertising, which only the more sophisticated clients are ready for. SEMs would also have to rush to tweak their proprietary bid management and metrics applications.

Still, it seems the move is inevitable. The only question is, when? Yahoo's promised to get back to me on this.

I'll keep you posted.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 9:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 11, 2007

Find the Nearest Gas Station

AAA.com has added a new feature to its travel planner Web site: find a local gas station.

Close to 100,000 U.S. gas stations are listed on the site. Locations are updated weekly, fuel prices updated four times per day.

According to the organization, 2.5 million motorists will need emergency fuel delivery this year when their cars ran out of gas.

No more excuses!

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 9:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 10, 2007

Oodle Goes Local

Oodle is continuing to branch out its classifieds aggregation services, this time fueling Local.com's classifieds. The local biz listings site is now featuring Oodle's real estate, auto, merch, and other classifieds.

Local.com also recently added jobs and seasonal holiday shopping specials in its search, too. The site allows users to refine searches according to things like color, price, year, etc.

I did a trial search on "sofa" in "Jersey City, NJ" which resulted in several listings from furniture stores and professional Ebay sellers, as well as a recently-deleted entry from Village Voice (via its free listing service Backpage.com). Of course, a few were from average Joes looking to unload their old couches.

Still, it looks as though Craigslist isn't the only free classifieds site dealing with bad players. With so many sites crawling the Web for or getting feeds from classifieds sites, the spam, scams and other ads mucking up the free classifieds space are that much more pervasive.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 13, 2006

NearbyNow: Making Bricks-and-Mortar Inventory Searchable

How does a Web start-up with fewer than 20 staffers get its hands on a sea of searchable inventory data for local stores across the U.S. -- data Froogle, Yahoo Shopping and eBay's Shopping.com drool over, yet can't touch?

For the answer, check out our profile story on NearbyNow, recently published in ClickZ Features.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 5, 2006

Media General Joins Yahoo Paper Gang

Media General, publisher of 22 daily southern papers including The Tampa Tribune and Richmond Times-Dispatch has joined Yahoo's so-called "consortium" of paper publisher partners. Through the arrangement, Media General's job classifieds will be entered into the Yahoo HotJobs database. The publisher has been using HotJobs to run its online job ads for The Tampa Tribune for over a year.

If this were just a job classifieds play, it wouldn't seem like the bigger deal it is. The goal for Yahoo is to build a classifieds network of sorts, starting with recruitment ads and moving on from there. Yahoo anticipates distributing its tools and apps (maps and local biz and event listings) out to the newspaper partner sites, meanwhile, integrating the papers' content throughout its site.

Media General joins seven other paper publishers in the consortium, now totaling over 200 papers.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 3:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 4, 2006

Oodles of Fish in the Sea?

Classifieds site Oodle.com got into the online dating game today, launching its Personals channel. The service lets lonely hearts search by age, location, category (e.g. men seeking women), and keyword (blonde, bald, cranky, whatever).

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 30, 2006

New Real Estate Happenings at Edgeio and TurnHere

There's a bit of online real estate goings on the past couple days. The local/travel video producer TurnHere has unveiled 45 Ohio community profile videos for real estate firm Real Living. The videos will be linked from Real Living's home listings in those locales. The real estate connection isn't new for TurnHere. The firm was founded by Brad Inman, who's been a big name in the real estate biz for years.

TurnHere has also done some interesting stuff for InterContinental Hotels and Resorts, creating Web films for each of the lodging firm's locations.

Also on the online real estate front, classifieds aggregator and distribution outfit edgeio has snapped up assets of Adaptive Real Estate Services (ARES), a company that houses about 1.5 million home listings from 70 MLS (multiple listings services) groups. So, now edgeio users will be able to access all those home listings, which are automatically uploaded to the ARES database, according to edgeio's blog.

I spoke with a source who follows the online and traditional real estate ad industry really closely about the acquisition. While he believes its "good for edgeio in that they can now go into some markets," it won't really have an impact nationally since ARES doesn't cover all markets, and many real estate advertisers are reluctant to have their listings distributed anywhere but their own sites and the big National Association of Realtors listings site, Realtor.com.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 1:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 29, 2006

Could Philly.com Lose Site Traffic Soon?

The folks feeding Philly.com just might starve the site come tomorrow. According to an AP story, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News editorial staff could go on strike tomorrow, in which case, they'll be serving the city of brotherly love through their own site, PhilaPapers.com. And yes, they will run ads there.

Philly.com is part of McClathy's RealCities ad network.

If this thing actually plays out, what will this mean for Philly.com advertisers? How long will it take for people to go where the fresh local news is, leaving Philly.com's traffic to dwindle? Maybe stringer scabs will come in to assist the Philly papers.

Anyway, I'm curious to see what happens and how much traffic goes to the new site if it goes live. And even if it isn't there to serve the union's purposes, it could have a future for another related project, or citizen journalism, perhaps....

Posted by Kate Kaye at 2:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 28, 2006

Ask Planning Local Push

IAC/InterActiveCorp has been touting the potential synergy between its sites for a while now, and there has been some limited integration between Ask.com and its local information sites Citysearch, TicketMaster and Evite. It looks like that integration is about to get even more substantial, IAC's chairman and CEO Barry Diller said Monday at the Reuters Media Summit in New York.

Diller has been known to ignore his PR team's schedule, like when he announced the death of Jeeves six months ahead of schedule.

Apparently he has jumped the gun again, and revealed IAC's plans for "AskCity", a local service scheduled to launch next week. The city guides will include content from various IAC divisions, such as Web search, city guides, maps and event listings. Diller said the changes would be incorporated into Ask.com itself later in December.

Diller said in August that IAC would be investing in the business, and increasing integration between Ask.com and CitySearch, among other IAC properties.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 21, 2006

Oodle Signs On San Diego

SignOnSanDiego.com, one of the more innovative newspaper sites out there, now will be running tickets, merchandise, pets and services classifieds from listings aggregator Oodle.

In the wake of yesterday's announcement regarding Yahoo's partnership with seven newspaper publishers, which has major implications for the online classifieds space, it'll be interesting to see what becomes of relationships like this. Now that a huge player like Yahoo is in line to work with hundreds of papers to power, distribute, and sell classifieds, and providing paper sites the added incentive of expo