Google may begin to require users to register or otherwise provide personal information to use certain of its applications. An AP report attributed that idea to comments made by Google CEO Eric Schmidt during a four-hour meeting for Wall Street analysts at Google's Mountain View, CA headquarters. The rationale is that it would enable Google …

In addition to seeking personal information, Google representatives said they would do more direct sales (probably for larger advertisers) but would also focus on acquiring more local advertisers and creating tools to make it easier for those advertisers to adopt AdWords.
This is no surprise, but it's interesting to hear Google say it's going …

Yesterday Keynote Systems (formerly Vividence Corporation) released the results of a consumer survey that reported Yahoo!, MSN and Ask Jeeves making gains in search market share and user perceptions.
The survey, based on observation and interaction with 2,000 consumers, found that Google continues to be the dominant engine, but perceptions of quality have tightened.
Keynote Customer …

Empirical research has a habit of confirming what people already know.
In this case, ShopLocal and The Dieringer Group released a study, which tracked consumer shopping during the final three months of 2004. The study found that so-called Web-to-Store shoppersâ€"those consulting the Internet before buying locallyâ€"spent almost twice as much offline for every dollar then …

AOL is upgrading its search functionality and interfaces and taking “baby steps� toward personalization (i.e., saving recent searches).
An extensive discussion of the enhancements is available at Search Engine Watch. The company is bringing together many disparate elements to create a more seamless and integrated user experience around search.
Local enhancements will be rolled out later …

Gary Rivlin wrote an interesting piece in today's NYTimes about Friendster's fortunes and how it's been eclipsed by MySpace in the critical 18 to 29 demographic.
That demographic, right now, is Friendster's entire value proposition to advertisers. The article suggests a major partnership is coming and profitability is just a quarter away. But Friendster …

Now that Google has formally joined AOL, Yahoo!, Blinxx and others in offering TV/video search, the time has come to speculate more seriously about Web-TV convergence.
As more and more video content (and related rich media advertising) goes online, will search engines and the Internet itself be an infinite fountain of TV and movies on demand? …

The so-called “search warsâ€� have opened a new frontâ€"mobile. Yesterday Yahoo! introduced Local Send to Phone, which enables users to send and store listings (business names, address, phone, cross-streets, etc.) on SMS-enabled mobile phones free of chargeâ€"though carrier text messaging rates apply.
A “send to phoneâ€� link appears next to listings on Yahoo! local. Clicking …

Tuesday’s article in the New York Times about Google’s million dollar employee incentives inspired Shawn Wiora, a former Verizon Information Services manager and Yellow Pages consultant, to send me an e-mail asking what might happen if directory publishers followed suit and began offering more creative incentives for their people.
The article, Wiora said, made …

The fact that a smaller Yellow Pages publisher such as New York's Ambassador has adopted a fixed fee/guaranteed clicks program shows that momentum is building around this product concept. There are now multiple players ("small business aggregators") in the market offering this type of product (BellSouth, DexMedia, Interland, Vista, Lawyers.com, HomeGain, etc.).
In the near …

Ask Jeeves has acquired Bloglines, a site that provides a range of functions associated with blogging. A search engine for blog content and an RSS aggregator/reader, Blogline's acquisition reflects the growing importance of RSS feeds and blog content to search. The site is a leader in the space and the acquisition is a bid to …

Check it out: maps.google.com. First impression: it's pretty robust and will rival Yahoo!'s SmartView. I will write about this more extensively later.
Here's the public announcement:
Today, Google released Google Maps at http://maps.google.com, a dynamic online mapping feature that enables users in the U.S. to find location information, navigate through maps, and get directions …

A report in Australia’s The Age newspaper citing unnamed sources within the Australian government says the spin-off of Sensis Pty. Ltd. by its parent company Telstra is in the works. The story was posted on theage.com.au on Feb. 8.
Within the same news cycle, Telstra issued this brief statement in response to The Age story:
“With respect …

Conferences tend to reflect how the business is right now. When business is struggling, publishers will either put a numerical limit on the total number of employees that can attend an event or institute the more draconian requirement that everyone who goes to an event must be approved by the boss.
Based on this unscientific …

I joined the residential marketing group at AT&T in 1978 because my Director convinced me that “the Biggest Company on Earthâ€� was going to become a marketing driven company. I was young and naïve then, and I should have paid attention to President Charles Brown who said in a Times interview that changing AT&T’s culture …

My wish for the Yellow Pages industry in the new year is that the leaders of our business do a better job of communicating our value story to the outside world.
In Bambi Francisco's article she seems to assume that everyone is a writer on Internet issues and no one uses the Yellow Pages anymore. …

Last week, ClickZ wrote an analysis of the state of local search advertising. Using the “Google Zeitgeist,� the article reported that only 1 in 20 searches on Google Local generated ads from small businesses, as opposed to geotargeted ads from national advertisers.
Thus the article paints a somewhat fatalistic picture of search-engine advertising for small …

Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported today that British Telecom plans to spend up to 10 million pounds â€" about US$18 million â€" promoting its BT Phone Book product this year.
This represents a significant upping of the ante by BT, which spent 3 million pounds last year, as it completed the full rollout of 171 combination …

While BT makes a full court press on Yell’s Yellow Pages business in the U.K., 5,000 miles east China Netcom plans to enter the southern China Yellow Pages market.
The whole Yellow Pages market in China is estimated by China Unicom to be worth 4 billon yuan (US$480 million).
China Netcom plans to launch a …

While reading yesterday’s business section of the New York Times, I had the feeling I had somehow picked up a newspaper from 10 years ago. High Tech Isn’t Just for the Big Guys was the headline in an article about small business.
According to research The Kelsey Group conducted last June, 78 percent of small business …