InsiderPages announced the completion of its first San Francisco Bay Area consumer reviews drive. The fundraising effort generated more than 4,500 reviews by area clubs and schools. InsiderPages distributed $8,000 to participating schools as a result of the program, or slightly less than $2 per completed review. The Bay Area is a very competitive review …

In Search Engine Guide this week, Gord Hotchkiss said that "the C Level Ceiling" is the primary problem that search engines are facing in growing search expenditures. "Senior execs don't get search, they don't want to get search and they certainly don't want to move significant budget to search." He then goes on to give …

David Jackson posted an invitation e-mail from Google regarding its pending CPA test. A CPA-based ad product is part of the wider strategy to push toward landing page optimization, conversion tracking products like the rumored GBuy, offline media ads and other programs discussed in various releases and earnings calls.
Read David’s post here. …

Tomorrow, Ingenio’s intellectual capital monetization machine — or Ether as Ingenio named it — goes live. Ingenio was once Keen.com — an early entrant to the peer-to-peer connectivity space. Ether is designed to help individuals leverage their IP capacity by building a marketplace where they can sell their "brains" to the highest bidder.
Having …

Nielsen/NetRatings released May search numbers.

Right Media yesterday launched the Right Media Exchange. We were briefed a couple of weeks ago on the new service, which will be an open media exchange where advertisers and ad networks can bid on ad inventory. Publishers can likewise use it as a channel to push unused inventory. Think of it as …

A nice ad in today’s WSJ Marketing Section from Google suggests the global search engine company wants to ramp up its sales capacity to "blue chip" clients. The ad, leveraging the familiar primary colors and clean design of Google’s general Web search site, lets readers — job hunters — know the company has operations outside …

Canada’s Yellow Pages Group has launched a beta version of its YellowPages.ca online directory. The company is touting the new site as a combination of an IYP and a local search product by allowing users to "obtain structured results with unstructured queries." Here is a copy of the release.
We plan to …

The French directory publisher PagesJaunes is, to no one’s surprise, attracting considerable interest from private equities, which have led the pack of bidders for the 54 percent stake in PagesJaunes being sold off by France Telecom. Initial bids were reportedly due this week.
Among the bidders being revealed in the European financial press are a …

The Financial Times (FT.com) has published an in-depth interview with Meg Whitman that covers many topics from acquisitions to advertising models. It is worth reading in its entirety.
Interview transcript: Meg Whitman, eBay

Ben Kuo from SoCalTech.com recently interviewed Bid4Spots Founder and CEO Dave Newmark. Bid4Spots is a Los Angeles area company that auctions unsold radio inventory through a weekly reverse auction.
Interview
Bid4Spots Web site
During the auction process radio stations compete for the advertiser's budget and the lowest price (based on …

In addition to Matt’s post below, it is worth noting that a very high proportion — more than 75 percent — of radio advertising revenues are "local" in nature. This fact is sometimes underappreciated because the ad dollars flow from regional and national advertisers rather than small and medium-sized businesses. Nevertheless, "local" radio is a …

As posted elsewhere The N.Y. Times ran a lengthy story about the shareholder battle at the Tribune Co. Much was made at the time of the acquisition/merger of the Times Mirror and Tribune companies about the possible synergies the "deal" could deliver.
No doubt sales channel synergies were a key strategic opportunity post-merger managers were …

In an interview with Reuters yesterday, AT&T Yellow Pages CEO Dennis Payne predicted that revenues from its directory business will start to rise this year. He predicts that the growth will most likely come from delivering advertising on electronic platforms. Specifically, Payne anticipates that the largest increase in sales will come from its …

A recent Kelsey Group Web poll of certified marketing representatives, the sales professionals responsible for national Yellow Pages advertising in the United States, indicates greater support for syndicated usage research among those working for larger agencies.
Of the 24 CMRs representatives that responded (from 150 invited to participate), 12 said they currently subscribe to the Yellow …

Netscape has had quite a history in over the past 10+ years. After igniting the Silicon Valley mid-to-late ’90s tech boom by pioneering the browser, it has taken on many shapes and sizes. Now its owner, AOL, hopes to turn it into a social news site — led by prolific blogger Jason Calacanis — …

Back in April, hyper-local community and user-generated content site Backfence announced the acquisition of Bayosphere, Dan Gillmor’s San Francisco Bay Area-based user-generated content and blogging Web site.
CEO Susan DeFife just e-mailed me to let me know the site has officially gone live in Palo Alto, its first Bay Area community (previously …

Podbridge and Ingenio announced a partnership to include pay-per-call ads in podcasts. The Podbridge ad serving system is set up to bookend audio content with ads before and after content is played on the device. Historically, this advertising model has led to many successful and profitable ventures. One colorful example was an …

Yell Group has long been known in the U.K. for the quality of its advertising, standing out in a category that has generally produced some interesting and funny commercials over the years. Yell is now in the position of finding a new partner to help it keep its brand ubiquitous in the U.K.
Yell …

U.S. independent directory publisher Ambassador Yellow Pages announced that it has entered the Staten Island, New York, market. The publisher is currently in canvas with the book, which will publish in August, just ahead of rival Yellow Book. Details on distribution were not immediately available.
Ambassador's published rates are US$6,000 for a double …