By some accounts, more than 50 percent of local businesses that advertise have Web sites. But they still need to be found by the search engines. That's the role that PremierGuide, a local search vendor that works with 250 newspapers, TV stations and geodomain sites, hopes to play with its new "Microsites."
The PremierGuide microsites, like …

Telecom New Zealand has confirmed reports that it is considering selling its directory business, Telecom Directories Ltd. According to The Dominion Post, Telecom New Zealand's CFO has acknowledged the possibility of a directories sale and that the telecom would use the proceeds for a share buy-back. The sale has the potential to yield over 10 …

Newspapers need to prepare for the next generation by right-sizing their operations, diversifying their holdings, and finally grasping, from top to bottom, that there has been an online, pay-for-performance advertising revolution that is at least as significant as the online reading revolution, says Ken Doctor, an analyst with Outsell, an information industry consulting firm.
Doctor, previously …

EBay Motors, which has more traffic than any other auto site, has just sold its two- millionth car. Of course, the status as traffic leader should be asterisked, as execs from Autotrader, Autobytel and Cars.com are quick to point out. Most people come to eBay Motors to look for used auto parts, or maybe to …

Like most of us in the Yellow Pages industry, we have taken the 30 seconds or so required to set up both a Yahoo! Alert and a Google Alert for terms such as Yellow Pages, directory publishing or IYP. Today's Google Alert on Yellow Pages certainly does cover the waterfront. Unfortunately, Singapore Yellow Pages, citing …

Today I had the chance to speak with Scott Dunlap, CEO of NearbyNow, which has an interesting model for bringing inventory data online to drive offline conversions. There is very little I can say at this point because of embargoed information, but the company is worth checking out.
There are other companies that play in …

Here is a roundup of news from around the social networking world this week:
— The San Jose Mercury News reports on the various services that surround MySpace and have ridden its coattails to success. As we recently analyzed in this report, there are many directions in which MySpace could go to monetize its …

New features can be found on Google Talk today, including unlimited file transfer between users and voicemail capability.
If someone isn’t "available" in Google Talk, you can record a message that is then sent to that person’s e-mail address as an audio file attachment. There is also a feature that lets you display the music …

Sometimes, you can tell a lot about where a company is going by who stays and who leaves — especially if you think you have an inkling why.
I don't want to turn this into an Executive Turntable page or anything. But this summer, a review of my LinkedIn contacts and my rolodex shows me that …

A number of people wrote in to tell us that Google's entry in the local coupon space is validation of the segment and will help drive coupon traffic. But it doesn't mean that Google unilaterally wins the game.
Premier Guide CEO Malcolm Lewis, for instance, says that "just because someone starts their search on Google …

Google announced today that it has partnered with coupon distributor Valpak to provide electronic coupons that are served with business listings in Google Local. At launch today, this will include 20,000 coupons from Valpak’s existing advertisers.
We’ve long advocated the value of online coupons in both driving conversions and tracking offline …

Yellow Pages Group announced today it is buying MTS Media, the directory unit of MTS Allstream, for C$281 million.
This is a healthy price for a business that generated C$42 million in revenues, but YPG is a motivated buyer, given its desire to be a truly national Yellow Pages player in Canada. MTS, …

Earlier this week my colleague Charles Laughlin wrote about "The Yellow Pages Brand Fight Developing in Germany." In short Deutsche Telekom, the largest communications company in Europe, lost its trademark for the name "Gelbe Seiten" (Yellow Pages), which it registered in 1982. The decision by the German patents and brands office (DPMA) does not …

We are all watching YouTube. Long term, we know it isn’t a business because of the copyright issue. But the site’s success demonstrates real demand for aggregated on-demand video — including local video. I like what columnist Terry Heaton says this month in The Digital Journalist about its possible impact on local TV stations:
" …

From the Friday Brain Candy Department, here are two entertaining videos on the long tail.
This one from Chris Anderson’s Long Tail Blog: an aesthetically pleasing (though admittedly promotional) video on the long tail and Anderson’s book (which I plan to start reading any day now).
And this one from the Lost Remote Blog: a humorously ominous …

The always insightful Mark Glaser has an interesting column on "old think" vs. "new think" in the media.
for example:
Oldthink: Thinking professional editors are the only ones who can decide what the important stories are each day.Newthink: Realizing we have the power to choose what's important, whether through aggregation services such as Google News or people-powered …

Yelp, a social network/Yellow Pages hybrid, has launched a mobile version for the Palm Treo as part of a broader marketing relationship between the two companies. Terms are not being disclosed, but cash and tech support have likely been provided in exchange for Yelp’s "optimizing" for the Treo, and for advertising the Treo relationship …

In our recently released special report on the newspaper industry, we profiled a few partnerships between traditional publishers and online players and speculated about future arrangements. One potential deal that clearly made sense involved WebVisible, a provider of interactive online advertising and simplified search products, and MediaNews Group, the growing Denver publisher …

Canada’s Yellow Pages Group just released its 2Q and first-half numbers. On a comparable basis, its 2Q directory revenue growth rate was 4.7 percent and EBITDA was up 8 percent.
The company’s guidance for the full year is top-line growth of 4 percent to 5 percent in the directory business and 6 percent to 7 …

Google and Fox Interactive signed a three-year and nine-month agreement worth $900 million, assuming certain traffic levels are achieved. As part of the deal, Google will become the exclusive search and text-based ad partner for Fox Interactive properties including MySpace. Google will power search across the properties. A search tool bar, currently …