PowerOne Media, once a major vendor for small and medium-sized newspapers, has sold off its recruitment site, CareerSite, to three of its newspaper owners: MediaNews Group, Hearst and Lee Enterprises. The companies are expected to shut down CareerSite after an 18-month transition period, per rumor, and try to convert its remaining affiliates to the new newspaper alliance with HotJobs. The news was first reported by PaidContent.

CareerSite's sale leaves CarCast as PowerOne Media's last major property. In February, the company sold its Zwire portal, national advertising, AdQuest and Yellow Pages units to TownNews, a vendor network largely controlled by Lee.

CareerSite hasn't kept pace with recruitment trends, and its sale doesn’t come as a surprise. Most of its affiliates will now likely switch up to HotJobs (or other vendors outside the consortium). By doing so, they’ll begin to finally focus less on job listings, which have been newspapers’ traditional bread and butter, and more on where the action is in recruitment: Indeed-style meta search, and direct recruitment solutions to employers.

Today I had the chance to chat with Dan Rubinstein, head of SME product initiatives at Google. Among many other things in the rapidly shifting online local marketplace, we spoke about Google’s integration of click-to-call links in all its local business listings in Google Maps. Though this was announced on the Google Blog late last week, I held off on blogging about it knowing that my scheduled call with Rubinstein would make for a more substantive post.

The background, in case you haven’t seen or read about it, is that the company will add small “call” icons to all its business listings in Google Maps. Like the click-to-call functionality integrated into Microsoft’s Windows Live Local, this opens a JavaScript window that allows users to type in a phone number. The system, powered by Google Talk and Skype, then initiates a call between the business and the entered number (both phones ring). Users can opt for Google to save their numbers to make subsequent calls easier, and they can save the business numbers in their phones if they have caller ID.

This was expected by many including us, given Google’s past experimentation with click-to-call and its partnership with Skype (eBay). We expect the next step to be an accompanying business model that will involve pay-per-call  likely an auction-based system integrated with AdWords that will have similar economics as pay-per-click. This will not only have utility for users in eliminating the step of picking up and dialing a phone, but more importantly it will help Google address a segment of the small-business marketplace that prefer calls to clicks (and those that wish to be charged based on calls rather than clicks). These include mostly service businesses that are better equipped to turn a call into a conversion than a click (as opposed to retail or any business with product information or e-commerce functionality).

“Certain businesses that aren't online would prefer a phone call versus a visit to their Web site or a purchase on their Web site if they don't have that,” said Rubinstein. “So there are certain models that make sense for pay-per-click advertising and certain businesses that prefer the phone as an interface. We're in early stages and just launched this recently and we're going to see what we learn from it.”

For now, Google has integrated click-to-call links into all business listings in order to test the system and gain traction for the product. We expect pay-per-call to follow closely behind, and to play a big role in Google’s small-business advertising growth.

For more on click-to-call and on Google’s future plans in local, we’ll post a podcast of my discussion with Dan Rubinstein on our home page. For even more from Rubinstein, he’ll give a keynote address on day 1 of The Kelsey Group’s ILM ‘06 conference next week in Philadelphia. We hope to see you there.

To all of our U.S. readers, Happy Thanksgiving.

Our offices will be open on Friday but blog posting will be light as we gear up for our ILM ‘06 conference next week. Hope to see you in Philadelphia.

Community networks, or “we networks,” are so poorly used that they tend to really be “me networks.” That's the gist of a new article in Annenberg's Online Journalism Review by Tom Grubisich, who revisits the subject a little more than a year after first looking into it.

The review of sites is a little scattershot. It doesn't mention some of the brighter projects (i.e., BuffaloRising). It doesn’t get into some of the new models for community nets, such as the place blog movement. (What is a community net, circa 4Q 2006 anyway?) But Grubisich still provides valuable usage and ad data on several sites, and he has some important critiques.

While the community nets aren't eclipsing incumbent media, they've proved to be invaluable laboratories. And in my view, “community”  in whatever form it ultimately takes  has got to be part of the equation.

Grubisich notes that “the best sites  WestportNow and iBrattleboro  have got better over the past year and are closing in on profitability, but only because the key players don’t take salaries. It’s not clear how scalable either operation is. Neither has the capital yet to expand or even hire advertising staff.”

He also notes that one of the more promising sites is The Muncie Free Press, which was started by K. Paul Mallasch, a former staffer at Gannett’s Muncie Star Press. The site has tripled its monthly visitors from 2,543 to 8,034 between January and September, and almost doubled its page views from 28,867 to 74,651. At this point, the site attracts just 1/8 of the traffic that The Star Press had when Mallasch left a year ago. “They're still stomping us in the search engines, too, because they've had their domain since '96 and Gannett heavily crosslinks their sites,” Mallasch wrote, in an e-mail to Grubisich.

Last week I had the opportunity to attend Yellow Pages Today!, hosted by Peter Buxton and Jesper Simonsen in Vienna. The event, titled “Staying Ahead in Search,” was well conceived and executed. The hosts often made the point that directories are the oldest and most successful commercial search engines in the world. To demonstrate the power of local focus, Peter Kusendahl, managing director of Eniro’s local Swedish directories called Din Del, told an interesting success story. Mr. Kusendahl is a Yellow Pages veteran who has worked in the industry for 25 years in the U.S., the Soviet Union and Sweden, among others.

Din Del publishes 183 directories and had suffered declining sales for several years when Mr. Kusendahl took over. A major challenge for an independent publisher in this market is that his parent company’s most significant product is the Swedish Yellow Pages (Gula Sidorna), which is used by 94 percent of all Swedes between 15 and 79. To get Din Del back on track, Mr. Kusendahl focused on local. He did that by selling only to SMEs and not to companies that were interested in multiple books. He introduced flexible pricing and cut the item mix from 20 to five products. In this time of increasingly sophisticated interactive electronic products, he took the Internet Yellow Pages product out of the salesman's bag. (The advantage here is that Internet-savvy Swedish small-business owners didn't engage the sales force in irrelevant discussions about the future of online that would have taken time away from their sales of print products.)

But that's not all. Mr. Kusendahl set up 15 local sales offices so they could listen to the needs of advertisers in each of their markets. He put in a new compensation structure, eliminated order entry by the sales reps, and had sales managers spend three days each week on joint calls and one day covering their own territories.

It worked. Din Del reversed its double-digit declines and has instead been enjoying double-digit increases. Most of the attendees at Yellow Pages Today! came to hear about successful electronic products, particularly search. Eniro bills itself as “the leading search company in the Nordic media market.” But Peter Kusendahl demonstrated the value of focusing on a few print products in local markets.

Several stories today highlighted the decision by Canada’s Yellow Pages Group to increase its cash payout to unit holders in the Yellow Pages Income Trust.

This is widely read as a signal the company is moving full speed ahead as a trust, despite the recent proposal by the Canadian government to begin taxing trust distributions. The attractiveness of the trust’s tax-advantaged status led to a stampede of new trust issues, which threatened to undermine the government’s tax base.

Here is an article on the topic from today’s Globe and Mail. And another from CNEWS.

A favorite hobby of mine is reading the industry's tea leaves via the comings and goings of execs at different local companies. Today I am mulling over the departure of Insider Pages VP of Business Development Andrew Shotland and Merchant Circle Chairman and CEO Ben Smith's assumption of the top job at Borland's CodeGear  although Smith is keeping his title at Merchant Circle. Last week, I noted the departure of VP Richard Rosen from Jambo and VP Mark Potts from Backfence.

First, let's talk about Insider Pages, whose ranks have fallen from roughly 30 employees to 10 since the departure of founder and CEO Stu McFarlane. Shotland's departure, and others down the line, suggests a dramatic overhaul/downsizing is in the works under new CEO Mitch Galbraith.

With more than 600,000 reviews in its database, Insider Pages has been a real contender among the new breed of hybrid Yellow Pages/review sites, which also includes Judy's Book, Yelp and maybe Citysearch and Backfence too. Based on usage and ads, Yelp appears to be doing the best, perhaps due to its narrow focus on restaurants and entertainment, and its initial emphasis on hometown San Francisco. In fact, it appears to have some momentum.

The rest of the category, however, has been challenged by a paucity of local and national advertising. Last month, Judy's Book refocused on shopper deals, perhaps the first step in throwing in the towel.

And yet … in my view, the need to have a branded third party to gather reviews remains as strong as ever. The sites would also integrate well with existing players. Maybe it is time for a Yellow Pages company or a newspaper to look into buying one.

As for Merchant Circle, in the two years since it was first incubated at Rustic Canyon Ventures, the company has identified a real need to help small businesses reach out beyond the Yellow Pages for marketing. And it has been very innovative.

It has pushed the envelope of Web 2.0 and small businesses with the use of Wiki-like editing of profiles, SEO/SEM, the use of Blog Places, the use of RSS, and free DA ads. It is currently experimenting with video and reputation management tools.

Merchant Circle has, also, however, pushed the envelope on acceptable marketing practices  something that has been (overly) well documented here. While asserting that it was a “friend” of small businesses that might be distressed by the “mafia-like” tactics of the Yellow Pages, it used scare tactics that political strategists like Karl Rove (R) or Tony Schwartz (D) would consider overkill.

To date, 60,000 merchants have apparently signed up for Merchant Circle’s free tier. The jury is still out, however, on whether Merchant Circle will be able to convert enough of them to its various paid tiers to make it worthwhile.

Smith says, via e-mail, that he is staying put as CEO and chair of the nine-person company, perhaps in the style of Steve Jobs, who has simultaneously run Apple and Pixar Animation Studios. He also expressed enthusiasm over several new initiatives. But his major job will be as head of CodeGear, a tech-head Borland company located near his house.

“With two children at home if you don't take a job running a 75MM business > of a mile from you front door when the other deal is running itself because of a really great team.well I think you get struck down by bad parenting lightning or something,” says Smith.

Reader tip: You can keep up with job changes in your network  before the official announcements  via LinkedIn, which keeps track of changes in profile info.

The newspaper recruitment deal with Yahoo! first disclosed here in an Oct. 24 post has finally been confirmed, with some interesting twists. The deal puts in place a recruitment network of seven companies with 176 newspapers in 13 of the top 15 markets. Additional activities that go beyond the scope of recruitment are to be “filled in later.”

As many as 12 newspaper companies had participated in the talks, but some held off joining, apparently tied in to existing vendors, or taking a wait-and-see approach. The participating companies include MediaNews Group, which is the ringleader; Cox Enterprises, Hearst, Belo, Lee Enterprises, E.W. Scripps and The Journal Register Co. The deal expands upon the affiliation agreements that MediaNews Group and Belo already have in place with HotJobs.

Designed to rival CareerBuilder and Monster.com, the network was put in place after CareerBuilder's owners  Gannett, Tribune and McClatchy  refused to consider expanding the ownership roles to others. None of the companies had wanted to be left out in the cold vis-`-vis recruitment and its profit potential.

This was reinforced this summer by an influential Deutsche Bank report by Paul Ginnochio. The DB report argued that newspapers affiliated with national sites are significantly more profitable than those that tackle the recruitment market on their own. Ginnochio cited the national sites' better technology, enhanced marketing/branding and more effective reach as contributing factors.

One way to look at the deal is that it signals a stronger commitment to recruitment on both sides. Many of the newspaper companies had been previously partnered with PowerOne Media's CareerSite (now nowhired.com), an under-funded and technically under-achieving effort.

And then again, the level of commitment might be questioned. No ownership interest in HotJobs or Yahoo! has been provided to the newspapers; it is purely a rev share. Moreover, unlike the CareerBuilder newspapers, there are no plans to re-brand the recruitment sections of the print papers as “HotJobs” (one area where my Oct. 24 “playbook” for the deal didn't pan out).

For its part, Yahoo!'s commitment to recruitment has also been mixed. It bought HotJobs several years ago and put a former newspaper executive in charge of it  Knight Ridder Digital's Dan Finnigan. But given all its conflicting priorities, Yahoo! was apparently never willing to put the marketing and tech resources behind HotJobs to rival Monster and especially up-and-comer CareerBuilder.

Now, with this deal completed, Yahoo! can rely on the newspapers' listings, financial wherewithal and content, while bringing in its search technologies, reach and Web 2.0 capabilities (Video, photo, calendars, etc.)

Yahoo's deal, however, is not exclusive to the newspaper consortium. Similar terms have been peddled to other recruitment sites  including those serving other newspapers. Moreover, Yahoo has made at least one independent deal with a newspaper (The San Diego Union Tribune) to extend its listings to the HotJobs site, while maintaining its own, Adicio-powered site. That deal was announced in late October. If other deals are made, the end effect may be a Google Base or Oodle-like structure, where newspapers are glad to participate, but are just one part of the equation.

Even with all these issues, however, it is still a very big deal. It tacitly acknowledges that search is increasingly a three-horse race with Google, Yahoo! and MSN, and that recruitment relies heavily on search and other technology (and I would argue, “community.”)

It also acknowledges that newspapers maintain the local clout to deliver and sell recruitment listings  and that they need to start sorting out how they can best protect their strategic interests with Google looming over them at all times  even as they keep good relations with Google on other fronts.

Some newspaper execs have been openly musing how they can work with Yahoo! to start “monetizing” their content, getting it read across the country with better SEO, and perhaps putting together premium content packages. Newspapers are still mostly focused on their content, even with all the other value areas they participate in. Some of the attachment is undoubtedly sentimental, while some of it is based on the idea that content is what is still unique about newspapers.

All this can happen. The deal can become much, much bigger. But first, Yahoo! will want to see how the newspaper industry  widely perceived as under-performing partners in other deals  can deliver in recruitment. And vice versa.

InfoSpace-owned Dogpile announced today that it will partner with video search site Blinkx. Blinkx will bring enhanced video search capabilities to Dogpile and other InfoSpace metasearch properties, including WebCrawler and Webfetch.

Blinkx has indexed more than 6 million hours of video and audio content, as CEO Suranga Chandratillake explained when we spoke to him last year (see TKG White Paper “From Reach to Targeting: The Transformation of TV in the Internet Age”) the company employs speech recognition technology to more accurately glean the subject matter of video content and index it accordingly.

This addresses a core problem of video search in that it isn’t inherently searchable (in the way text is). Other less effective ways of indexing video content used by some video search engines is to search the meta tags created with the content, or in some cases the closed captioning data that accompanies some video. Other innovative video search technologies have been formed by AOL-owned Truveo. You can read our past postings on Blinkx and Truveo (both companies sat on an online video panel at Drilling Down on Local ‘06); and Search Engine Watch did a roundup of video search sites earlier in the week.

Elsewhere in the online video world, YouTube made its first major content acquisition deal with the NHL to create a hockey channel on the video sharing site. And TiVo opened up online video possibilities this week by announcing that it will bundle software in its set-top boxes that pulls video content from the Web to be viewed on the television. This, like Apple’s iTV, will accelerate the adoption of online video as it is able to be viewed in “lean back” mode and on larger screens. This adoption will, in turn, spur more quality and longer form content for online video (also helped by higher broadband rollouts and legal and content arrangements moving forward), and around and around we go.

The move by TiVo is especially smart because it leverages an existing installed base and connectedness to television sets, to drive a value-added feature for marketing and customer retention.

Lastly, Search Engine Journal reports on Google’s apparent efforts to monetize online video  a perennial challenge. As we’ve stated many times (including Monday), we are in a wild west phase of experimentation with online video and its monetization. There are lots of advertising possibilities, and users’ preferences are being tested throughout the marketplace. Google now is experimenting with pre-roll ads in video clips including the popular Coke and Mentos viral video.

This will be an interesting area to watch unfold and there is still a great deal of experimentation to be done. There is evidence, for example, that users largely don’t like pre-roll ads, and that accompanying text ads have more appeal. Other options will include product placement. Time, and technology development, will tell what advertising method wins out. We’ll likely end up with a combination of all these and more that are developed. As Google has done with text ads, this will also eventually proliferate a volume of ad inventory that creates a ‘long tail” effect, which will allow local ads to play a key role in online video. More on that concept here. Keep watching.

Yahoo! Maps unveiled a host of new features today. Unlike the novel and graphically rich Microsoft Visual Earth 3-D announced last week, Yahoo!’s improvements are solely functional (although Visual Earth 3-D has a hefty balance of form and function, the latter of which will grow significantly over time as we pointed out in the recent Advisory “Microsoft’s Virtual Earth 3-D: A New Dimension for Local).”

Most of Yahoo!’s new features are Ajax-based functions such as dragging and dropping points on a map, and right clicking on any points to display driving directions between them. Users for the first time on Yahoo! Maps can also plot multiple points and get driving directions for a multi-legged trip. These are all useful tools, but it should be noted that many of them have already been introduced by Ask.com in the site’s relaunch back in February. There is also an intuitive integration of local search, and you can check out a flash based demonstration of all these new features here.