Google announced it has integrated real-time traffic reports on Google Maps. Yahoo! has had traffic reports since late 2004, and Microsoft rolled out a traffic feature (care of Traffic.com) in the May 2006 relaunch of Windows Live Local.
Maps, like search, has been a highly competitive area for which capturing users with new features has been …

AT&T Advertising & Publishing, the new directory organization arising from the combination of AT&T and BellSouth, is beginning to establish a new identity.
The company announced this week that it would adopt “the AT&T Real Yellow Pages” as its new brand. All new AT&T books, whether in the old SBC or BellSouth regions, will carry this …

Bambi Francisco wrote a column today weighing in on the notion of online video ads for local merchants. She recalls the launch, seven years ago, of VYP.com, a site devoted to video ads for plumbers, carpet cleaners and the like. VYP.com, like so many Web start-ups, may have been ahead of its time.
Last week, our …

It’s really the year of video on the Net, and local video plays a big role in that (and we’re talking about more than the big rats that were filmed running amok at the TacoBell/KFC in Greenwich Village). At our Kelsey Group Local ‘07 conference, taking place in Santa Clara March 20-21, a high percentage …

vFlyer today announced a new line of “widgets” that companies and individuals can use to display products on their Web sites or blogs.
Previously, vFlyer’s main product was a multimedia-rich “virtual flier” that let anyone create a professional looking classified listing. Rather than being a classified destination, it distributed these fliers to existing classified marketplaces and …

Sebastien Provencher points out an interesting new development found on the Skype Blog. The newest version of Skype allows users to search for local businesses and call them at the click of a mouse.
This is a great add-on to Skype’s core product (see above link for screenshots) and should be another compelling reason to sign …

BT has just launched a free click-to call feature from eStara on its “Tradespace” local listing product. More details from the BT Blog.

Hearst Interactive Media has bought into local search in a big way by loaning $8 million in a debenture to Local.com. The amount would translate into roughly 20 percent of the publicly traded company if Hearst converts the debenture notes into an investment.
The relationship with Hearst puts Local.com in a good position to integrate its …

TechCrunch published a report today that Insider Pages, the review site that has been actively shopped for some time, may have found a buyer for more than the $8.5 million it raised last March from Sequoia and Softbank Capital.
I would speculate that possible purchasers are probably Citysearch, YellowPages.com or R.H. Donnelley. Theoretically, YellowPages.com and RHD …

MerchantCircle may be best known as the bad boy of telemarketing for a negative marketing scheme that went awry last fall. But the eight-person Rustic Canyon start-up promises it has mended its ways and points to a growing base of registered members (90,000) and a host of helpful member services. This week, it even got …

Fresh off its partnership with Nokia, which we wrote about here and in this week’s Local Media Journal, AdStar has partnered with classified aggregator Edgeio.
Edgeio will use AdStar’s software to offer print advertising upsells (on behalf of newspapers) to its new classified listing board marketplace, a free listing source. Basically, this becomes a channel for …

The Los Angeles Times, a great newspaper that has been widely derided for its ineffectual Web site, hopes to turn the site around by bringing in Meredith Artley as its executive editor. Artley previously served as the Web site director for the International Herald Tribune in Paris.
In a podcast by Sandeep Junnarkar at Annenberg’s Online …

Tellme Networks announced today that it will expand its mobile voice platform to allow mobile search application developers to build products that integrate voice and visual search.
In essence this brings together the ease of speaking and of seeing results on a screen. One of the detriments to mobile search is hardware restrictions (small keypad, etc.); …

Kate Kaye at ClickZ has an interesting story on newspaper publishers and local television stations that are sending their salespeople away to learn more about interactive advertising. As the media world in general moves toward many different advertising platforms (Web, print, mobile, video), it will become more and more important for sales forces to be …

The newest issue of Local Media Journal, which publishes tomorrow, includes a feature on the trend toward more ratings and reviews in online Yellow Pages.
The traditional concern with letting users write reviews is that negative reviews can be at odds with retaining paying advertisers  especially big accounts that have large ad spends elsewhere in …

The New York Times’ Bob Tedeschi wrote an article on Monday (which has been sitting on my desktop, among others, waiting to be read) about online coupons. It said much of what we already know about coupons but also provided some interesting numbers that lend perspective to the size of the online coupon market compared …

With growing interest in online video and the lack of available inventory, advertisers are scrambling to find new outlets for their online advertising dollars. According to a recent Advertising Age article: “It’s certainly not lack of interest from advertisers, who are clamoring to be around video content. Instead, several factors are holding back online video’s …

Greg Sterling points out an interesting company called SpotScout (having “spot” in a company name is becoming something of a trademark for companies with interesting models, i.e., Spot Runner ).
The start-up is taking local search to a brand-new area: parking search. It’s a nice idea that has some interesting possibilities for ad models but could …

Canada’s Yellow Pages Group announced today that it has acquired Aliant ActiMedia, a small directory publisher in the Maritime provinces. YPG held a minority position in the publisher, though the telecom Bell Aliant owned 87 percent of the publishing operation.
With this acquisition, YPG extends its dominance of Canada’s incumbent directory market. Only Direct West, a …

At the 3GSM Conference this week, Motorola and Nokia fired significant shots at wireless carriers by launching new hardware and navigation systems that they will sell directly to consumers.
They will offer GPS-based navigation systems with local search, mapping and directions, which will be free after the initial device purchase and allow for paid upgrades such …