Yesterday I had the opportunity to catch up with Elaine Kunda, CEO of newly launched (beta) Canadian local search site ZipLocal. The site currently covers Toronto and Montreal, but has 1.3 million Canadian business listings in 45 cities, which it will structure and roll out over the next year.
The site has grown out of a …

Google is pushing hard to jumpstart its radio ad business, leveraging its $1.245 billion acquisition of the DMarc rep business in 2005. The search leader says it is working with 900 stations in 200 markets.
But so far, according to an article by Miguel Helft in The New York Times, its list of participating stations in …

Yellowpages.com today joined the ranks of local search providers that have an SMS-based mobile local search application. Similar to Google SMS and Yahoo! Mobile (and one from Starbucks), any cellphone user can send a business name or category in a text message to YP411 (97411) to receive the three top listings for that term.
Users with …

Map-centric directories from the likes of Google and Microsoft, enhanced with satellite and 3D imagery, are absolutely fascinating. They're also increasingly functional, with all kinds of searchable links.
But is it really clear that they are the future of directories? As things stand, I could see an equation where maybe 15 percent of usage is map-driven, …

Classified aggregator Oodle has offered to integrate its listings into community site iPoste. The press release doesn’t mention if listings will flow in the other direction, but they should based on Oodle’s aggregation model.
Classified aggregation is all about in/out  increasing the content aggregated and the outgoing points of distribution. Of course it’s a lot …

EStara announced this week that it will power the new click-to-call functionality of Yellow Pages Singapore's online directory, Yellowpages.com.sg.
YPS is the largest directory publisher in Singapore and its online directory is the most trafficked online business directory there, according to Hitwise. EStara's platform will allow YPS' online advertisers to receive phone leads from their listings …

EPrize, a Michigan-based promotions fulfillment company that typically works with the likes of Proctor & Gamble and others, is pushing hard to add its games and sweepstakes promotions to small-business Web sites. The “Caffeine” product can get users to register and win repeat traffic from the promotions. They also benefit from the national scale of …

The path to self-sustaining revenues for free directory assistance isn't clear yet. But if there is any real money to be made, it is going to come from category search. Unlike name search, users don't have a clear idea who they want to use, so there is a super-premium attached to the lead.
1-800-SAN-DIEGO has had …

One of the foreseen deficiencies that could hold cable companies back in the battle for bundled services is the lack of wireless service assets. Though they possess short-run advantages in the relative ease in building a voice business (compared with telcos’ comparative moves into video and IPTV service), this lack of wireless service  the …

Yahoo! this week launched a new version of its free Web site development and hosting product, through Yahoo! Small Business. Although it previously had a free tool for small businesses to establish a Web presence, this is an improvement because of its simplicity and better site design tools.
This comes weeks after Google made enhancements to …

The CTIA Wireless confab is under way, and we’re expecting a host of product launches and announcements that have implications for mobile local search. A prelude to some of these were given last week at TKG’s Drilling Down On Local ‘07, in Ralph Kunz’s keynote (see previous post), as well as a mobile panel and …

The big picture guys know the battle of the future isn't just between newspapers or Yellow Pages and Google/Yahoo!. Indeed, as society goes mobile, it is also between the content owners and handset manufacturers.
During his Day 2 opening keynote at Local ‘07, Ralph Kunz, Nokia's head of Multimedia, made it clear there is no escaping …

Peter Horan, IAC Media and Entertainment's new head from About.com and other companies, says he's a “guy who has to run Web sites for a living and sell stuff,” so he takes “a very pragmatic view. Visionaries and consultants aren't accountable for anything,” he says. “The litmus test for local is about being useful.”
For consumers, …

Spot Runner, the high-profile video production house and media buyer for small businesses, is winning some big deals with national players that want to provide solutions for partners and affiliates and also target locally.
During his Day 1 keynote at Local '07, Founder Nick Grouf says that “by solving problems for small business, we're seeing substantial …

It appears Yell Group may be the target of an unnamed private equity group hoping to pursue an LBO of Yell, which is the leading YP publisher in the U.K. and Spain and the largest U.S. independent publisher through its Yellow Book subsidiary.
Here is what we found on ShareCast today, citing the Financial Times:
Yell Group …

The latest news on the sale of Yellow Pages Group (New Zealand) is that a partnership of the private equity KKR and Australia’s Seven Network has made a final offer of about NZ$2.2 billion, which is about 9 times the company’s 2006 revenues. Here is an article dated March 23 from Bloomberg. Here is something …

A close second to video in terms of getting “airtime” here at the Drilling Down on Local show, has been (a two-way tie between) social media and mobile.
Leading up to the conference, there has been a lot of conversation about, and recent business activity around, social media. One way this has taken form is through …

Video has taken center stage at Drilling Down on Local ‘07. Actual local video ads are getting a lot of play on the jumbo-tron screens that flank the stage  both between sessions and during some presentations. This has been valuable to put a “face” on the discussion of local video that always seems to …

Earlier this week I was rereading the transcript of the Nordic directory publisher Eniro’s Q4 2006 earnings call, and I paid a bit more attention to an item I had glossed over the first time through, when I was more concerned with growth rates, EBITDA and so on.
During the Q&A session, there was a fairly …

Nick Veronis, managing director of Veronis Suhler Stevenson, says he doesn't see a “dollar for dollar” transfer between incumbent media in the local arena and their Internet offspring, but publishers are in a position to make money online. “The big beneficiary of the 'obstruction' is the advertiser,” he says.
Veronis adds that it is a very …