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 …

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 …

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 …

The “little guys” at the local level are generally obscured in both the “organic search” and “paid” rankings of the search engines. A search for “home improvement” in “San Diego,” for instance, yields just two local contractors in 10 slots. The rest are “aggregators,” like ServiceMagic, that grab the top slots and essentially resell them, …

We noted with interest the recent move by Canada’s Yellow Pages Group to introduce a companion directory in the Calgary, Alberta, market along with this year’s core directory.
YPG’s decision to introduce a companion book may be related to a resurgent competitor in the Calgary market. Canpages, owned by the private equity HM Capital Partners, has …

Skype officially launched version 3.1 earlier this week. As we wrote about a few weeks ago, this includes a new feature that lets users find local businesses. This has clear synergies with its core product and represents an opportunity to build a pay-per-call model. There are also interesting social media components (rate, review and share …

The America East show  the largest regional event in the U.S. newspaper industry  took place last week in Hershey, Pennsylvania, with 1,200-plus attendees. I'd sum it up by saying that the attendees’ mostly small and medium-sized markets remain relatively insulated from Internet competition, especially compared with larger markets. But Craigslist is already hitting …

Getting down to the final wire…. we think the Local ‘07 program in Santa Clara next Tuesday and Wednesday is looking really good.
Piper Jaffray's Safa Rashtchy is the latest big add. Safa will be talking about PJ's new report, The User Revolution, and we think he complements VSS' Nick Veronis, who is talking about local …

Microsoft announced today that it has agreed to acquire Tellme, a Mountain View, California-based voice search provider. Yesterday, Microsoft and Tellme briefed The Kelsey Group about the pending acquisition. Neither side would disclose the size of the deal, but we have learned from credible sources that it is worth at least US$800 million. This figure …

AOL launched a beta version of its new local search product today. Though MapQuest has served as the de facto centerpiece of its local search functionality, AOL has trailed behind its search and portal competitors in having a dedicated local search product that is packaged as such.
Part MapQuest, part AOL City Guide, the product will …

Pegasus News, the social network site based in Dallas, made a deal with Fox4 TV for a mutual content swap that would fill Pegasus' news hole, leverage its features (weather, etc.) and increase awareness about it in the community. At the same time, the deal called for the Fox affil to tap into Pegasus' trove …

A new compact between Monster and Adicio, a classified vendor that previously insisted on newspapers’ “independence” from Internet verticals, seems likely to evolve the world of classifieds even faster.
The deal was unexpected  Monster has recently grabbed the key accounts for Freedom Interactive (The Orange County Register) and The New York Times Co. (The NY …

Rumors are swirling about a potential Microsoft acquisition of Tellme Networks. The latest is a Wall Street Journal article (sub. req’d) that reports a possible sale price of US$800 million (here is coverage from TechCrunch if you don’t have a WSJ sub).
Whether or not this is true, it’s clear that Tellme is a strong (and …

While I’m spreading rumors about online giants today, I might as well be fair and include others in the fun. The San Jose Mercury News has more on the rumored Google phone.
Just as Microsoft would gain ground in mobile local search with a rumored acquisition of Tellme Networks (voice search capability could be integrated directly …

Greg Sterling wrote an interesting column in the YPA’s Local Search Guide, and on his own blog, about the growing importance of video in local search.
He gives lots of good examples of local video ad programs either launched or in development at DexOnline, Yellowpages.com, MojoPages and most notably Spot Runner and TurnHere. I would add …

Eric Grilly, president of MediaNews Group Interactive and a major driver of the Yahoo! consortium for HotJobs, has left his position to take a new job as head of Philly.com, the Web site for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News  and incidentally a Monster affiliate.
As a leader of the newspaper consortium, Grilly …

Google has added a new set of features to its Local Business Center. This is the place you can go to enter information about your business that is then indexed in Google Local. Any business with a physical address, in other words, can plant itself on Google Maps.
New features include:
 Ability to upload photos that …

Earlier in the week, I had the chance to catch up with Vehix.com CEO Derek Mattsson, who had some interesting things to say related to Monday’s post about Starbucks taking mobile local search into its own hands. Vehix is interested in going down a mobile search path that, like Starbucks’, will utilize an SMS-based search …

Most newspaper Web sites have been focused on driving new audiences, but McClatchy sees a gold mine in its existing print circulation. How many local media outlets have 40 percent penetration in this age of fragmentation?
Speaking at the Inland Press Association meeting this week, McClatchy Digital President Chris Hendricks' comments were fully blogged by Howard …

With the onslaught of online, fragmentation and new advertiser models, newspapers and other local media could have it tough. But perhaps no one has it tougher than the free shopper publications that are distributed at grocery stores, vending boxes, libraries and coffeehouses.
One of the oldest and largest shopper companies, Network Communications Inc., aims to turn …