1. Maps are the height of the data pyramid. Once they’re populated, everything else (i.e. local search) gets easier.
2. 3D CityScapes are a big part of the future, and will drive new types of ecommerce. This is the expensive battlefield that Microsoft and Google are playing on. The …

The success of American Idol’s TXT messaging voting has gotten women shoppers thinking of it as a major media guide, or so claims NearByNow Founder Scott Dunlap, who is pushing hard to provide TXT promotions to malls around the U.S. NearbyNow is currently in 50 malls in 45 cities, and expects to be in …

Summary
After completing a free DA call this week using Google’s newly launched 800-GOOG411, we were asked if a text message was desired in addition to the free voice and “connect me” features (the multimodal functionality that is standard in a growing number of free DA offerings). But what we also received, interestingly, was a link …

Summary
CBS announced today that it has acquired London-based social networking site Last.fm for $280 million. The site claims about 15 million monthly users (4 million in the U.S.) and hangs its hat on music video distribution – thought to be a good fit with the traditional broadcast giant. The site also has video distribution in …

Spot Runner announced a deal today with LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell to distribute spot cable ad creation and buying capability to affiliated law firms. This can be compared to Spot Runner’s deal with Coldwell Banker in the real estate vertical that gives the firm’s far flung agents immediate …

Here at O’Reilly’s Where 2.0 conference in San Jose, an annual event for 800+ mashup developers, there’s no perspective yet on the importance of maps to the local ecosphere. But a picture is developing of a “3D Data arms race,” in which Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and others are spending fortunes vying to have developers use …

Amidst all the whiz bang mapping apps showed off at Where 2.0, MapQuest Gm James Greiner brought everything back to Earth with a survey showing that just 42 percent of Internet users use mapping sites, and relatively light penetration of advanced mapping services. That’s good (if self-serving) news for MapQuest, which has been adding new …

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BizReport.com reports that Google will begin to axe websites from its AdSense publisher network that have …

Microsoft announced this morning from the Where 2.0 conference that it will add New York City to the list of cities available in 3-D in Live Local Maps. We wrote about 3-D mapping and its possibilities for Local in a previous post. This also follows closely behind other enhancements to Microsoft’s mapping products including 14 …

The Vecosys blog is reporting the rumor (take it only as that) that Google has its crosshairs set on Feedburner for its next acquisition. This would make sense for Google, given its ongoing expansion of venues in which to broker ads. Paid search growth is slowing, which partly explains its aggressive march towards other mediums …

Summary
Examining patent filings has become something of a beat, in the blogospheric reporting of online media. ZDNet’s Russel Shaw takes a look at a fresh Google patent application for a new mobile local search app. The long term potential of mobile advertising could be huge given the size of the mobile user population. However, …

We’re all guilty of feature creep. A lot of the stuff isn’t especially useful. Now comes Palore. When it comes to directory listings, Palore believes hardly any of the info is useful. In fact, consumers want to know just one thing
It isn’t much different than what LongTail author Chris Anderson said at the YPA show …

Summary

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) released their annual Ad Revenue Report yesterday. Though there were increases in many online ad categories compared with 2005, it’s interesting to note that nearly every one declined in percentage of overall online ad revenues. In fact, the only segments that increased as a percentage from 2005 …

Spotzer CEO founder Andrew Klein makes no bones about being inspired by SpotRunner, the break-through company that broke out last year by making it easy for small businesses to produce video and place it on local media. Spotzer is pretty much doing the same thing.
But Klein’s 35-person outfit, which launched six weeks ago in its …

Local.com has announced a new mobile search product. Though it has been in testing for a while (I received a quick preview at SES in April), it officially launched today.
Known as Local Mobile, the ad supported mobile site lets users search by entering keywords and locations using mobile device keypads. This includes access to Local.com’s …

It’s nice when a foundation puts itself in the middle of what’s happening, and uses its money to inject a little bit of the consumer’s interest in a commercial world. It’s a win-win.
Most foundations, of course, don’t actually do that. Most of them are a mutual back-scratching society. Trust me, there’s a lot of shrimp …

Summary
An article yesterday on the SeekingAlpha blog examines a recent wave of investment consolidation in the online media space. This signals, among other things, an impending acceleration of advertising shifts from offline to off, and a revenue diversification play on the part of search giants. As this happens, TKG data suggests vertical search sites will …

A new white paper was released today by The Kelsey Group that looks at recent trends in online video use and advertising. This is a trend we’ve also covered in previous posts, and it was a big theme at the recent Drilling Down on Local ‘07 Conference in March.
The point is that a video …

You may have noticed we made some enhancements to the blog. These are part of an ongoing process to evolve the blog in various ways. You’ll continue to see changes in both form and function over the coming weeks, as well as new ongoing features and columns meant to attack the many facets of the …

ShopLocal, the shopping service owned by Tribune, Gannett and McClatchy, often gets overlooked in the glare of Amazon, eBay and the pricing comparison engines. But the service’s three networks are now getting over 200 million page views a month, which bests Yahoo! Shopping. It also has contracts with the vast majority of Big Box retailers.
For …