MyYahoo!, Yahoo!’s personal home page and news reader, was redesigned earlier this year and available as an opt-in upgrade in beta. Today I logged in to discover my page has been automatically upgraded, suggesting either a coming out of beta, or part of a slow roll out to all MyYahoo! users.
In any case this joins …

AT&T Advertising & Publishing’s effort to assuage environmental concerns in North Carolina by curtailing print residential White Pages distribution has fizzled out as utility commissioners in that state have balked at the plan.
The Raleigh News & Observer reported today that AT&T has withdrawn its proposal to eliminate residential White Pages delivery except to those that …

Auto sites look to mobile apps to generate leads, drive people to dealerships and provide info to auto shoppers when they are “on the go.” A panel during last week’s Automotive Internet Roundtable by J.D. Power in Las Vegas reasserted these mobile strengths.
Cars.com President Mitch Golub, for instance, noted that the company launched Cars.com Mobile …

On Friday, I had the opportunity to spend some valuable time with Richard Zurawski, president and GM of Telmetrics, a leader in the increasingly important call measurement business. As my colleague Charles Laughlin, program director of The Kelsey Report, said today, “In this highly competitive world, measured value is far more important than perceived value.”
Richard echoed …

In case you missed them, here are some sample posts from another action packed week in local search. Click below to read each post in full.
J.D. Power Roundtable: Auto Dealers Discuss Online
Several auto dealers at J.D. Power’s Automotive Internet Roundtable Oct. 17-19 in Las Vegas said they were bullish on using online and expect its …

AutoNation, the nation’s largest automotive retailer, is set to push hard on providing Internet-based services and other Internet offerings, according to Gary Marcotte, senior VP of e-commerce, who was addressing the J.D. Power Automotive Internet Roundtable Oct. 17-19 in Las Vegas.
“We’re nowhere with services online,” says Marcotte. But by adding electronic-based services for appointments, research, …

There has been lots of talk lately (more so than normal it seems) about evolving the Yellow Pages sales channel to a more consultative role for bringing in leads of all forms – to be “agnostic,” as is often said.
This has been a message we’ve heard for a while, but it seems the dial has been …

Several auto dealers at J.D. Power’s Automotive Internet Roundtable Oct. 17-19 in Las Vegas said they were bullish on using online and expect its share of their marketing budget to climb. They also expect online to lead them deeper into new growth areas, such as services and parts.
At the same time, they thought paid search …

FastCall411 streamlines the process of looking for a local service provider by letting you call a handful of them at once. The first one to pick up gets your business, which the company hopes will resonate as a good consumer experience that sidesteps issues of disconnected numbers or unanswered calls.
CEO Richard Rosen told me his …

The New York Times’ Brad Stone today takes a look at some of the overvaluation, flowing VC dollars and “irrational exuberance” that has reared its head once again in Silicon Valley.
This isn’t completely new, as a few signs of a possible bubble resurgence have come over the past year with the inflated acquisitions of Skype …

Lots of media coverage today on the Apple announcement that it will release a software development kit (SDK) for the iPhone in early ’08. What does this mean? Many of the speculations made in the past about interesting mobile search applications will be brought to market sooner and with less friction.
To date, many coders have …

 
I am not a New York City person anymore, in great measure because of the challenge of getting from one location to another. So when I do have to go to New York, I try to cover as much ground as I can. Recently I was able to arrange four meetings in the city on …

Splitting up a company’s assets is quite an exercise. You try to maximize synergies, position for the future, and get buy-in from Wall Street and the IRS.
At the beginning of October, that’s what Belo did. As I reported, Belo put its newspapers with its Internet properties. And its TV stations were put in a different …

Idearc’s Superpages.com is rolling out video around the U.S. after a limited test of sales channels and production in Seattle, San Francisco and L.A. The tests, which Kelsey’s Charles Laughlin reported on in July, involved fewer than 100 customers.
Unlike Citysearch, which offers “free” video production in exchange for long-term contracts, Superpages is going the a …

Microsoft of late has exercised a Google-esque frequency of announcements for online products. After upgrades to Live Search and MSN Video in and around the recent Searchification event, the company last night announced enhancements to Live Search for Mobile and Live Search Maps.
The Live Search Maps end of things mostly involves better mapping capabilities including …

Are newspapers a good candidate to drive the free directory assistance  market? Say Hello leader Jim Geddes hopes so.
His theory, which I have previously reported on, is that newspapers are ideally positioned to rule free DA. They have the promotional power that comes with daily circulation, and they are closely identified with content that can …

Marchex announced today that it has extended its relationship with AT&T’s Yellowpages.com to provide its private-label SEM placement services. These services are resold by AT&T directory sales reps as YPClicks Search Engine Solutions, and the new agreement extends the relationship for four years.
“For some time, we’ve been working closely with AT&T and Yellowpages.com to enable …

Bay Area hyper-local site Smalltown announced today that it has acquired online community site Local2me for an undisclosed amount. The deal is hoped to bring Smalltown a registered base of Local2me users as well as its seven-year base of user-generated content, including discussion boards and local merchant reviews.
This content and user base are also in …

Here is a sampling of posts from the past week. Click below to read each post in full, and expect more coverage of local search happenings this week, which has already gotten off to a quick start.
A Good Online Sales Rep Is Hard to Find
The sales rep recruiting game has just gotten a bit …

The sales rep recruiting game has just gotten a bit more crowded and a lot more competitive. As we have discussed at our conferences and in recent Kelsey Advisories, with the influx of new online directory players such as Citysearch, Yodel, LiveDeal and ReachLocal, and the added growth of YellowPages.com’s sales force, the recruiting space for …