There has been lots of talk about local merchant video ads this year, a trend pushed forward in the most meaningful way by Citysearch’s May integration of video ads. We’ve also seen every major U.S. IYP do the same this year, in various ways.
As we’ve mentioned many times, this brings video advertising within the grasp …

Posting (along with the activity level in the local search world) has been understandably light over the past few days. But a lot happened before that; here is a recap in case you missed anything. Click below to read each post in full.
A Holiday Wish
One of the many reasons the Internet has bloomed in …

One of the many reasons the Internet has bloomed in the U.S. is that the administration, under the leadership of Ira Magaziner, former head of U.S. Internet policy, allowed the World Wide Web to grow without putting unnecessary restrictions on it. At a Kelsey Group conference on Interactive Newspapers in 1996, Esther Dyson, then the …

As promised, today I had the chance to talk with Local.com’s VP of bus dev and sales, Peter Hutto, who took time away from his vacation to provide some more color on yesterday’s partnership with Citysearch.
Hutto confirmed that the deal will involve boosting the content and site experience of Local.com while also bringing in incremental …

From the Stupid Fun on a Pre-holiday Friday department, here is a year-end-recap spoof from the folks at online video production studio JibJab.
It takes some questionable jabs (SoCal fires), but also has lots of funny highlights from 2007 in politics, celebrity news, sports and tech (the iPhone and Facebook of course get shout-outs).
The animated video …

In news that was supposed to be announced today but broke late last night, discount travel site Kayak has raised $196 million and acquired competitor SideStep. Techcrunch reports that deal is worth $200 million.
The funding came from existing investors Sequoia Capital, General Catalyst Partners and Accel Partners, as well as new investors Oak Investment Partners …

Thanks for all the holiday cards, and good wishes. It is kind of inspiring that many companies are donating to some wonderful charities. It is great to work with such thoughtful people.
Here are some favorite e-cards. Zillow and AdMission probably win “best card.” You can play AdMission’s melting snowman game with the family …
But the artwork …

Local.com announced today that it will pull in and display content from Citysearch in its local listings. This will enhance Local.com’s own content and bring in more ad revenues from Citysearch advertisers.
Citysearch will meanwhile get more distribution for its content and advertisers, which, in the long run, could increase its own traffic as well …

European Directories has taken another step in expanding its directory publishing footprint on the continent.
Earlier this week, ED acquired the Polish directory publisher Ditel from Telekomunikacja Polska. The deal is worth 20 million euros, or about US$29 million.
ED is already present in the Polish directory market through its 50-50 joint venture with Interinfo Holdings to …

AnchorFree, an ad-supported Wi-Fi service, says it is seeking to add additional verticals to its hotel and coffee shop strongholds. The company, which has raised $6 million and already has 10,000 locations and 5.4 million user sessions a month, wants to serve locations “wherever people wait,” says Executive Vice President Mark Smith. “Auto dealerships, restaurants, doctors …

Last week the Swedish directory publisher Eniro announced that it has selected Stockholm-based Picsearch to power a video search feature on the eniro.se portal.
Picsearch has an existing relationship with Eniro via its provision of a video search feature on Kvasir.no, Eniro’s Norwegian Web search platform. Eniro has already launched video search on eniro.se (Sweden), eniro.dk …

WebVideoReport has started to put some numbers on the growing online video space. It joins GigaOm’s NewTeeVee in exclusively covering this space, and has put out some interesting articles in the past few weeks.
Choosing a Video Services Provider
Web Video Advertising: Who Gets Paid What?
Price Survey, What do Web-Video Ads Cost?
The latter is interesting because it …

 has bet heavily on building a voice search platform for telecom carriers, Yellow Pages publishers and other providers of ad-supported directory assistance. Now the 150-person company, partially owned by YPG and just listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, has enhanced its mission with a series of acquisitions. These include BTS Logic, an international directory assistance …

Yahoo! announced a series of features for Yahoo! Maps today, the most notable of which is “drag & drop” functionality for routes. The feature, which Google already launched in a similar form, lets users drag a route to any number of roads or freeways that exist between two points.
A user traveling from San Francisco to …

 The battle for IYP (and local search) supremacy hinges on a number of factors. One of which is likely to be the acquisitions of lateral properties (i.e., RHD and Business.com).
So, we note with interest that former AOL chief Jon Miller and former Primedia chief Tom Rogers are on Idearc’s board, presumably to help evaluate growth …

  BooRah, the Bay Area restaurant review site, has raised some seed funding from Storm Ventures and other investors (amount undisclosed) and plans to use the money to grow beyond its roots as a tech vendor for alternative newsweeklies. The “new” BooRah will continue to work with alternative newsweeklies, but it intends to create a …

AT&T and Call Genie have extended their relationship to provide 1-800-YellowPages free DA users business category search capabilities. According to the press release, “This feature will give users of AT&T directory assistance the opportunity to search by type of business in addition to searching by business name in the nine Southeastern (former Bellsouth territory) states.”   …

Radio has virtually been a non-starter for local online sales, but a new video initiative by Clear Channel Radio, the nation’s largest chain with stations in 80 U.S. markets, might ramp things up. The video initiative, using Denver Multimedia (DMM) as its video producer, provides radio advertisers with the option to produce 30- or 60-second videos.
Bob …

Auto dealers and real estate brokers (and agents) are increasingly contending with mission creep for their Web needs that require them to have two or more Web sites. Part of the problem is that they must conform to standardized requirements. For instance, Ford, Toyota and Nissan dealers have a number of mandated requirements.
At the same …

‘Tis the season for shopping and at times endless aggravation finding stores that actually have the items you want in stock. I’m all about anything that can help ease the stress of the shopping experience. And one thing I rediscovered as an essential shopping tool is the Yellow Pages (thanks to, of all things, a …