Today we debuted a new polling feature on our Local Media Blog in an effort to provide another interactive way for our blog readers to comment on issues in the local media space. Our first poll asks about your take on SMB videos in 2008.  
The new poll feature ties with the launch of our Chief Executive …

I read with interest a recent post by Jennifer Osborne on Search Engine People regarding how Millennials fundamentally search for products and services differently as compared with those 30 years old and older. One of the fundamental differences Osborne points out:
Millennial Brains do not have the same neural networks that ours do.
That’s a fancy way of saying that …

GetVendors.com, a California-oriented start-up profiled here last August, has been acquired by Matchpoint, a 30-person service, backed by Oak Investments and IdeaLab and incubated by a team of largely LookSmart veterans. Matchpoint got started a year ago and launched in late summer 2007.
President Peter Adams says too many companies have focused on the search …

Quick, what industry gets the highest customer service quality ratings from U.S. adult consumers, according to an August 2007 Harris Interactive poll? No. 1 is supermarkets with 92 percent giving them a good rating, No. 2 is online search engines (84 percent), and tied for No. 3 (78 percent) are computer hardware companies, hospitals and banks. My …

According to a recent Direct Marketing Association survey, “The absence of a brick-and-mortar store is becoming prevalent among retailers, since 41 percent of survey respondents don’t have a physical store.” This is quite a surprising finding and certainly has significant ramifications for local media sales representatives who continue to identify and pursue new business opportunities.  
In the past, …

In a significant development, AT&T’s Yellowpages.com is replacing Yahoo! Local Search for AT&T’s broadband and Internet customers. It is a move that will greatly enhance Yellowpages.com’s position in the space. The company recently told analysts it expects to attract 2 billion searches in 2008 and 3 billion by 2010.
The move is part of a broad …

Classifieds can now be sent in via text messaging thanks to SMS Pal, a text message classified ad company. The service costs 99 cents for every listing and is charged back as a premium SMS message to the user’s carrier. The classified ads run on line at smspal.com and in local participating newspapers.
Based in …

When it comes to small businesses on the Web, is it really only about video? AdReady, a new Seattle-based company started by Classmates.com alum and backed by Madrona and Bain Capital, thinks banners are really where the impact is.
Local marketers who test online video ads have seen “they can’t hold a candle to a …

Local search based marketing specialist eLocal Listing today became the latest in a growing wave of companies to offer video advertising to SMBs. As pointed out in last week’s post “Universal Search Paves the Way for Local Video,” an opportunity exists — outside the IYP realm — to distribute videos on search engines using SEO …

Last week, I finally had the chance to download the newest iPhone “firmware” (v.1.1.3) that was launched at Macworld. It included a number of minor enhancements to the overall usability of the device and some upgrades across its main functions. Perhaps the most trumpeted of these were the Google applications upgrades, which included new interfaces for …

In case you haven’t seen it yet, Google’s home page today commemorates the 50th birthday of the Lego block. These custom logos for various holidays and anniversaries are always interesting (particularly the one shown on Louis Braille’s birthday in 2006). To me, today’s is one of the more memorable in recent history. Check out all …

Last week, a lot happened in the local media world. Here is a selection of posts in case you missed any. Click below to read each post in full.
Universal Search Paves the Way for Local Video
Most of the discussion on local video advertising has happened around IYPs and local search sites such as Citysearch. This …

         
Idearc Media announced today that Superpages will feed ads into the Marchex advertising network, Enhance Interactive. This clearly increases distribution for Superpages, thus strengthening the value it can provide its advertisers.
For …

Yellow Pages Group Canada has signed an agreement with Copernic, owners of Mamma.com, to supply local Canadian advertiser listings to the mamma.com search engine. According to the press release from Copernic, “The agreement means local search queries will be served YellowPages.ca listings in premium positions clearly identified as local listings.”
Mamma.com is a well established search …

Former AOL President and MTV founder Bob Pittman has lately focused on investments as head of the Pilot Group (he is a pilot). In an interview with broadband consultant Will Richmond’s VideoNuze on the eve of the NATPE show in Las Vegas, Pittman says he is bullish on small market TV stations …

Most of the discussion on local video advertising has happened around IYPs and local search sites such as Citysearch. This is certainly where most of the activity is taking place as these companies are taking the guesswork out of video production and distribution for resource-constrained SMBs. This is of course happening with the help of …

AT&T Yellow Pages announced a new research strategy yesterday that includes a phase-out of its participation in the current industry syndicated usage program, though the publisher will continue to follow a syndicated methodology and make results available.
AT&T will continue participating in the current syndicated usage program operated by Knowledge Networks/SRI in 2008 (which AT&T described …

New hyperlocal content aggregator Everyblock has launched in New York, Chicago and San Francisco. By bringing together locally oriented blogs, reviews and images, it joins the ranks of outside.in, Placeblogger and (more recently) Topix.
Specifically, it scrapes and supplies geotagged Flickr images, reviews from Yelp, and lost and found items from Craigslist. But it also attempts …

A new study in the United Kingdom, commissioned by welovelocal.com, a U.K.-based online local site competing against directory publishers, has found that 35 percent of British consumers no longer want to receive print directories, and choose the Internet to look up local information or use word of mouth. That’s a substantial figure. On the other …

The Canadian printing company Quebecor World has filed for bankruptcy protection and secured US$1 billion in emergency financing. Quebecor’s predicament reflects some of the stresses taking place in traditional print media, which will only get worse in the next year if the current economic gloom continues as expected.
Quebecor’s bankruptcy filing is a significant event for …