In an executive interview today with the “Father of IYP,” Pat Marshall, Yellow Book’s chief new media officer talked about his re-entrance to the IYP space and what Yellow Book is looking for new business partners.
In all fairness, Marshall, who was previously head of Idearc’s (the former Verizon) Superpages.com, said he didn’t want to return …

In a session called “The Online City: Close Up on Seattle” here at Drilling Down on Local, The Seattle Times’ Patricia Lee Smith reiterated a point made earlier by the LA Times’ Rob Barrett, which is that online newspapers cannot compete on technology. The only way for newspapers to carve out a unique position online …

The Drilling Down on Local conference kicked off this morning with a presentation and conversation with Rob Barrett, the LA Times’ VP of Interactive.
The underlying theme was how the Times is reengineering its online product to be … an online product. What it is now, Barrett admitted, is mostly a “dump” of the content that …

Mixpo today announced a new platform that brings together video production, editing and tracking/analytics.
The production dashboard has drag and drop functionality for ad creative including existing still images and a library of stock footage, and Mixpo’s signature call to action overlays. This also integrates with the reporting dashboard that allows companies to track the success …

Alibaba is China’s answer to Google and Yahoo!. The online site is 39 percent owned by Yahoo and recently entered a strategic partnership with Infomedia, the second-largest Yellow Pages publisher in India.
The agreement with Infomedia provides Alibaba access to the second-largest population in Asia. The deal with Infomedia opens the opportunity to sell online advertising …

MediaNews Group, the fourth largest newspaper publisher with titles such as The Denver Post and The San Jose Mercury News, has teamed up with TauMed to launch a video-centric health vertical. The vertical launches this month at four of MNG’s smaller papers. It will eventually be incorporated across the chain. Other local media partners are …

Yelp announced a series of tools today for businesses to interact with local reviewers and have more of an active voice.
New features for SMBs include:

Message customers who have reviewed their business

See how many prospective customers viewed their business page

Update business information instantly (i.e., hours of operation, categories)

Receive new review e-mail alerts

Yelp and other local social …

As promised in a post a few weeks ago, VideoBloom has completed an index of NASDAQ companies that have video on their Web sites. The DJIA version of the index was shown in the last post as one leading indicator of online video adoption.
As expected, smaller cap NASDAQ companies — though including many media companies …

Here is a recap of posts from the last week in case you missed any. Click below to read each post in full.
Eniro to Be an Online First Business in 2008
The Nordic directory publisher Eniro announced somewhat disappointing results for the first quarter, with weaker than expected print results not fully offset by online revenues. Eniro President …

The Nordic directory publisher Eniro announced somewhat disappointing results for the first quarter, with weaker than expected print results not fully offset by online revenues. Eniro President and CEO Tomas Franzén noted that the first quarter is seasonally weak for its online business.
In 2007, Eniro generated 54 percent of its revenues from online. This year, Franzén says …

We’ll be in Seattle next week for the Drilling Down on Local conference. See the Agenda here. If you’re at the show, do your best to tackle us between sessions or during networking events. We’re interested in talking. Also check back here for live blogging and updates/announcements from the show. Hope to see you there.

Local Matters announced it will launch a new local search platform called Destination Search LE (Lite Edition). This essentially brings the concept behind its flagship Local Search platform to smaller players.
It will be a hosted and SEO-friendly platform that takes some of the guesswork out of the equation for startups in the local search space …

Truvo announced today that CEO Andrew Day will step down June 1 and assume the role of chairman, allowing current Truvo Belgium Managing Director Donat Retif to take over as CEO. Retif has been with Truvo since 2005. He previously served as vice president of sales for Idearc, working in both the United States and Canada. …

Search has its limitations for local businesses. In fact, many would just as soon place media rich display ads, but for the expense and creative challenge of developing the ads. That’s the hurdle being addressed by AdReady, a venture-backed Seattle company that has created hundreds of ready-made ads that can be selected on a self-serve …

The U.S. independent publisher White Directory has added two new members to its sales leadership team. Kevin Pavelski, vice president of digital expansion, and Pat Balles, vice president of global markets. From the press release:
 

“Pavelski comes to White Directory from Wisconsin, where he worked with AT&T for the past 13 years. He brings with him …

The market to produce, distribute and/or enhance small-business videos has intensified in recent months, as TurnHere, Denver MultiMedia, DMC, Spot Runner, Mixpo, BuzzSpot, EZ Show, Spotzer and others have competed (often via third-party Yellow Pages and city guides) to land accounts. Now comes Redwood City, California-based SpotMixer, which has raised $8 million from Kleiner Perkins …

Matt Booth and I had the chance to meet with Topix at its Palo Alto headquarters last week to unearth some of its user data, as well as some heretofore unannounced content partnerships.
Late last year, the site redefined itself as an aggregator of ZIP code level news and community forums. As recently argued from the ups …

A lot has happened so far this week with directory assistance and voice search providers.
Call Genie yesterday launched a new product suite. This includes three platforms that let DA providers, Yellow Pages publishers, carriers and search engines build branded mobile local search products. These products will utilize the assets gained in Call Genie’s November acquisition of …

Yahoo! Local just integrated a drawing tool that lets users specify a radius within which to filter results. AskCity has a similar drawing tool (with additional shapes), and Urban Mapping has a platform that does this. On the advertiser side, AdWords and a few other SEM platforms allow marketers to specify where to serve their …

At long last, The Kelsey Group’s Drilling Down on Local: Marketplaces program is just around the corner. Our version of Coachella (or Woodstock) takes place NEXT WEEK, Wednesday to Friday, April 30-May 2, at The Westin in Seattle. We think it is the first conference exclusively dedicated to the development of local online marketplaces.
It is …