There seems to be no shortage of announcements from local players that wish to increase incoming content and distribution. In the past few months we’ve seen Citysearch feed content and ads to Local.com, AOL and Marchex; Idearc do the same with Marchex and Local.com; and Yelp feed 2 million reviews to Local.com (to name a …

BuzzLogic has been generating some attention for its buzz tracking technology that pinpoints where conversations are happening throughout the blogosphere on certain topics. As we’ve written, this can be an attractive tool for PR professionals or online marketers to home in on the right places to target their messages. Integration with AdWords’ work flow recently …

The whirlwind that is AdTech San Francisco has come and gone and as the dust settles and my notes are organized, a few companies stick out with new ideas. Of the thousands of companies at the show, only a handful were explicitly in the local space, including Where2GetIt, ZVents, Local.com, NearbyNow and Ripple (see post …

Charles Stubbs has left his position as president of Yellowpages.com (a unit of AT&T) to become CEO of Atlanta-based Primedia, which publishes a variety of print and online vertical consumer guides, including Apartment Guide and New Home Guide, ApartmentGuide.com, NewHomeGuide.com and Rentals.com.
He is being replaced by David Krantz, who is currently AT&T’s vice president of …

Here is a recap of posts from the last week in case you missed any. Click below to read each post in full.
The Examiner’s Free Metro Model; 2 Million Uniques
In light of BostonNow’s closure this week (apparently for investment-related reasons), I’ve been mulling over the future of free metro papers in the U.S. The Chicago …

In light of BostonNow’s closure this week (apparently for investment-related reasons), I’ve been mulling over the future of free metro papers in the U.S. The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post and The San Diego Union-Tribune are among newspaper companies that have developed free (or discounted metros). Some have done so in response to a deep-pocketed …

The communications plan outlined by Neg Norton at the YPA convention last week is already paying dividends. Like most people in our industry, I have a Google Alert for the term “Yellow Pages.” The April 16 summary edition is shown below. All five of the Google News Alerts are positive. Three of the five Google Blog …

Just a quick note to point out that UMI’s geotargeted keyword generation tool (among other things) has launched today. Details of the platform and the concept behind it are in our past write-up (scroll).

Yellow Book has been gradually closing the gap with its U.S. IYP rivals, which testifies to the publishers’ increasing emphasis on its online business as a driver of future growth. According to data recently put out by comScore, Yellowbook.com was the fastest growing U.S. Internet site in the month of March.
I spoke earlier today with Yellow Book’s …

Ripple is one of the early leaders in the nascent category of out-of-home advertising. For those unfamiliar, this is rich media advertising that is served with news, weather and sports, at places such as coffee shops and gas pumps.
Most of the companies in this space are serving national display advertising, but Ripple is going for …

Hyperlocal community site FatDoor has shut down and reopened as Center’d, an event planning and neighborhood search site with the tag line “people, places, plans.” This follows last week’s fall of Grayboxx, rise of Angie’s List, and birth of OurTown.
Like FatDoor, the company is in stealth mode with not much more than a landing page …

I am always leery of reports that point to a “Scandinavian miracle” (or a “Massachusetts miracle” or what have you). But a December 2007 NAA Growing Audience report has some valuable details about how Schibsted Media, the Scandinavian publishing giant with additional properties in France, Spain and Switzerland, has begun to remake itself for the …

I recently had the chance to talk with Antoine Toffa, founder and CEO of online video platform VideoBloom. Toffa had previously founded Trip.com which was bought by Galileo in 2000 for $326 million and eventually rolled up into what is now Orbitz.
The VideoBloom platform can be used by Web publishers interested in hosting video content. …

Following up on this morning’s post, BuzzSpot has launched today as the first company that will take advantage of Google’s new TV Ads product.
The company is being launched by Steve Espinosa, eLocalListing director of product development. As an SEM/SEO expert and frequent conference speaker, Espinosa has a good perspective on the opportunity here and has …

Local retailers are increasingly going beyond store locators to drive sales. The extensions to store locators include brand locators, coupons, menus, trip planners, and even guides to where Wi-Fi, nonsmoking and RV parking can be found.
A leading vendor in providing retailer solutions is Anaheim, California-based Where2GetIt. Roughly 280 companies and 550 brands are using Where2GetIt …

Citing data from the latest Industry Usage Study, the Yellow Pages Association is trying to overcome some of the myths and misperceptions about who uses print Yellow Pages, how often and why. In a press release issued today, the YPA points out that the average Yellow Pages user is younger, more tech savvy and affluent …

Google has been quietly testing TV ads over the past few months through its AdWords SEM platform. Basically this involves the ability for advertisers to upload an existing video ad and specify target audiences and ad budget, which is then spun into a television ad campaign.
To do this Google essentially buys the ad inventory, which …

Here is a recap of posts from the last week in case you missed any. Click below to read each post in full.
New Tools, New World
Earlier this week, my colleague Charles Laughlin wrote a blog about the beginning of the YPA annual conference and exhibition titled “Yellow Pages Industry Pledges Counteroffensive.” That headline pretty much …

Earlier this week, my colleague Charles Laughlin posted an entry about the beginning of the YPA annual conference titled “YP Industry Pledges Counteroffensive.” That headline pretty much captures what was an upbeat event that attracted 600 attendees. As YPA President Neg Norton told the industry, “the root of the problem is a belief that we …

Local community and recommendation site Angie’s List received $35 million in funding today from Battery Ventures. This comes a day after local rating site Grayboxx sold its assets after failing to get enough traction around its more automated local ratings (”preference scoring”).
Together these probably say something about the importance of personal touch in local niches …