In a significant move, AT&T Interactive and Idearc Media announced today that they will extend each other’s reach by allowing business profiles on one site to be distributed on the other.

Here is a quote from the press release:
“Cross distribution of advertisers across YELLOWPAGES.COM and SUPERPAGES.COM creates even greater value for each company’s advertisers,” said David …

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg posts on the Official Google Blog today about a new partnership between the city and Google to launch a series of local search tools.
This will include a City Guide site, NYCgo.com, with mapping and local search powered by Google Maps. The site will feature lots of mashups for finding …

Placeblogger, a 2007 recipient of $220k from the Knight News Challenge, has recently been revamped by its founders to encourage more personal interaction. Why? Location-based blogging without the context of a person is just kind of stale, says founder Lisa Williams, a longtime blogger of hometown Watertown, Massachusetts, and previously an analyst at The Yankee …

The movement to compel Yellow Pages publishers to make it easy for consumers to opt out of receiving telephone books and punish unwelcome distribution gained some momentum last week with legislation introduced in Minnesota and the city of Albany, New York. In the meantime, directory publishers continue to refine their own programs in the hope …

Google, as part of a series of cutbacks, is eliminating its Print Ads program, which had 800 newspapers and other print sources participating. The program, which began in November 2006 with 50 newspaper partners, stops selling new placement Feb. 28.
The Print Ads program, launched for Google by online pioneer Tom Phillips (DejaNews, Starwave, Go Network, …

The UStream iPhone application, which lets users watch live streaming event coverage, is now available in the iTunes App store. And right on schedule: The company’s goal was to launch in time for today’s presidential inauguration.
At first, it will only operate when in range of a Wi-Fi network, according to the company, in order to ensure …

EveryBlock, the six-person Adrian Holovaty “micro-local” project funded to the tune of $1.1 million by the Knight News Challenge, is preparing to go “for profit” when the two-year Knight grant ends in June. The Chicago-based site, always registered as a “for profit,” now serves news feeds on a block-by-block basis in 11 cities: Boston, Charlotte, …

Events for newspaper industry executives are clearly challenged right now. Today, I learned via Vin Crosbie’s Facebook thread that the World Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum had to “postpone” their annual conference, which was set for March 22 in Hyderabad, India.
It’s unfortunate. Isn’t there value in having like-minded executives get together and share …

Here is a recap of posts from last week, in case you missed any. Click below to read each post in full.
Cool Item of the Day: Watch the Inauguration on Your iPhone
Live streaming video company Ustream announced a new iPhone application today that will let you tap into whatever videos it is streaming live on …

WebVisible announced today that it is hiring Kevin Ryan as its new chief marketing officer. Ryan, a longtime friend of The Kelsey Group and conference speaker, was previously global content director for Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Strategies.
At WebVisible, he’ll oversee corporate marketing, PR, creative services and managing media across different ad networks. It’s …

Live streaming video company Ustream announced a new iPhone application today that will let you tap into whatever videos it is streaming live on the Web. Its coming-out party will be during the presidential inauguration next Tuesday.
Mobile video is a topic that’s gaining steam, along with the general excitement around mobile hardware and software advances. …

We got news this week of two directory publishing operations shutting their doors, a reflection of the challenges of running a competitive directory publishing company in the face of a difficult economy and intense competition from incumbent publishers and the Internet.
HYP Network, a private-equity-backed company that built a substantial operation in Spanish-language directories through acquisition …

Following yesterday’s post about AT&T Interactive’s new voice search app, here is a video that illustrates the user experience.

 
A week after announcing being knighted as an AdWords reseller and working with Google to offer video ad creation to its advertisers, SpotMixer has been integrated directly into the Google TV ads dashboard.
This will position it more directly as a video ad creation engine within the AdWords work flow. Previously Google TV Ads offered an …

 
Local product data provider Krillion announced a deal today that will distribute product ads and inventory content across Topix’s hyperlocal news network.
This will take the form of a geographically targeted “local best deals” section on many Topix pages. As Krillion’s data drills down to product feeds at individual store locations, these listings will promote in-stock …

AT&T Interactive, the new division that’s behind the company’s popular YPMobile iPhone application, has added a voice search app to its roster. Called Speak4It, the application allows users to speak local search commands into the phone to receive map-based search results of nearby businesses.
The app currently doesn’t have much AT&T branding and could therefore be …

SMBLive CEO (and blogger) Matt Howard has come up with a new metaphor for local search that I have to say I haven’t heard yet. I won’t steal his thunder, but I’ll point you to his analogy, which mostly focuses on the content and advertiser aggregation challenges at the fragmented SMB level.
On the similar theme …

Following Yodle’s $10 million C Round funding announcement yesterday, I had the chance to talk to founder Nathaniel Stevens. The funding, for one thing, is a good vote of confidence for Yodle and its market opportunity, despite the current economic environment.
It’s also supportive of the notion that many advertisers are demanding more measurability in their …

AOL continues its evolution into a multi-pronged media company with the launch of MediaGlow, a new vertical division made up of 70 branded and non-branded niche sites, such as When.com, AOL Autos and TMZ.com. The company expects to have more than 100 niche sites by the end of the year.
MediaGlow is AOL’s third “new” non-portal division. …

We’ve just announced the lineup for our Marketplaces 2009 conference, which is March 16-18 at the historic (and excellent) Century Plaza in L.A. We hope you find it as compelling as we do. It is probably a “must attend” event by any standards.
Last year in Seattle, we had 500 attendees, and it was pretty great. This time, …