On yesterday’s AT&T earnings call, CEO Randall Stephenson opened the door to the possibility that the telecom giant would sell off its directories business.
Here is what Stephenson said on yesterday’s earnings call: “That’s one area that we’re going to obviously take a very hard look at, and while I don’t want to give any indication …

U.S. directory and local search player The Berry Co. has scooped up defunct search marketing firm WebVisible’s Geneva platform from a liquidator in the wake of that company’s collapse.
“This acquisition will dramatically enhance our presence and capabilities in the digital local search space,” said John Fischer, interim president and CEO of TBC Holdings and Berry. …

AT&T Interactive is launching a contest today to encourage online and mobile application developers to use its APIs to build new uses for local business data. ATTi is trying to tap into the collective creativity and brainpower of the developer community to extent the reach of its online and mobile advertisers.
ATTI’s main products are its …

The Sweden-based local search company Eniro has acquired some of the assets of De Gule Sider in Denmark, the Yellow Pages operation closed down recently by European Directories.
EDSA has made the decision to discontinue print directories in Denmark, where it held the incumbent position, while selling many of its online/mobile assets to Eniro. Among the …

The search marketing firm WebVisible was abruptly closed down by its creditors over the holidays, with CEO Ron Burr managing only to convince the company’s lenders to wait until after Christmas to foreclose on the business. As of Dec. 27 the company no longer exists, and its employees (estimated at 130 back in March but likely fewer …

The European directory and local search operator Truvo has taken major steps toward consolidating around its flagship Belgian operation. On Dec. 22, Truvo “divested” its operation in Ireland, selling it to Contact Holdings, which operates Yellow Pages companies in the Baltic States. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Truvo has also dramatically curtailed its senior …

Heavily leveraged Yell Group has earned some breathing room from a deal with its lenders announced yesterday. Yell announced that it has reached terms with the “overwhelming majority of lenders” to increase the headroom on its debt. Without such concessions, Yell was at risk of violating the covenants, which require the company to stay within a …

Moh Ok, Chief Scientist at PayPal, and Bo Fishback, CEO and Founder of Zaarly, talked about the integration of social, local and mobile to close the loop on driving consumer purchases during a morning dedicated to SoLoMo here at ILM Asia.
Ok and moderator Mike Boland talked extensively about mobile payments, and whether the market will …

 
Court Cunningham, CEO of Yodle, made news at ILM West this afternoon, announcing a three-year deal with Canada’s Rogers Communicationsduring a 15-minute Q&A with BIA/Kelsey analyst Bobbi Loy Luster. Rogers is a leading communications company in Canada. Its deal to use Yodle’s technology and services to sell online media solutions bundles to Canadian SMBs is …

Local Search Association President Neg Norton announced today at ILM West in San Francisco that the trade group would work with BIA/Kelsey to produce its annual conference, April 21-24 in Boca Raton, Florida.
Norton said the LSA is committed to developing a robust agenda for the April conference. He cited this as a key reason for working …

Two compelling speakers made the case this afternoon at ILM West that newspaper companies can successfully transform into digital media businesses. One problem is that most newspaper companies are not willing to make the tough decisions necessary for this transition.
Making the case were two respected newspaper change agents, John Paton, CEO of Digital First, and …

The Toronto-based call measurement firm Telmetrics today announced a major expansion of its business into Europe, launching its solution in 10 markets. The launch follows a six-month beta test in which Telmetrics proved out the value of its service for search engines, agencies, publishers and other local search providers.
Telmetrics has been provisioning call measurement services …

Seems every year is a year of transformation in the global Yellow Pages industry. This year is no different, with more leadership changes, financial turmoil, and a much more aggressive push into new strategies and new products. There is a growing sense that some directory publishers are turning in a direction where a return to …

Last week, Local Insight Media emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, roughly one year after seeking protection from its creditors.
The company emerges from bankruptcy with a new structure, a new board of directors and a more manageable balance sheet, having eliminated 90 percent of its debt. The company is also adopting a familiar new name — …

Last week several of the leading listed directory companies saw sizable spikes in their stock prices following their Q3 earnings announcements, though the surge seems to have died off today.
For example, Dex One announced its earnings on Nov. 3. On the call, CEO Alfred Mockett revealed that Dex will not achieve its previously stated goal of …

 
The local display ad companyPaperG today unveiled a deal with AOL to offer its local display advertising technology via Patch, AOL’s hyperlocal platform.
The PaperG solution offers the ability to create a locally targeted display ad with only the businesses name and address as a starting point. PaperG then crawls and aggregates the content necessary to …

Speaking today at ILM Asia in Singapore, Google’s James Sanders made a very direct appeal to directory publishers to resell Google advertising products to SMB advertisers in the Asia-Pacific region.
“Globally, Yellow Pages companies are our most successful partners,” Sanders said.
Sanders tried to address one of the biggest concerns Yellow Pages companies have about Google, namely …

Joe Walsh, the executive who arguably did more than anyone to make the Yellow Pages a competitive industry in the United States, has resigned as CEO of Yellowbook, the U.S. division of U.K.-based Yell Group.
Walsh has been with Yellowbook for 24 years, leading its growth from a small independent publisher in Long Island into a …

 
BIA/Kelsey will offer a view into two of our key forecasts at the upcoming ILM Asia conference, Oct. 25-26 at The Regent Singapore.
The first will be the freshly updated global Yellow Pages forecast, which will be summarized in our opening presentation on Oct. 25.
The following day, we will unveil our global deals forecast. The latter …

ILM Asia has added two exciting speakers to its lineup. Adrian Tan, COO of Groupon Singapore, will join our special Deals Forum on day 2 of ILM Asia.
Meanwhile, Michelle Sherwood, exec VP of strategic marketing at the Australian directory giant Sensis, will talk about that company’s transformation journey.
We’re very excited about our full lineup of speakers at …