Citysearch officially rolled out its CityGrid publisher network this week. The network moves Citysearch away from an exclusive focus on its individual sites (“Citysearch.com,” “Insiderpages.com,” “Urbanspoon”). Instead, it works on a distributed basis with partners (i.e., “SuperPages”) to marry local content and advertising.
In the short term, CityGrid represents the new face of Citysearch and the …

A few weeks back, in an Advisory, we released the following chart of the “Quarterly Revenue Index.” The Advisory was released the day after we got the final Q2 number filings from the different media groups. Our idea was to look holistically across a few ad segments, and make some comparisons about where we are …

Today Yellowpages.com, a subsidiary of AT&T, announced a multiyear distribution deal with Microsoft. In April, Yellowpages.com’s local listings and advertisers will begin appearing across Microsoft properties, including, MSN Yellowpages, MSN Search, Live Search and Maps.
Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Typically, however, these distribution deals involve a minimum guaranteed payment in exchange …

David Drummond, senior vice president, corporate development, and chief legal officer, responds to Microsoft’s acquisition of Yahoo!. In part:

“… Microsoft’s hostile bid for Yahoo! raises troubling questions. This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another. It’s about preserving the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation.
“Could Microsoft now …

Intuit has announced that it will acquire Homestead Technologies, a company that provides a suite a Web creation and e-commerce tools, for US$170 million in cash. This acquisition continues Intuit’s march into what we term a “connected services,” or combined software and Web services, business.
We have been believers in this concept for some time now. In fact, …

AT&T has bought Ingenio and will use its call tracking platform across Yellowpages.com, 800-YellowPages, Mobile and Print Yellow Pages. We think the deal is quite important. This is a story that will unfold in the months ahead as more information about integration becomes public.
For a while now, we have been saying that the inclusion of …

A few of us were invited to attend the Piper Jaffray Global Internet Summit in Laguna Beach, California, this week. (We decided to tough it out and attend.) Peter ran an interesting panel titled “The Local Opportunity.” The panel included Peter Horan, CEO of IAC Media & Advertising; Zorik Gordon, president and CEO of ReachLocal.com; …

Google announced the beginnings of a consortium that includes 30-plus members to create an open source mobile operating system called Android. The operating system is built on the open Linux Kernel and uses the liberal Apache v2 open source license.

The liberal open source license means developers will be able to build applications for mobile …

Google announced the beginnings of a consortium that includes 30-plus members to create an open source mobile operating system called Android. The operating system is built on the open Linux Kernel and uses the liberal Apache v2 open source license.

The liberal open source license means developers will be able to build applications for mobile …

Today, I had a brief call with George Garrick, CEO of Jingle Networks, which operates the service 1-800-FREE411. The Jingle team has been aggressively wringing costs out of the system for months trying to reduce the cost per call as much as possible.
In some locales, where there are fewer advertisers, Jingle has removed the operator …

As part of the mobile forecast we released last week, we thought it would be interesting to show a little detail about the ad-sponsored directory assistance portion of the forecast. As we wrote previously, we have been watching the market unfold for over a year. The predictions in the original report last October along with …

As part of the mobile forecast we released last week, we thought it would be interesting to show a little detail about the ad-sponsored directory assistance portion of the forecast. As we wrote previously, we have been watching the market unfold for over a year. The predictions in the original report last October along with …

We just released our U.S. mobile advertising forecast, and the fact that this market represents a promising opportunity hardly needs repeating. Nevertheless, the U.S. mobile market has remained largely out of reach for many years.
The often-cited statistics about how many more mobile phones there are versus computers suggest we are on the verge of a …

Last week, Local.com announced that it will acquire PremierGuide, a white-label local search solution, for US$2 million. I’ve read a handful of reviews about this acquisition and most seem to be missing the most important part of this deal: It’s about the money.
Specifically, it looks to me like this deal has a pay-back for Local.com …

OK. Here is the truth. As an analyst, you become quite the connoisseur of hockey stick graphs. “I do like the way the chartreuse in the bar chart plays off the light and complements your logo.” I heard that in a meeting once, seriously. Anyway, the sad fact is that the vast majority of these …

Paul Levine has resigned his position as GM of Yahoo! Local to take the VP of marketing slot at AdBright, a Sequoia Capital backed ad marketplace. Jennifer Dulski will be taking over local responsibilities as group vice president and general manager, Marketplace. The position will also include responsibility for Shopping, Travel, Autos and Real Estate.
Given the …

Summary
LicketyShip will announce a partnership with the Los Angeles Times-owned Recycler.com today to provide a same-day local delivery option for classified customers. This sounds ominously like bubble era companies that went bust, for example, Kozmo.com, which burned through more than $200 million in venture funding. Or who could forget the wonderful Wired articles of Webvan drivers …

Google and Clear Channel Communications will announce a partnership today whereby the search company will sell 5 percent of the radio group’s inventory in 100 top U.S. markets. The agreement covers roughly 675 Clear Channel stations. Terms of the deal, including any potential cash or revenue share agreements, were not released.
Clear Channel is the largest …

Google has reached an agreement to buy DoubleClick, a display ad network, for US$3.1 billion in cash. The acquisition moves Google deeper into the critical display and rich media markets, a segment the company has vowed to become a larger player in for some time.
According to a Google statement, all 1,200 DoubleClick employees will be …

Google has officially launched its free 411 product. The number, 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411), makes business name and category search accessible from any U.S. telephone.
This is a product we originally uncovered in our report Wireless Voice Search: The Multi-Modal Revolution. At that time, Google was using the test number 877-520-FIND.
We have learned through other sources that Google …