BIA/Kelsey recently published the second in a series of reports based on specific cuts of data from our Local Commerce Monitor research. LCM is BIA/Kelsey’s long-running study of how U.S. small business advertisers are evolving their use of media to acquire and retain customers.
The second of these “Spotlight” reports focuses on small business advertisers that …

The recent Boston Consulting Group study done in cooperation with Yelp, raises many questions about SMB online ad spend and presence. We want to comment on the key top-level metric they reported: Three percent of their [SMBs] advertising budgets flows online.
Some subsequent commentators have interpreted this finding as narrowly referring to online display ads, …

The last act at ILM West was a panel on the future of “SoLoMo” (Social/Local/Mobile). Moderators Mike Boland and Jed Williams tag-teamed a panel of four:
-David Courtney, CEO, JiWire, a location-based media channel connecting advertisers and mobile consumers via public Wi-Fi or location-based mobile apps
-Steve Espinosa, founder and CEO, AppStack, a developer of mobile apps
-Ankit …

Moderator Peter Krasilovsky led a session Monday afternoon on how several leading vertical sites are successfully leveraging social media. As sites that are focused on a specific business, profession or user need, verticals will typically contain a directory, specialized editorial content, expert Q&A, advertising, etc. Panelists were:
-Mark Britton, CEO and President, Avvo
-Pete Flint, CEO, Trulia.com
-Matt …

There are already many types of deals and a plethora of deal providers. And all signs point to even more growth and variety.
To peer a year or two ahead, moderator Matt Booth led a discussion with four seasoned players in the deal space on Tuesday afternoon. He asked them for their predictions of the key …

For Part Deux of the Mobile Meets Deals series, host Mike Boland continued his dialog with segment leaders.
First up was Brian Knapp, VP of Business Operations, Loopt.
Knapp presented Loopt’s new u-Deals program, launched a few weeks ago on Android and the Web. He said u-Deals “Puts the power of the crowd in charge of deals.” …

Who cares what happened when Harry met Sally!? The real action is here at the Deals 3D Conference, where “Mobile Meets Deals.”
In “Part I: Heavy Hitters,” host Mike Boland ran a triad of fast-past interviews with key players rooted in the local online space.
First up was Tristan Walker, Director, Business Development of Foursquare. Walker summarized …

David Krantz, president and CEO of AT&T Interactive, announced the launch of AT&T’s “Deal of the Day” program this afternoon at the BIA/Kelsey Deals 3D conference. The program is being offered initially in three markets: Atlanta, Dallas-Ft. Worth and Los Angeles.
Krantz emphasized that deals are a natural extension of local advertising. Ergo, a full-line local …

Tuesday morning, ILM East kicked off before the sun rose, with coffee and klatching about broadcasters and online. After some introductory remarks, BIA/Kelsey VP Rick Ducey turned over the podium to his colleague, VP Mark Fratrik. Fratrik gave a recap of the latest BIA/Kelsey ad spend forecast by media, and then provided more focused …

Moderator Peter Krasilovsky, Program Director for BIA/Kelsey’s Marketplaces advisory service, kicked off this panel on the explosive “deal a day” marketing phenomenon. Topics included the current state-of-the-art, and the likely evolutionary path of the daily deal format. Panelists were two leading innovators in this increasingly-crowded space:
• Tim O’Shaughnessy, CEO and Cofounder, LivingSocial
• Perry Evans, Founder and CEO, …

In the afternoon session on “Ins and Outs of Reputation Management,” moderator Matt Booth kicked off with a definition of reputation management, which is a component of “e-mail reputation and presence management” (ERPM), one of the media categories forecast by BIA/Kelsey.
Brendan King, CEO of VendAsta Technologies, defined reputation management as: “What you say about yourself …

The new Q1 2010 Smartphone Intelligence survey from Compete (a Kantar Media company) shows significant developments in the use of local search, social networking and gaming on smartphones.
The quarterly study found that nearly one out of three smartphone users has called or stopped into a local business after finding that business from a local search …

The new Q1 2010 Smartphone Intelligence survey from Compete (a Kantar Media company) shows significant developments in the use of local search, social networking and gaming on smartphones.
The quarterly study found that nearly one out of three smartphone users has called or stopped into a local business after finding that business from a local search …

In the second “installment” of its quarterly report “State of Small Business Online Advertising, Search Edition,” WebVisible reports that its SMB clients increased their online search spending to an average of $2,149 in Q4 2009, an increase of some 30 percent over the Q3 level, and 111 percent over the level of Q4 2008. In …

This panel, moderated by conference-meister Peter Krasilovsky, peered into the boiler rooms that power vertical search, with presentations by three leading players in the nuts and bolts of this space.
David Kidder, Cofounder and CEO, Clickable, presented a solid vision of technology and functionality behind vertical search, framed in common-sense idioms. Clickable provides SEM marketing and …

How can social media be leveraged specifically by verticals? This was the subject of a panel this afternoon at the BIA/Kelsey’s Marketplace conference moderated by Michael Boland, program director of Mobile Local Media.
All four panelists gave examples of how they’re integrating social media (tools, connections, etc.) into their core products. Presenters included:
Jon Carder, CEO, MojoPages, …

We recently completed the latest BIA/Kelsey User View survey, Wave VII, our online consumer survey done in the first quarter each year. User View asks 1,000 online consumers that detailed questions about their use of various media for local shopping.
Continuing a trend toward media fragmentation, consumers reported using on average 7.9 different media sources for …

The closing panel at the ILM:09 conference was a dialog between Peter Krasilovsky, program director of Marketplaces, and two seasoned luminaries from the world of journalism:
Geneva Overholser, director, School of Journalism, USC Annenberg School of Communication. She is also involved with the not-for-profit independent platform for “community funded reporting,” www.spot.us (supported in part by the …

In a wide-ranging interview this afternoon at ILM:09, ILM Program Director and conference chair Matt Booth tried several times to pin the Yelp COO, Geoff Donaker to the mat. But the unflappable and diplomatic Donaker just wasn’t going to go there.
Donaker spoke with surprising humility about Yelp’s phenomenal growth, from around 14-15 million uniques in …

An otherwise obscure article caught my eye this afternoon. The Wall Street Journal reported that “Paranormal Activity,” a small independent movie made on the microscopic budget of $15,000, is experiencing roaring success commercially ($7 million gross last weekend) due to a Twitter-based marketing campaign. (Look out “Blair Witch Project”!)
To be fair, the campaign isn’t entirely …