I like all the services using LinkedIn as their platform for social networking. The local implications haven’t really come into focus yet, but the latest publisher to put something out is BusinessWeek, with its Business Exchange.
Developed by former PowerOne Media tech guy Isaac Sacolick, Business Exchange uses LinkedIn profile information as a base, crawls the …

The Huffington Post has launched a beta of its first local “Internet newspaper” in Chicago, with promises to produce 10 to 20 more local efforts in the next couple of years.
The Chicago site is a mishmash of local news, mostly from local publications like Chicago Business and the Chicago Sun-Times; national headlines; local blogs and …

Scripps Network Digital’s new real estate site, FrontDoor.com, has developed an impressive list of ways real estate pros can use video. Presenting at Inman’s Real Estate Connect conference last week in San Francisco, VP Kelly Rourke said video is critical for real estate.
“People are used to experiencing 360-degree information,” noted Rourke. Of course, we think …

The relationship between personalization and local has always been a close one, but now Outside.in is banking that consumers want to marry them together. The placeblogger site, which recently received $3 million in new funding from a group of high-profile cyber people such as Fred Wilson and Esther Dyson, has rolled out several personalization/localization software …

Some details have been released about Praized Media’s Local Conversations Organizer. Praized is a Canadian start-up launched by YPG vets Harry Wakefield and Sebastien Provencher, and Sylvain Carle, a longtime industry vet. Its tagline is “Trust Your Tribes.”
In a teaser announcement released today, Praized said its platform will be used by Yellow Pages Group in Canada …

Among the developers of iPhone applications is The Associated Press. Featured during the relaunch of iPhone 2.0 today, AP’s Benjamin Moss, director of mobile products, said AP developed an iPhone app for its Mobile News Network in “just a few weeks.” Consumers can use the iPhone to send in news and photos.
More importantly, AP’s 5,000 …

Some industry bloggers like to throw “Google” in the title to get some attention. For me, it is “Hyperlocal.” And somewhere in the middle of any discussion of hyperlocal is Rob Curley.
The hyperlocal maestro has taken his Web 2.0 experimentations (videos, maps, databases, photo galleries, blogs, citizen journalism, pictures of local girls) in rapid fire …

Grazing the current crop of business news mags, I happened across the June 2 edition of BusinessWeek. The cover article, “Beyond Blogs,” is on how social networking is changing key aspects of the corporate marketing tool kit. One of the examples cited in the article is that of Best Buy, the ubiquitous consumer electronics chain. …

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 …

There has been lots of talk at search marketing conferences about social media marketing (SMM) and social media optimization (SMO).
This involves everything from starting a blog to optimizing your content with link bait and other hooks to get exposure on Digg, StumbleUpon and other socially driven news sites and discovery engines. SEOmoz is a leading …

The CBS-TV owned and operated stations are making a pitch to local bloggers and hyperlocal sites to add value to their sites with various news headline and video widgets, and take a share of ad revenues.
The CBS effort to land bloggers and find a way to compensate them is part of a growing trend among …

Back in April we wrote about BuzzLogic, a San Francisco-based company whose web based app finds out where particular topics are being discussed throughout the blogosphere and online news media.
This takes form in a dashboard that includes an overhead-map-like interface, showing all the inbound and outbound links to various sources of authority on a given …

It is hard for me to comprehend, but we are finally finished with ILM:07. We were grateful to have had 650 interesting and enthusiastic attendees from all over the world, 72 stimulating speakers, a full load of sponsors and an excellent partnership with SES.
Our next conference, April 30-May 2 at the Westin in Seattle, will …

ILM:07 was fortunate to have Jason Calacanis, CEO of Mahalo, as a speaker. Always a straight shooter and a prolific blogger, Calacanis is very outspoken about his feelings about search, social media, SEO and local search.
When asked about the Facebook phenomenon, Calacanis said “Facebook is the best technical social network who iterates faster than …

Interactive Local Media: 07 is ready to roll Nov. 28-30 in L.A. That’s next Wednesday through Friday!
The show, which is being produced in partnership with SES Local, has attendees from all over the world. One exec told me he is coming on Wednesday, taking the red eye to New York that night due to …

Perhaps we have moved from a culture where small local publishers have gone from their own Web site to a blog to having a space on Facebook. That’s what Steve Gilberg at HappyHours.com has done. Steve — the most knowledgeable person alive about the spirits business and local bar culture and actually a fairly …

The numbers are looking very, very good for the Interactive Local Media:07 conference in L.A. Nov. 28-30. Internally, we think this one is a record breaker. Register and book the hotel while you can. The latter tends to sell out.
In recent weeks, we’ve been putting the final touches on the program. For instance, we’ve added …

I’m a bit late to this, but wanted to offer a quick hit to point out industry insider Andrew Shotland’s new blog, localSEOguide.com. Andrew was formerly a key cog at Insider Pages — a company known for a certain degree of SEO prowess — and now does a lot of enterprise consulting work on local …

Zillow has landed $30 million in new financing, which comes on top of the $57 million already raised. The new round values the 155-employee “Zestimate” provider at $350 million, according to reporting by Rebecca Buckman at The Wall Street Journal.
CFO Spencer Rascoff called to provide some color to a fairly complete profile I wrote after …

While I am in Reston, VA, attending Kelsey’s Directory Driven Commerce conference, I thought it would be a good time to start talking about our next show, which I am co-producing: Interactive Local Media 2007. The show is being done in tandem with SES Local, takes place Nov. 28-30, and is at the Los Angeles …