Angie’s List, the premium, user-paid directory of local business reviews, announced today that it has raised $18 million in new capital from Lighthouse Capital Partners. The site has now raised $66 million in total, including $13 million in 2006 from Battery Ventures, White River Ventures and Aquent, a Boston-based staffing firm. In 2008, the site raised $35 million in additional funds from Battery.

As part of the new announcement, Angie’s List also disclosed that it has 750,000 members in 124 markets, up from 650,000 this summer. There are typically more than two members per paid subscription, so that number translates into an estimate of roughly 324,000 paying members. Members pay from $10 to $67, depending on various factors, but mostly on the number of reviews in a given market.

Angie’s List Founder and CMO Angie Hicks is a featured speaker at Kelsey’s landmark ILM:08 show this week in Santa Clara. She is speaking on a session alongside ServiceMagic Cofounder Rodney Rice.

Yelp is often dismissed as a bar and restaurant site for recent college grads in San Francisco. But site usage released by the company suggests it has rather broad usage and shouldn’t be so readily pigeonholed. The site also says it had 15 million uniques in October, up 200 percent from the same period in 2007, and has now gathered 4 million reviews.

According to Yelp stats, 34 percent of its reviews are “restaurant” oriented, 7 percent are for “arts and entertainment,” and 4 percent relate to “nightlife.” But these categories account for just 45 percent of the site’s overall reviews. Another 23 percent are for “shopping,” 8 percent are for “beauty and fitness,” 7 percent are for “home and local services,” 4 percent are for “health,” 3 percent are for “travel and hotel,” and 3 percent are for “auto.”

The site also isn’t as heavily dependent on recent college grads as is generally thought. 23-to-29-year-olds make up 37 percent of its users. Thirty-six percent are between the ages of 30 and 39, and 12 percent are 40 to 49. The site is also 51 percent male and 49 percent female. But no information was sent about the site’s geographic distribution this time around. Company executives have suggested it is seeing broad distribution in a number of markets.

There is a whole new wave of new Facebook apps, many built around the new Facebook Connect feature that lets users pull relevant data from Facebook profiles. That will change things. Up to now, however, Facebook hasn’t really had much of an impact on local. It is a niche of a niche, and hard to sustain a broad community, as some of our friends have discovered the hard way.

Loladex, for instance, is a Facebook-centric directory/community site. But Loladex founder Laurence Hooper concedes the site has had trouble getting traction. “The social graph is still the way to go,” says Hooper, an AOL vet. “But working on Facebook itself isn’t the full way to go. Facebook Connect is a more productive path, but it is still in its very early stages. It is still a little hard to work with.”

Still, the market is heating up, with many promising trends. Looking at Adonomics, which charts Facebook apps, a la “Billboard” with music charts, there are currently 46,484 Facebook apps available, with over 200,000 developers evaluating the platform. The vast majority of these apps tend to be games-related – a good way to get interaction going.

Number 184 is Food Friendzy, which comes from local vet Tony Wills and his new gang at allmenus.com/campusfood.com. It is a simple game for college kids (“Match 3 and win campus food cash or restaurant coupons”).

While the app doesnt rank high on the Adonomics scale, we were impressed that it has been installed by 77,000 people, and is used on a daily basis by 26,328. Not bad for a local app. “We are not only making money but driving increased usage to our core product,” says Wills.

Are classifieds fated, by definition, to be “dumb” all-you-can-eat listings? Or can certain categories be remade as performance-based listings a la Google that bring best matches to the top, offering higher revenue in return for a better match and conversion?

That’s the question posed by Vast.com, a San Francisco-based company working with “inventory” classifieds: autos, real estate and travel. The company, which is the focus of a Kelsey Marketplaces report, currently has deals with AOL, Overstock, Orbitz’s Away, the L.A. Times and others.

Vast was launched in 2005 by Kevin Laws, a former exec with Epinions. He has since been joined by former execs from Zillow, Trilogy, PayPal and Coremetrics. The basic idea is that “leads on the Internet suck,” says Laws. But if listings that are already in the inventory can be better matched with user needs, they’re much more effective.

“We’re in the business of making transactions, as opposed to just making the information available,” and forcing users to browse screen after screen of listings, says Laws. The key is “to understand the meta-data on an item. That is where all our technology goes. For example, we can see that a particular vehicle is priced $2,000 lower compared to similar cars — and therefore should be the one recommended to the user.”

The performance-based metrics, in particular, allow companies to really focus on strategic marketing. “An auto dealer can use our system to get more SUV leads,” if they feel like they have too many SUVs on the lot, says Laws. “They can say they need 23 more leads by the end of the month.”

Laws is confident that a large percentage of the existing subscription-based model will switch over to performance-based pricing, as auto dealers, apartment managers and other inventory-based categories strive for maximum efficiency in their marketing. “Half of subscription (based pricing) goes away in five years,” he predicts.

Broadband providers, especially those formerly associated with telco Yellow Pages, are trying to get back in the game of providing marketing services for small businesses. They’re looking to provide Web 2.0 directory-like profiles and search engine marketing services for small and medium-sized businesses with the idea of maintaining their subscriber accounts, and adding revenues from the slate of premium offerings.

SMBLive, a Reston, Virginia-based software company, has specifically zeroed in on this market, signing deals with BT, Telmex, Telus and Swisscom. Its inaugural launch with BT’s broadband division, called BT Tradespace, has already garnered more than 125,000 SMB participants.

SMBLive Founder and CEO Matt Howard, a Groove Networks veteran, says the idea behind SMBLive was to create a “lightweight” Web 2.0 platform to help SMBs get online in “15 minutes or less.” What’s unique is that the user-generated business listings are quite rich and are capable of pulling in information from all over the Web.

The profiles are “elegantly optimized for natural search” and are always changing as the sellers post new content such as photos, blogs, and videos (although video is only via links with YouTube). The profiles themselves include several calls to action for buyers including rate this business, map this business via MS Virtual Earth, click-to purchase via PayPal, click-to-call the seller, and click to receive seller details.

In addition to the individual seller sites, there is a BT Tradespace portal site that aggregates and dynamically displays different types of seller content, using an Endeca search platform to highlight those businesses that actively participate and/or buy premium services.

“The ideal customer has less than 15 employees and no IT department,” Howard adds. While basic profiles are created for free, the idea is that they’ll upgrade via credit card to packages starting at $30 per month after four to six months — a strategy also utilized by other players in the space, such as MerchantCircle.

Precision Tune Auto Care, which has 300 franchisee-owned stores, is the first major auto-care chain to sign up for DriverSide’s new co-branded version of its online vehicle profiles. The profiles include maintenance records. Customers can also receive reminders and special offers via e-mails, alerts or a servicing calendar.

Customers can also use the DriverSide service to look up auto-related info, such as repair costs, or to locate parts or accessories. The ad-supported service, which competes in the online car maintenance space with RepairPal, also enables users to ask certified mechanics questions for free and interact with other auto owners.

“Precision Tune sees that they can create stronger bonds with existing customers by providing a full ownership experience — even if some of the content and services do not relate specifically to their business,” says DriverSide CEO Jad Dunning, who was previously an executive with Intuit’s StepUp. “It’s about being top of mind during all ownership touch points.”

“Our mission is to support the industry by helping it cost-effectively acquire new customers for a wide range of vehicle ownership services and better manage relationships with existing customers,” Dunning noted separately (in a press release).

Such a service also reduces churn, especially for the uncertain customer just trying out a maintenance shop. “Virtually all existing auto web sites focus on the three months a consumer researches a new car purchase, while DriverSide provides tools for the five-to-seven years the average consumer owns their vehicle,” says Dunning (in the release).

Mark Cuban, the dot-com entrepreneur who has launched Broadcast.com and HDNet and now has greater renown as the colorful owner of the Dallas Mavericks, has given the entire local ecosystem a big shot in the arm by investing in CitySquares, the New England-based local business directory that is going national. In September 2008, CitySquares had 1 million unique visitors, according to Quantcast.

“We recognize the value of local search and see CitySquares as a dynamic player in that space,” said Cuban, in a press release.

Cuban invested in the round, following the lead of Jonathan Kraft of The Kraft Group, which owns various real estate holdings in New England. (Jonathan Kraft is the son of New England Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft.) The size of the round and the respective investments of Cuban and Kraft were not disclosed, but it is more than nominal, says CitySquares CEO Ben Saren. CitySquares had previously raised $1.5 million.

Jonathan Kraft’s investment is potentially leveraged in many ways, adds Saren. He notes The Kraft Group is a major commercial real estate developer (i.e., the mega Patriot Place development next to Gillette Stadium). The company is currently threading together numerous tech investments and plans to try to use them to support small New England businesses.

When Topix first came on to the scene in 2003, it primarily crawled local news. These days, the 30-person company has largely remade itself into more of a local portal, especially for smaller markets. It still isn’t profitable, but CEO Chris Tolles says it delivers a lot of upside to its primary owners: Gannett, Tribune and McClatchy.

The company largely started its evolution a couple of years ago with the launch of user comments and user-submitted news, both of which complement the news crawl. As it has gained users and frequency, the company has also added such features as Yellow Pages and classifieds.

The portal strategy is certainly different from simply powering the local news crawl for newspaper sites. In fact, just 30 percent of its traffic currently comes from partners, says Tolles. (Besides the owner newspaper companies, other partners include MediaNews Group, ESPN, Sprint’s WiMax portal, CNN and vertical sites such as Trulia, Eventful and Simply Hired.) “We are the only game in town if you want to license local news,” he says.

Most of the action, however, is centered on the destination site, despite some false starts. “Early on, we put out a lot of things around local that didn’t work,” concedes Tolles. “We didn’t have enough traffic. But it makes more sense with 100 million page views. Our traffic has quadrupled, and the experience is better.”

Moving into marketplaces — Yellow Pages and classifieds — has been an especially logical move. It has been largely spearheaded by Tolles and former InfoUSA and Yahoo Local executive Dave Galvan, who is Topix’s VP of business development.

The classified part of the site has actually been up for quite a while, says Tolles. “It is not a major portion of what we are doing; it is a competitive market. But it is part of a larger effort” to support the site’s local power.

Meanwhile, Yellow Pages, powered by listings from InfoUSA, has been up for six months. “We’ve got millions of page views, and it is growing 15 percent, month to month,” says Tolles. Still, expectations for the YP product are downplayed. Yellow Pages in itself “is not a major destination,” he says. But it is unique in providing listings in a local context. “Nobody has our reach on the Net. We have engagement from 20,000 cities and towns every month.”

The site also has had some success localizing national advertisers, including political advertising. “We were the No. 1 site for McCain in June” via Google’s ad sales, says Tolles.

“Local local” political advertising also has some promise, given Topix’s ZIP code orientation. But it really hasn’t amounted to much yet. “There is huge commentary around sheriff races, things like that. But there is not a lot of local advertising from those guys, or from statewide races either.”

Eventful, which competes with Zvents for leadership (and affiliates) in the fast changing local event marketplace, has just completed a new $10 million C round lead by Telefonica Capital. Also participating are alumni investors, including Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Bay Partners. In all, $19.6 million has been raised.

CEO Jordan Glazier notes that the company now has 1,200 partners using the API and syndicating data, including the L.A. Times, Topix, Ripple and leading mobile application providers such as Earthcomber, Loopt and uLocate. More than 8 million users have registered for the service, and there are typically 6 million to 8 million events to choose from.

The new money will basically be used for expanding sales and marketing, says Glazier. “We are expanding our lead in the local event space, kicking in on monetization, and our revenue is growing, for both online and mobile.” There has been especially strong interest in the company’s iPhone application, he says.

In addition to the new round, Eventful has also announced a new comprehensive marketing deal with Ticketmaster that includes reciprocal advertising, direct access to Ticketmaster sales, and use of Eventful’s community features, including its e-mail matching platform, which sends targeted e-mail to users based on their stated interests. Indeed, music events are the real backbone of the service, although author and comedian appearances also score high.

Another top feature is Eventful’s “demand” service, which allows users to vote to bring a musician or other public figure to a community. To date, 50,000 performers have registered for the service, and 75,000 “demand” events have taken place already.

The demand feature has been especially active for politics in this presidential election year. The Obama campaign has used the service to mail out 2.5 million e-mails to help strategize where the Obama-Biden ticket should make appearances. The campaign has received 131,854 “demands” in 8,034 communities.

We’re just about ready to go with Interactive Local Media 2008, which is Nov. 19-21 in Santa Clara, in the heart of Silicon Valley. It should be a very important, game-defining event — and the first one for The Kelsey Group in the new BIA Advisory Services era (BIA Financial Network acquired Kelsey last week, adding resources and smarts to the team).

Previously, we announced a lot of the lineup, with hand-picked execs from Google, Yahoo, Angie’s List, ServiceMagic, Comcast, NBC, TurnHere, Adify, Centro, PointRoll, IAC, Citysearch, Outside.in, Sensis, Topix, Praized, PegasusNews, VoodooVox, comScore, Yodle, Done Right, Metrix4Media, LiveDeal, MerchantCircle, CityVoter and Institute for the Future.

Here are some new highlights. Our opening keynoter is local search innovator Mark Canon, the ex-Switchboard/AOL Search/Autobytel exec who now runs Yell.com. Mark will share his authoritative insights on local, vertical and directory/search, and the differences between the U.S. and international markets.

We have also developed a great “pre-conference” session with Andrew Shotland, the former NBC and Insider Pages exec who has become “Mr. Local SEO Guide.” Andrew will provide his insider tips on search engine marketing.

From Yahoo’s Newspaper Consortium, we’re adding former Tribune Interactive exec Mike Silver, who represents the newspapers in all this. He joins Yahoo’s Lem Lloyd on the podium to talk about what we’ve learned so far.

On the SMB SuperForum, we’ve added Jeff Stibel from Web.com, who will be keynoting the mega-session. We’ve also added John Keister from Marchex, Travis Fore from Network Solutions and Matt Howard from SMBLive (an especially interesting broadband service).

On the Video SuperForum, we’ve landed Brian McCarthy from Citysearch, Peter Bowen from SeeSaw Networks, Glenn Pingul from Mixpo, Diaz Nesamoney from Jivox and Steve Espinosa from eLocal Listing. And we’ve added an out-of-home twist — out of home is a huge growth area in local advertising — via John McMenamin of Ripple.

We’re also pleased to have lured Pieter Grasdijk from the Netherlands to talk about iLocal, and Josh Herman from Acxiom’s InfoBase to discuss local audience segmentation. Wrapping things up with “all thoughts local” are three of our smartest friends: Ethan Stock from Zvents, Jennifer Dulski from Center’d and Craig Hagopian from V-Enable.

Throughout the whole thing, we’re running state-of-the-art and really fun iPhone and video demos and even some contests, with the audience voting via laser pen (yours to keep). See you in Santa Clara? Here’s the link to register.