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 …

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 …

The events listings space has taken a number of twists and turns with Zvents trying to steer people to retail events as a business model, and also become a media driver in its own right; Eventful focusing more and more on Hollywood studios and TV shows to drive viral demand for their entertainment properties; GoldStar …

Yodle, a third-party SMB reseller, announced yesterday that it acquired ProfitFuel, a company that provides search engine optimization services to small businesses, for an undisclosed sum. David Rubin, previously CEO of Profitfuel, will now join Yodle as senior vice president of sales. ProfitFuel’s main service called Outrank is designed to generate inbound phone calls and …

 
2010 was a dismal year for the New Zealand branch of Deutsche Bank after exposure to the Yellow Pages Group restructuring. The KPMG Financial Institutions Performance Survey issued last week shows that Deutsche ranked at the bottom out of 10 New Zealand branch banks on key measures, including a $53 million loss for the financial year, …

Crushed by a “perfect storm” of debt and declining revenues, TMP, once the dominant player in the Yellow Pages agency (CMR) space, will cease to exist within a few days. However, we have learned that several of the agency’s more valuable local offices and their associated clients have been sold off to rival agencies.
According to one …

Canada’s Yellow Media announced today that it has sold its Trader Corp. vertical media business to the private equity firm Apax Partners for C$745 million. The deal lets YPG focus on transforming its core directories business and the cash helps improve the company’s balance sheet. YPG is not completely getting out of the vertical media business, at …

Reply.com has carved out a niche among online marketing companies by offering an auction marketplace for locally targeted consumer traffic for various verticals (home improvement, autos, real estate, insurance, etc.). Now, it is set on building a mobile strategy. The company recently announced that it has acquired AdHubs, a mobile app developer that sees vertical …

AOL will buy The Huffington Post for $300 million in cash and $15 million in stock, and put Arianna Huffington in charge of the AOL Local sites (MapQuest, Patch, MovieFone) as well as its growing collection of opinionated tech and vertical news properties, such as TechCrunch, Engadget and Popeater. AOL’s vertical sites, such as …

Local.com, which recently introduced an integrated coupon and sales platform as part of its relaunch, has announced that it will enter the group buying/deal-a-day space via the acquisition of iTwango, a Los Angeles-based start-up that launched in October. The company, founded by former Citysearch CTO Hal Oreif, will be rebranded under Local.com.
The company’s first group …

Fresh in the wake of reports that Google will spend at least $5.3 billion on Groupon, LivingSocial — the Avis of deal a day — has announced a $175 million investment from Amazon. It simultaneously announced an additional $8 million investment from Lightspeed Venture Partners.
“If you want to become the biggest local commerce player, …

Scheduling is seen as the next wave of  online marketplace services for SMBs, encouraging sticky usage, premium features and, in some cases,  highly contextual advertising. Scheduling vendors such as Agendize, Full Slate, MaxiPage and X Time are actively syndicating solutions.
Jumping aboard the scheduling trend is MerchantCircle, the SMB services company with 1.3 million registered SMBs. …

FreshGuide.com, which includes the BookFresh.com scheduling service, has been acquired by Sugar Inc., a diversified media company that includes a TV network and programming aimed at women, as well as ShopStyle, a “social shopping service.”
FreshGuide.com founder Ryan Donahue says the acquisition will enable the company to expand beyond its four existing markets — San Francisco, …

Groupon, the pioneering deal-a-day provider, has used some of the proceeds of its recent $135 million round to buy CityDeal, a European imitator that has launched in 80 markets in 16 countries. The cost of the deal has not been disclosed, but CityDeal has raised $5.6 million. BIA/Kelsey notes that more than $284 million has …

Cox Enterprises has sold 25 percent of AutoTrader.com to Providence Equity Partners, a company that manages $22 billion in its portfolio and whose Web site says it likes to take equity shares “between $250 million and $2.5 billion.” Terms were undisclosed. Providence has shares in a wide range of companies, including Univision, NexTag, Hulu and …

Regional press reports suggest that Yellow Pages Group New Zealand may be up for sale.  The company was scooped up by private equity buyers (CCMP Capital Asia and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan) in March 2007 for more than NZ$2 billion. Since then, valuations for directory properties have plummeted, though YPG-NZ remains a very profitable company.
Last …

Jon Brod, executive vice president of AOL Ventures, Local & Mapping, gave attendees at Marketplaces 2010 a glimpse into the direction that AOL is moving in its local strategy, specifically with Patch.com, MapQuest, its content management system Seed, its LocalFund investment arm, the relaunch of CitysBest and the forthcoming launch of Patch.org.

Earlier this year Brod …

Citysearch announced today that it has shifted its ad model for small businesses, moving from the cost-per-click model that it pioneered several years ago to a new model that will drive consumers directly to their own Web sites. The new model provides advertisers with a complete range of SEO and marketing services across the CityGrid …

As it readies its expected public offering, ReachLocal is branching out beyond its roots as a third-party SMB reseller for Google and others. First, it started selling display. Now it is set to offer improved search optimization, digital presence and reputation management via the acquisition of SMBLive.
Other companies in the space have made similar moves …

The default strategy for many start-ups is to plan to be acquired by Google or Microsoft. But the M&A scene is much more complex than that. Jordan, Edmiston Group Co-President Tolman Geffs, speaking today at IAB’s Annual Leadership Meeting in Carlsbad, California, joked that Google is set to buy Oregon, Washington and Canada “just to …