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 …

Monster Worldwide has bought HotJobs from Yahoo for $225 million. It will also be in charge of Yahoo’s recruitment content in North America for the next three years, bringing in perhaps another $100 million for the life of the deal from home page traffic, etc. As part of the deal, which closes in 3Q 2010, …

Cablevision bet big on synergy (and ignored the CW about the newspaper industry) when it bought Newsday from Tribune Co. last summer for $650 million. Today, less than eight months later, it concedes that it has written off $402 million of that investment (a significantly worse investment than Stephen Marbury of Cablevision’s Knicks).
Whether the economics …

Last fall, a report from Sequoia Capital was widely circulated, strongly suggesting that companies sit on their capital and wait out what was sure to be a very slow and painful period. Now it’s gotten worse.
For the past several weeks, other analyst reports have been circulating. They suggest that we’ve entered a period of “deleveraging,” …

IAC’s ServiceMagic,  a leader in delivering leads to services, has purchased Bethesda,MD- based Market Hardware, which provides websites and search engine optimization for 2,500 SMBs. Market Hardware, which has 30 people, targets “high online spend verticals” that closely mirror ServiceMagic’s base of 56,000 pre-screened professionals.
Market Hardware has relationships with 40 associations in the segments that …

I’m here in San Antonio, Texas, having caught the tail end of the Association of Directory Publishers meeting, and now the Association of Directory Marketing’s event. One of the many questions floating around the U.S. Yellow Pages industry is whether the existing three U.S. trade associations will merge to gain efficiencies and, perhaps more critical, …

Yellow Pages Group New Zealand has acquired a majority stake in grownups.co.nz,  a Web site targeting the over 50s crowd, as reported on Stuff.co.nz. Voted as New Zealand’s best lifestyle Web site in 2008, this acquisition may well prove to be a smart move for YPG-NZ. According to Blair Glubb, Yellow Pages Group’s digital marketing director, …

 
With the recent acquisition of Get It Pages in Saskatchewan, Yellow Pages Group in Canada has now consolidated a national footprint in Canada. According to the New Brunswick Business Journal, Get It Pages publishes directories in the regions of Battleford, Prince Albert, Yorkton and Estevan. YPG will integrate these editions into its operations, and they …

There has not been all that much fresh coverage of the rumor, reported earlier this week, that Microsoft may acquire Yell Group, the U.K.-based international publisher with operations in the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain and Latin America. We have not been able to pick up much to support the rumor, though circumstances might suggest …

CNET is reporting the rumor that MenuPages could be close to acquisition by an unnamed suitor. If past partnerships are any indication, it could be IAC/Citysearch. Or perhaps Yelp? Keep an eye out.

Thomson Directories owner Seat Pagine Gialle has put the U.K. directory publishing group up for sale, according to an article in the Times Online. 
According to the article: “Thomson, which has been hit by competition from the web and reduced spending by financial clients, is expected to achieve earnings of £25m this year and could …

Steve Ballmer has officially walked away from what would have been the biggest tech deal ever, citing that Yahoo!’s price was too high. Coverage from the Merc.

Norwegian-owned Interinfo was purchased by BaltCap, the leading private equity investor in the Baltic states. Interinfo represented the last directory holding of Texas Pacific Group, previous owners of Norway’s Findexa, now owned by Eniro. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. 
Interinfo’s Yellow Pages operating properties are located in Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia with an …

Spot Runner has gone into the local reseller channel in a major way by acquiring Weblistic, a company headed by Ketan Shah (and whose president is Yellow Pages Commando Dick Larkin). The company has 50 employees and is headquartered in Fremont, near San Jose, with additional offices in Carlsbad, CA, near San Diego and …

Yellow Pages Group in Canada made another small step toward complete coverage of the Canadian directory market by acquiring the directory business from TBayTel, a leading telecommunications company in Thunder Bay and Northern Ontario. This means YPG will now be the incumbent publisher in Thunder Bay. TBayTel published one directory title with distribution of more …

Amid all the noise about Microsoft and Yahoo!, one of the unanswered questions has to do with MS’ intent toward the recruitment business – a business that actually has some relationship with Microsoft’s core enterprise solutions (as opposed to its less established interests in social networking and arguably, search).
As Ken Doctor points out, HotJobs comes …

Local Insight Regatta Holdings and AT&T announced the acquisition of L.M. Berry’s Independent Line of Business unit. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. According to the press release:
The transaction will combine two industry-leading organizations responsible for selling, producing and distributing nearly 700 print and online directories in North America. In connection with the transaction, …

Today’s big news is Microsoft’s unsolicited takeover bid for Yahoo!. The $44.6 billion bid represents a 62 percent premium on Yahoo!’s closing stock price yesterday, which was affected by Yahoo!’s depressing earnings announcement, in which Yahoo! said it would lay off 1,000 workers to “re-accelerate” growth.
For 2007, Yahoo! reported a net profit of $660 …