Newspapers increasingly see an opportunity to sell SEO/SEM solutions to local advertisers. Such efforts probably began in earnest last year with members of the Yahoo! consortium using Yahoo!’s platforms. Others have been working with WebVisible and other resellers on a custom basis. But things seem to have been heating up, prior to the NAA Marketing …

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 …

After 33 years of working in the directory business, Dennis Payne has been a firsthand witness to the changes and evolution in the industry. Denny began working for Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. as a directory sales rep in Kansas City when it was a division of the giant AT&T Corp. He was there in January 1984 when …

After four months of ownership, Yellow Pages Group of New Zealand’s owners are moving forward with the creation of a new executive management team. Among the moves, according to New Zealand’s m-net: “Dudley Enoka, who was general manager, will become the ex-Telecom company’s chief executive officer, while former head of marketing, Blair Glubb, will be marketing director.” The …

HM Capital Partners has agreed to acquire Phone Directories Co. operations based in Orem, Utah. PDC publishes directories in 18 states covering 137 titles. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. 
According to a prepared statement by Peter Brodsky, a partner at HM Capital: “The acquisition of PDC builds on our firm’s long and successful …

The New York Times reports today on the many directions possible for Yahoo! in the wake of Terry Semel’s resignation as chief executive.
Among this range of options is everything from giving up on paid search (outsourcing Google to place search ads) to staying the course with Panama as well as the developing “amigos” newspaper consortium …

Today’s news is that Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel is stepping down from his position, which will be filled by founder Jerry Yang. Meanwhile, CFO Sue Decker will become president.
It should be anticipated that Yahoo!’s executive change, which isn’t particularly surprising, will set in motion some other big changes. The company has recently been demoralized by …

We’ve got several meaty personnel moves to report in the global Yellow Pages business this morning, most of them involving Australia’s Sensis.
The big news is that Sensis has hired U.S. industry veteran Carol Johnson as chief operating officer, directory solutions. Johnson was a longtime sales executive at US West Direct (later Dex Media and now …

Eric Grilly, president of MediaNews Group Interactive and a major driver of the Yahoo! consortium for HotJobs, has left his position to take a new job as head of Philly.com, the Web site for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News  and incidentally a Monster affiliate.
As a leader of the newspaper consortium, Grilly …

BackFence CEO and cofounder Susan DeFife has resigned from the company, amid a major downsizing. Co-founder Mark Potts will serve as the company’s interim leader as the company looks to solve what he calls “BackFence 2.0.” Potts initially said that “roughly” 12 of 18 employees were let go, but now says that his estimate — …

It is the end of the year, and the executive turntable is spinning a little faster. Today, it was TrueLocal head Jake Baillie’s turn to announce his departure. TrueLocal, a spin-off from GeoSign, provides unique, local company URL information for Internet Yellow Pages and others. The company has hired an executive search firm, and will …

Simon Greenman, R.H. Donnelley senior VP of digital strategy innovation and products, confirmed today that he is stepping down and likely to be replaced by Sean Green, 36, who was promoted to VP of strategy and business development in October. Greenman says he basically declined to relocate from Denver to RHD headquarters in Cary, N.C. …

Just weeks after Yahoo! announced a management overhaul, AOL announced today that it will reorganize its corporate structure into six different divisions that will each report directly to COO Ron Grant. This is meant to clean up the communication tree within the company and eliminate some of the confusion, duplication and overlap between different initiatives. …

The blogosphere and news media are abuzz today over the management overhaul at Yahoo!. Starting Jan. 1, the company will be organized into three main groups: a customer-focused group, an advertiser and publisher group, and a technology group. CFO Susan Decker will run the advertising and publishing group, and SVP of Connected Life Marco Boerries’ …