DexOne has made online video a standard element of its Enhanced Pack online advertising bundle as a way to encourage wider adoption of online video, according a release issued today.
“Online video advertising has become an increasingly important tool for businesses to convey their services, location and personality,” said …

While avoiding predictions of a full recovery, Dave Swanson, CEO, DexOne (formerly known as R.H. Donnelley), said on this week’s first-quarter 2010 earnings call that the company does expect the rate of decline in ad sales to improve sequentially throughout 2010, ending in the range of a 12 percent to 15 percent decline in ad …

Less than a month after its peer company Idearc Media emerged from bankruptcy with a new name (SuperMedia) and a new lease on life, R.H. Donnelley has done the same thing. Freshly out of bankruptcy and US$6 billion lighter on its balance sheet, RHD has shed its historic corporate name in favor of DexOne, which …

One day after R.H. Donnelley released its 2008 results showing a sharp drop in ad sales, Idearc followed suit today with annual results that also reflect a very tough Yellow Pages environment in the United States. The big news in the release is the acknowledgment of the possibility that Idearc may seek bankruptcy protection. From …

As debt maturities loom in a tight credit market, the directory publisher R.H. Donnelley announced today that it has retained the financial firm Lazard to “assist in the evaluation of its capital structure, including various balance sheet restructuring alternatives.”
On a conference call this morning to announce year-end and fourth-quarter earnings (ad sales were down 8 percent in …

R.H. Donnelley has flipped the on switch on the new DexKnows.com Internet Yellow Pages platform. We wrote extensively about this new platform while it was in beta, in a blog post as well as an Advisory from The Kelsey Report.
We have commented that the new site (a tangible outcome of the acquisition of Business.com and …

In a significant move, AT&T Interactive and Idearc Media announced today that they will extend each other’s reach by allowing business profiles on one site to be distributed on the other.

Here is a quote from the press release:
“Cross distribution of advertisers across YELLOWPAGES.COM and SUPERPAGES.COM creates even greater value for each company’s advertisers,” said David …

The movement to compel Yellow Pages publishers to make it easy for consumers to opt out of receiving telephone books and punish unwelcome distribution gained some momentum last week with legislation introduced in Minnesota and the city of Albany, New York. In the meantime, directory publishers continue to refine their own programs in the hope …

R.H. Donnelley has recently opened up the beta version of its new DexKnows IYP platform (the new search box is above right), known internally as DK2, which TKG previewed last week with Brian Barnum, president of RHDi, and Jeff Porter, VP & GM and the one charged with product development for DexKnows.com. This project has …

Here is a collection of newsworthy Yellow Pages and directional media items that I’ve noted over the past week or so.
Got this press release in my inbox from Yell Group this morning, showing some creativity in linking the print directory with the mobile Web:
INTERACTIVE SMART CODES TRIALLED ON YELLOW PAGES FRONT COVER
In a UK directory …

Dex announced today that it is packaging its local search functionality into a series of widgets.
This will allow users to plant mini search boxes in different places where they might prefer to do local searches, other than the IYP site itself (DexKnows). It will include both Web widgets that can be affixed to personalized start …

The development of verticals is an obvious growth strategy for newspapers, Yellow Pages, search engines and as standalones. The Kelsey Group projects that verticals and classifieds will make up 25 percent of interactive local revenues by 2012.
But nothing happens overnight. And at this point, still early in the game, there have been some initial disappointments …

R.H. Donnelley posted its first-half results today. While ad sales are clearly trending negative, the company was able to report modest revenue and EBITDA growth. Ad sales, however, are the best indicator of how the business is performing.
The following are some highlights from this morning’s earnings call.

RHD posted a 6.7 percent drop in advertising sales …

 
The headlines from this week’s edition: 
GE: The Heat on Immelt  
Google: Weathering the Storm? 
The Future of Fannie and Freddie 
Anheuser-Busch’s Troubled Brew 
This wedding tradition of something old and something new is appropriate for BusinessWeek’s leading online stories this week. GE is the something old, Google is the something new … you get it. The remainder of the saying …

Today R.H. Donnelley unveiled a new local feature called City Pages within its DexKnows.com Internet Yellow Pages site. The aim of these landing pages is to aggregate listings and consumer reviews for local businesses in key metros. A prominent feature of the pages is “Recent Reviews” (shown above), which show new consumer ratings posted across a …

R.H. Donnelley announced today that President and COO Peter McDonald, a 35-year industry veteran, will retire in September. The company also announced that George Bednarz, its current senior vice president for enterprise operations, will take on the new role of executive vice president of enterprise sales and operations. Essentially, as McDonald retires, Bednarz will assume the sales …

Like Idearc Media earlier this week, R.H. Donnelley received a boost in its share price today after unveiling first-quarter results that showed market conditions are about as bad as expected, but not any worse. The company also unveiled a refinancing plan that will increase interest expense while also extending the maturing of much of its debt and …

Citing data from the latest Industry Usage Study, the Yellow Pages Association is trying to overcome some of the myths and misperceptions about who uses print Yellow Pages, how often and why. In a press release issued today, the YPA points out that the average Yellow Pages user is younger, more tech savvy and affluent …

The leadership of the Yellow Pages Association came out swinging against its growing number of critics and doubters at yesterday’s kickoff of the group’s annual conference in Las Vegas.
Chairman Dave Swanson (also CEO of R.H. Donnelley) gave a passionate defense of the directory industry, making a strong case that much of the criticism it has …

Since our founding, The Kelsey Group has been committed to delivering our unvarnished view of the dynamics of the ever changing and evolving local advertising market. We have been criticized by some in traditional media who suggested we have overstated the rise of the Internet. And we’ve taken shots from those pushing new media suggesting …