Our inaugural SMB Digital Marketing event keeps building and building. We’re being welcomed to Chicago for the Sept. 17-19 event by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and have already announced key speakers, including Dex One CEO Alfred Mockett, Constant Contact CEO Gail Goodman and Demandforce CMO Patrick Barry.
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One of the most common tasks users perform on AT&T Interactive’s YP.com is browsing local eateries in search of a good meal. Thanks to a new partnership with NYC start-up SinglePlatform, this task becomes easier with the addition of local restaurant menus on YP.com and its mobile/tablet apps. SinglePlatform is an online provider of restaurant menus and local …

Nir Lempert, CEO of Israel-based Golden Pages, discussed his company’s transformation from print to a vertically focused media player. The key to transforming, Lempert said, has been about empowering consumers. And thus the advertisers and revenues have followed.
In 2004 91 percent of Golden Pages’ revenues were from print products and just 9 percent …

David Krantz, president and CEO of AT&T Interactive, announced the launch of AT&T’s “Deal of the Day” program this afternoon at the BIA/Kelsey Deals 3D conference. The program is being offered initially in three markets: Atlanta, Dallas-Ft. Worth and Los Angeles.
Krantz emphasized that deals are a natural extension of local advertising. Ergo, a full-line local …

This is the first in a series of interviews we will be doing with executives focused on Social Local Media
While much has been made of how social media is changing consumer behavior, advertisers are struggling to keep up with and make sense of this shiny new toy. Matthew Goldman is the executive director of product …

The Internet Yellow Pages business model has largely refocused on hosting small-business websites, and upselling from that position. At least, it has for Yellowbook.
Yellowbook Chief New Media Officer Pat Marshall, speaking at the recent Borrell conference in New York, said “it used to be about listings. Now it is websites.” Marshall noted that Yellowbook will …

Mobile now accounts for a third of AT&T’s local search, according to AT&T President and CEO David Krantz, who was speaking at the Borrell show last week in New York. “We truly believe that mobile is bigger than the Web,” said Krantz, noting that AT&T has some significant head starts over rivals as a vertically …

One of the bigger questions is how the local portals will fully leverage the emerging social deals platform, with deal a day, coupons, flash sales, et al. Local.com, which reaches 22 million unique visitors via its destination site and network, has been wrestling with the question as well.
Today, the company has announced that it …

When it was launched in 2004, Gannett’s Planet Discover was a pioneer in local search and later, the development of local online marketplaces. But it has lately had a lower profile, dating to a temporary mid-2007 mandate to focus on Gannett newspaper and broadcast properties. That mandate ended in mid-2008, and the company has since …

As my colleague Jed Williams has previously written, Yext’s Tags initiative is a big one, going up against Google Places with a broad (and “open”) network of 20 participating Internet Yellow Pages and online directory sites, including AOL’s MapQuest and Patch, Citysearch, Superpages, Yahoo and Yellowbook.
Yext CEO Howard Lerman describes Tags as “full-time, real listing …

ZipLocal, the independent U.S. directory publisher with more than 300 print directories, is bolstering its digital suite through the integration of VendAsta’s StepRep reputation management tool.
VendAsta’s white-label product will be available to ZipLocal’s 110,000 advertising businesses, and soon thereafter, will be opened up across the ImmersiFind local search platform that 15 other North American directory …

I am planning to attend an event next month in London called IYP Search Meet 2010, which is aimed at giving those in the Yellow Pages world in charge of making online directory products better an opportunity to share best practices with their peers. This event is meant to bridge the gap between strategic level …

In case you didn’t see these, here are links to some of the more important posts from the past week on our Global Yellow Pages blog. Be sure to submit your e-mail address to “Subscribe to Our Blog.” You will then be updated whenever we post something new about the rapidly changing directory industry.
Dex One, …

Appointments are seen as the next frontier of e-commerce and advertising, as online and mobile-centric consumers increasingly look for the immediacy of booking electronically.
The appointment space is a competitive one, however, as several companies jump on the opportunity — although some are working special niches, such as medical and auto dealers. We’ve previously written …

Today, Yellowbook is launching a group buying/deal-a-day product called Weforia.com in three of its markets — Boston, Phoenix and Ft. Myers, Florida. This makes Yellowbook the first U.S. Yellow Pages publishers to enter this space, which has become a local phenomenon thanks to the success of Groupon.
Yellowbook’s Mike Wilson told us this morning that the …

AT&T Interactive has launched a substantial redesign of its YP.com online directory with the aim of making the site an easier and more compelling user experience, with a clear theme around supporting consumer lifestyles (hence its structure of Eat, Play, Live). AT&T is touting several features of the new design, which it says has been vetted extensively in …

AOL’s Patch gave a progress report today on its $50 million hyperlocal initiative. The site said it now has 100 hyperlocal sites, and will launch 400 more over the next six months. It also said it plans to hire at least one journalist in each community, adding 500 new journalists as part of its growth. …

YPG in Canada took yet another step outside its core Yellow Pages business this week with the acquisition of CanadianDriver.com, which will complement its Trader Corp. auto classifieds unit. CanadianDriver.com, which is dubbed “Canada’s online auto magazine,” is an 11-year-old consumer focused site that features new car reviews, test drives and automotive news as well …

Small businesses are gaining the ability to interact with customers anytime, as e-mail marketing gives way to “the social graph,” says local marketing pioneer Perry Evans, who is introducing Closely Inc., a new firm dedicated to helping SMBs leverage the new opportunities in online and mobile marketing.
Like everyone else, Evans says he has watched the …

As Yell Group looks for a replacement for CEO John Condron, who announced that he will retire next year, President of New Media (UK) Mark Canon’s responsibilities at the publisher are expanding. Condron recently named Canon Deputy Chief Executive, reporting to Condron. In his new role, Canon will continue to oversee new media but will also …