We’re seeing more vertical players trying to leverage their brands with deal offerings and advertising. The latest one is Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Twenty-two Blue Cross state organizations around the U.S. are working with Analog Analytics to launch Blue365, a deal program offering health and fitness discounts, as well as adjacencies like tax prep. …

Amazon.com, which is moving in multiple directions vis-à-vis local, has agreed to buy TeachStreet, the service for matching teachers and students. Amazon’s interest appears to be less in TeachStreet than in the underlying e-commerce platform for SMBs. The platform already is being used by The Washington Post for its Service Alley SMB leads service.
TeachStreet …

The focus for vertical sites is likely to shift in coming months. In addition to regular features, such as listings, many vertical sites will also begin to blend personalized or on-demand “maintenance” information with various social media features such as scheduling and reviews.
We’ve seen it with garden and health sites, and also, increasingly, …

The Home Depot is set to significantly boost its home contractor leads network with today’s acquisition of Redbeacon. No price was announced for the acquisition. The deal puts Home Depot in the same boat as Sears, which has been quietly developing ServiceLive, its own contractor leads service.
Redbeacon, which takes a 10 percent commission for service …

ILM East is coming back to Boston March 26-28 with a lineup of doers and innovators who are transforming and redefining the local space. Highlights include a featured keynote from industry legend Ted Leonsis (Groupon vice chair/AmEx board member/sports team owner/AOL mastermind), along with keynotes/interviews from Jason Calacanis, Leslie Berland, Jay Herratti, Michael Zimbalist and …

Thumbtack, which has set itself to compete against Angie’s List and ServiceMagic in the SMB leads space, has raised $4.5 million from Javelin Venture Partners, with MHS Capital and Tim Draper participating.
The eight-person San Francisco company, founded in 2009, claims nearly a quarter-million active merchants — up from 150,000 in July — and “hundreds of …

A few years ago, the location of businesses became a big question mark, as well as a strategic issue, as people wanted to shop or dine nearby. These “geo-fencing” issues were especially important for Yellow Pages companies.
Since then, search has become more the norm, along with GPS-based phones, which have location baked into them. What …

More vertical deals are being introduced, as vertical publishers with specific audiences seek to tie deals to existing content, and prove to have better conversion than watered down, one-size-fits-all approaches.
A few weeks ago, we wrote about Local Offer Network’s B2B efforts with Cardinal Health. Now, NimbleCommerce has been pushing on the vertical space, …

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 …

The idea of an online marketplace has continued to evolve dramatically in 2011. With the emergence of deals, we now have full-fledged interactive local commerce in place, in addition to advertising.
It seems that everyone has jumped into the pool. Where Marketplaces had previously been dominated by players such as AutoTrader, eBay and OpenTable, …

Ticketmaster-Citysearch once had the idea that it could spur local commerce by matching concert goers with nearby restaurants, bars and even parking lots. AOL Digital City and Sidewalk explored similar concepts. But no one got it totally right. Now, Weotta, a five-person start-up that launched at the last TechCrunch Disrupt, is making a go of …

As deals verticalize, we’re intrigued by opportunities for B2B plays. MarketSharing is offering deals tailored for SMBs (office cleaning discounts, office copier repair, etc.).
Now, Cardinal Health, a Fortune 20 company, has launched a pilot with Local Offer Network to provide up to 70 percent off professional health practitioner “consumables,” such as medical gloves, hand …

At opposite corners of the niche universe, you have Thrillist for men and Comcast-owned Daily Candy for women. Both lifestyle products, founded as email newsletters/shopping guides, have jumped aboard the deals bandwagon, working with Group Commerce Inc. as their tech provider. They also have a common association with former AOL Time Warner President (and current …

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 …

Google’s march into local reached another milestone today with the acquisition of Zagat, a major international provider of high-end restaurant and lifestyle reviews in 100-plus cities.
Zagat remains a major player in a reviews space it pioneered in 1979. In addition to hosting its patented “30 point” reviews from some 350,000 “surveyors,” Zagat has a print, …

Angie’s List issued an S-1 this week as it seeks to raise $75 million from an IPO. The S-1 is full of details about the 16-year-old service reviews company. Its massive, $60 million national ad campaign over the past 18 months, for instance, has produced a membership roster of 820,000 paying households in 170 U.S. …

Fresh on the heels of the sale of Backyard, a local offers company to Pixelfish, entrepreneur Steve Espinosa has assembled a new team to develop “Appetizer,” a mobile-centric service that enables restaurants to offer instant deals via push notifications.
Using the service, which costs $9.95 per month, restaurants can also add menu items and …

SinglePlatform, which places restaurant search info such as menus, specials and photos on search engines and social and mobile media, has raised $3.25 million. The new raise is led by DFJ Gotham Ventures with participation from New World Ventures, First Round Capital and RRE Venture. It is on top of $1.2 million raised in February …

Specialized verticals are a major part of the new marketplaces environment. One vertical we like is TeachStreet, a portal that helps consumers find teachers, and then helps sign them up and process payments.
Along the same lines is TakeLessons, a five-year-old teacher site that is exclusively focused on hooking vetted music teachers with students. The …

The new breed of lead providers for services appears to have slowed down. While Angie’s List is all over the air waves, building its consumer base for an expected IPO, and ServiceMagic is performing well for IAC, and expanding, not much has been heard from such new companies as Redbeacon, Cox’s Kudzu, Likelist, HelpHive, Sears’ …