http://blog.kelseygroup.com News & Views on Local Search and Media Sat, 20 Mar 2010 22:22:21 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The French directory publishers PagesJaunes has made a significant move by acquiring 100 percent of the Austrian people search site 123People, which has a global audience of more than 40 million unique visitors in 11 countries, according to the PagesJaunes announcement. Terms were not disclosed. Here is how Pages Jaunes CEO ... http://blog.kelseygroup.com/index.php/2010/03/20/pagesjaunes-adds-people-search/ Quietly, SuperMedia is rolling out a new approach to online search. If you look on Swtichboard.com today, you'll notice that search results are presented differently than before. Now, Switchboard's top results based on relevancy are plotted on a map (this might look familiar), with the remaining results pushed further down ... http://blog.kelseygroup.com/index.php/2010/03/19/supermedia-debuts-relevancy-based-search/ Avvo, the free legal ratings and review site that has taken on the giant legal publishers that have long dominated the business, announced that it has raised $10 million in Series C funding. The new round adds to $13 million previously raised. The round was led by DAG Ventures, which ... http://blog.kelseygroup.com/index.php/2010/03/19/avvo-gets-10-million-in-new-round/ Leaders of the U.S. independent directory publishing industry were passionate in their defense of print media at this morning's opening session of the Association of Directory Publishers meeting outside Houston, Texas. Jim Hail, the outgoing chair and head of Idaho-based Hagadone Directories, declared "Print is not dead!" He argued that ... http://blog.kelseygroup.com/index.php/2010/03/18/adp-leaders-stauchly-defend-print-media/ Just six months after it launched its SP411 Twitter integration, Superpages is at it again with an offer to Tweet any coupon that businesses upload to an online profile. To do this it has created 72 city-specific Twitter accounts, which users in those cities can follow to get daily tweets for ... http://blog.kelseygroup.com/index.php/2010/03/18/superpages-pushes-out-coupons-twitter-style/ PaidContent reports that AOL Ventures is creating a $10 million venture capital fund for local start-ups. The fund expects to support the “increasing number of startups” in the market. AOL Ventures had previously announced that it is spending $50 million this year to launch Patch.com in “hundreds” of communities. The company ... http://blog.kelseygroup.com/index.php/2010/03/17/aol-sets-up-10-million-venture-fund-for-local-startups/ Online scheduling appears to be one of the break-out features in the marketplaces space this year. Nineteen percent of respondents to BIA/Kelsey’s most recent User View say they made a non-restaurant online appointment in the past six months. Major appointment sites include BookFresh, Full Slate, ZocDoc, Agendize and MaxiPage. Each hopes ... http://blog.kelseygroup.com/index.php/2010/03/17/appointment-city-aims-for-local-medical-specialties/ Lots of news coming from mobile local app provider WHERE today. Just a week after it opened up its WHERE Ads local ad network, it has launched a new Web site and officially changed its name from uLocate to WHERE. The company not only provides the WHERE local app but is ... http://blog.kelseygroup.com/index.php/2010/03/17/where-joins-mkt-lineup-launches-site-changes-name/ Groupon has a roaring head start in the deals of the day category for groups, with more than a million users. We'll hear all about Groupon from CEO Andrew Mason at next week's Marketplaces conference in San Diego, where he is keynoting. But there are now countless imitators adding their ... http://blog.kelseygroup.com/index.php/2010/03/16/group-based-deals-of-the-day-55-and-counting/ Six months after launching its iPhone app, Coupon giant Valpak has announced an app for the Android platform. Reaching the enterprise BlackBerry set is next on its list. The company currently delivers about 17,000 offers via mobile which is equal to its online volume. Features of its mobile couponing include (verbatim ... http://blog.kelseygroup.com/index.php/2010/03/16/valpak-now-with-more-android-blackberry-next/