http://blog.kelseygroup.com News & Views on Local Search and Media Fri, 10 Feb 2012 22:15:28 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en It’s safe to say that Ted Leonsis is at the center of the local revolution. He’s done it all, from his early days trying to jumpstart ecommerce at RedGate, to his work building a local framework at AOL (i.e. Mapquest, Digital City, MovieFone, Studio Now); to his current role as ... http://blog.kelseygroup.com/index.php/2012/02/10/webinar-ted-leonsis-talks-local-live-on-monday-from-the-verizon-center/ Movl, a tv app maker, received $500,000 from billionaire entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban, to help fund business development as the company launches three new features. Movl designs multiscreen, multidevice apps to enhance the connected-TV viewing experience. Now Movl is working on a program called Direct Connect, which adds to the ... http://blog.kelseygroup.com/index.php/2012/02/10/movl-nabs-half-a-million-investment-from-mark-cuban/ The agenda is shaping up well for the Local Search Association's April conference, the first involving a partnership with BIA/Kelsey. The event runs April 21-24 at the Boca Resort in Boca Raton, FL. We've lined up headline presentation from Ursula Worth, Google's head of directories and web hosting partnerships, and Mary ... http://blog.kelseygroup.com/index.php/2012/02/10/lsa-conference-explores-the-path-forward-for-yp-local-search/ Following in the footsteps of major brands such as Apple, Nike, Harley Davidson and ESPN, LivingSocial is now seeking to enhance its core brand via a retail “experience" center where book clubs, cooking classes, painting classes and performances can all take place. The effort follows a trial of a ... http://blog.kelseygroup.com/index.php/2012/02/10/living-social-sets-up-experience-center-in-dc/ On Thursday's Q4 and full-year 2011 earnings call, Eniro announced that it will phase out its print Gula Sider (Yellow Pages) directory in Norway, leaving only local directories as a print product choice in the Nordic country with a population of 4 million. The move is yet another sign that the ... http://blog.kelseygroup.com/index.php/2012/02/10/norway-to-say-good-bye-to-the-big-yellow-book/ The deals culture is shifting from customer acquisition to customer loyalty by necessity. Why? Deals have begun losing high-income women. That’s the view of Next Jump CEO Charlie Kim, a featured speaker at ILM East in Boston March 26-28. “Daily deals had an initial surge then quickly ... http://blog.kelseygroup.com/index.php/2012/02/06/next-jumps-charlie-kim-deals-are-losing-high-end-women-focus-on-loyalty/ We've long looked at the online-offline gap. This comes down to the challenge in connecting the dots between increasing levels of online research and the sheer volume of offline spending (95 percent of U.S. retail). This is ROBO: research online to buy offline. Now we're not only seeing things like retail ... http://blog.kelseygroup.com/index.php/2012/02/06/reversing-robo-through-mobile-shopping/ As SMBs learn the power of online video to reach their customers, video can also be powerful upstream in their value chain. That's the idea behind a few video contests sprouting up this month from big corporations to give SMBs an opportunity to earn cash and marketing assistance. We'll keep ... http://blog.kelseygroup.com/index.php/2012/02/06/social-video-contests-score-big-for-smbs/ 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 ... http://blog.kelseygroup.com/index.php/2012/02/03/bluecross-adds-blue365-health-and-wellness-deals/ We have been meeting with a number of media salespeople, tracking articles about the transformation of the sales process, developing a number of theories specific to transforming the media sales process plus what is needed to support the transformation. We will be exploring a number of these theories and observations ... http://blog.kelseygroup.com/index.php/2012/02/03/selling-with-intelligence/