Local-Research - Discussing the Local Internet

TNS PYP-IYP Top Searches

2010-01-13T10:23:00.000-08:00

Interesting study...

Intermedia Shopping Study:

PYP

1. Septic Tank Service
2. Funeral Directors
3. Plumbing Contractors
4. Glass – Automobile/Plate/Window
5. Appliances – Service & Repair
6. Roofing Contractors
7. Towing – Automotive
8. Electrician/Electrical Contractors
9. Locks & Locksmiths
10. Doors/Garage Doors

IYP

1. Employment Agencies
2. Movers
3. Check Cashing Services
4. Air Conditioning Equipment
5. Building Contractors
6. Apartments
7. Nurses
8. Glass – Automobile/Plate/Window
9. Storage-HH and commercial
10. Septic Tank Service

Ouch! Newspapers in big trouble

2009-06-02T11:48:00.001-07:00

As bad as things are for print directories and other companies, newspapers seem to be taking the worst of the downturn, both in print and in the economy. And it keeps accelerating...

From Terrible To Terrifying: Newspaper Ad Sales Plummet $2.6 Billion In Q1 2009

Google Launches Dashboard for Small Businesses

2009-06-02T08:57:00.001-07:00

In another attempt to get Small Businesses interacting with their Local Platform, Google is offering them a web dashboard with detailed analytics and the ability to easily update their business profiles. Looks like a good offering, but as always with Google attempts at luring SMBs, the question is if SMBs will self service. As I always hear in this space, "small business don't buy advertising, they have it sold to them". I'm starting to believe that and while G has a lot of SMBs in their adwords program, I think it's still too complex for most. This looks simpler, but still not sure if people will self-service. Nonetheless, Google is making it clear that this is an area they tend to continue working on and some day, they may get it done...

Google Local Lures Small Businesses With Their Own Web Dashboard

RHD in Chapter 11

2009-05-29T11:46:00.001-07:00

Not a big surprise here, but RHD filed Chapter 11, to reorganize. Like Idearc, should help lessen the debt load and give them room to operate...

Kelsey Group Blogs » RHD Follows Idearc into Chapter 11

FirstBank is giving little business big ads

2009-05-19T14:56:00.001-07:00

To show their focus on small, local businesses, FirstBank is buying billboards and advertising some of their smallest clients. Nice ad campaign and good way to make a point...

AdFreak: FirstBank gives giant ads to tiny businesses

Don't buy any local .tv domains

2009-05-01T09:42:00.001-07:00

This isn't specifically local-related, but it's interesting, so I'm posting it. There had been a big push to sell .tv domains (from the island of Tuvalu, which is a total disaster - read about it or listen to the great This American Life about it). Anyways, I'm sure a lot of geodomainers or other local people have spent a fair amount of time and money buying those domains. But what happens if you buy a domain and the country ceases to exist? Tuvalu is actually sinking and may be gone soon. Because of that, GoDaddy is warning against buying them. Should be an interesting study. Apparently some former Soviet Union (.su) domains still function, but who knows what will happen with this one.

Gizmodo - GoDaddy Tells Us Not to Buy .TV Domains Because Tuvalu Is Sinking? - GoDaddy Tuvalu Sinking

Superpages has an iPhone app too!

2009-04-15T14:37:00.001-07:00

SuperPages now has an iPhone app too... Nothing too unique or new about it, although it does include movies, weather and wifi hotspots...

Kelsey Group Blogs » Superpages Gives a Thumbs Up to iPhone

Local Coupons Are Coming

2009-04-14T10:15:00.001-07:00

There are tons of coupon sites on the Internet, but the vast majority focus on online retailers (though they have some offline as well). What they don't have is local coupons. The main issue with local coupons is that you need to have relationships with local retailers to get them and need to have scale to have an interesting destination site. The logical routes to getting these coupons are through IYPs or the coupon mailers like Valpak. Someone has finally started to aggregate these and put them online (Retailmenot), but their site is not optimized for local, so the user experience isn't great. However, this is definitely blazing the path for other companies to do this in a better way or to integrate into existing sites with local focus.

RetailMeNot Launches Local Coupons « Screenwerk

Newspaper Lobbyists on the Colbert Report

2009-04-06T09:45:00.000-07:00

John Sturm from the Newspaper Association of America was on the Colbert report. Colbert always does his job tongue-in-cheek, but it's still a rough time for Mr. Sturm.

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Better Know a Lobby - Newspaper Lobby

comedycentral.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

NASA Name Contest

Yelp Improving their iPhone App Even More

2009-04-02T14:49:00.001-07:00

Not content with having the best local app for dining and entertainment reviews, Yelp is upgrading their app once again, and in some really smart ways. The real benefit of a local device like the iPhone with good customer penetration and wide distribution is not just in sending information to it in a one-way flow. The real long-term potential is using all of those distributed users as a way to collect and share information. Yelp had some aspects of that in their previous version, and CitySearch has done that with its app as well, but Yelp is now taking it one step further. The new app uses GPS more heavily, to allow you to more easily find a business you are currently at and provide a review about it, and also offers a new, shorter review format called "quick tips", which gets past the barrier users have trying to leave long reviews with the iPhone keyboard. I'm anxiously awaiting this app and think it's going to be a huge winner for Yelp.

Yelp Focuses On Mobile, New And Improved iPhone App Coming Soon

Idearc Enters Chapter 11

2009-03-31T17:05:00.001-07:00

Another sign of the times. I'm sure they think it's because of the economy, and at this point, it will be hard to separate the impacts of the negative economy from the decline of print, but in reality, it's probably a self-reinforcing effect of both. Print was declining already and the economy is accelerating it. Now the question is, will anyone else be following them into Chapter 11?

Kelsey Group Blogs » As Expected, Idearc Enters Chapter 11

MySpace Local Launches (with help from CitySearch)

2009-03-31T10:32:00.001-07:00

MySpace has launched a local section of their site, using Citysearch data (although it looks more like a White Label than Co-Brand integration). Most of it seems focused on reviews, which puts them in competition with Yelp as a local social review site. I'm not sure if the reviews will be 2-way (publishing back to CitySearch), though I imagine they won't, as MySpace tries to build some footprint in the area. I think this makes a lot of sense for MySpace, to keep users on the site, provide them more valuable content and information to share, and CitySearch is the right partner for them. There are a lot of local content providers they could have worked with, but looking at MySpace's core demo, the categories that most YP providers focus on (home services, dentists, doctors, etc) are not as relevant as Restaurants and Entertainment, which are CitySearch's focus. It will be interesting to watch what happens with this, but it could be really successful.

MySpace and Citysearch Team Up to Challenge Yelp

SuperPages Advertising SuperGuarantee Everywhere

2009-03-26T11:24:00.001-07:00

A couple days ago, on his blog, Greg Sterling showed one of the new TV ads that Idearc has debuted. Today, in a story completely unrelated to local and YPs, TechCrunch posts a huge screenshot talking about how instant messaging service Meebo has turned their entire wallpaper into an ad. And who bought that ad space? SuperPages, to promote their SuperGuarantee product. Apparently, they are seeing that as the growth engine for their company, or at least a tool they can use to differentiate themselves for branding and advertising purposes. As I said before, I doubt any percentage of their users will register for this, send a lead form for it, or collect money on it, but they are at least being very aggressive trying to get the message out there.

Meebo Turns Into One Big Ad, But Users Seem To Like It

DexKnows launches Mobile Platform

2009-03-24T09:07:00.001-07:00

DexKnows rolled out their mobile platform yesterday, allowing consumers to add DexKnows People and Business search to a variety of mobile platforms, including traditional cel phones, a mobile browser, text message search and of course, an iPhone app (which is the only one I've tried). The iPhone app looks like it has all the basic functions and works fairly well, allowing you to easily search for businesses or people by name and providing a somewhat fun, wheel-based ability to select your category (within Food, Entertainment or Travel/Transportation), combine that with a geo location (of which you can save multiple, which I haven't seen before in an iPhone local app), and get results for that combination. It has the other standard features as well, like saving businesses and returning to previous profiles viewed. All in all, a fairly solid app that covers the basics. It would be great for them to add some interactivity to the next version, allowing users to upload business data, reviews and images, to really utilize the iPhone as a 2-way device.

Dex® Mobile

Business.com Goes Local

2009-03-23T09:20:00.001-07:00

Over the weekend, Business.com rolled out a redesign of their site. As part of it, they've integrated listings from their sister site, DexKnows.com. Now, on pretty much every directory page on their site, they've added a "Local Search" widget, which allows you to take their national listings and filter them down to find local vendors.

Merchant Accounts | Business.com

Yelp's Entering Dangerous Territory

2009-03-18T17:00:00.001-07:00

(image from the East Bay Express)

I posted a while ago about the issues with reviews and the things you have to concern yourself with in the generation of that kind of content. In the local space, Yelp is definitely the leader in review content, but a while back they had an article written about them (more than one actually) indicating that they basically engage in extortion, offering to remove bad reviews only if advertisers pay them and removing good reviews for those who don't.

After that initial wave of stories came out, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman came out and vehemently denied them. He posted on their blog and stated they were outright lies. However, the stories didn't stop coming and now a new story has been posted (by the same person writing the original one) naming names of businesses that received this treatment and going into a lot of detail about these practices (even naming salespeople). I have no idea whether this is true or not, but even allegations of impropriety like this can permanently damage a business. Stoppelman really needs to come forward and, if this is true, needs to be clear about it, make a mea culpa, and outline how they are going to make sure it doesn't happen again. If it isn't true, he needs to go open kimono and show the world just how their process works, so he once and for all disproves this before it gains (additional) life of its own. It may not be the best option, but this could go downhill quickly.

East Bay Express | News | Yelp Extortion Allegations Stack Up

Local Conferences - Kelsey Marketplaces Show

2009-03-18T09:17:00.000-07:00

I've spent the last 3 days at the Kelsey Marketplaces Show in LA and have to say I've come away very impressed with a lot of the companies on show and what they were doing (and the success they're having with them). As Kelsey said on their blog, even in the current environment, everyone is very optimistic and there's tons of room to grow in the Vertical space.

A few companies jumped out at me from the discussions:

AutoTrader - They have a very traditional business model (paid inclusion with 2 flavors), but execute it so well that they have grown over 20% YOY, and were a $650 MM business last year. This one shows me that if stay focused on one specific area, in a large market space, you can be very successful. What they haven't done is dilute their message by selling 10 different products, but have sold one that works for both users and advertisers and also gives them comprehensive data to share with other sites

Dotmenu - Dotmenu has done something very different in their space. While many local companies stay away from Restaurants because of their traditional lack of advertising spend (in YP, etc), Dotmenu is not only pursuing that category, but pursuing low-end and mid-level restaurants that their competitors like OpenTable won't touch. Through their Allmenus site, they have focused on digitizing print data (menus) and developing comprehensiveness, making them the place to go for that info (also, unlike others in this space, they haven't just posted menu scans, but have formatted data that search engines can read). They also have a college site that helps utilized those focused markets, where users are especially likely to interact with social components of their site, both online and on mobile devices. But the real wow for me was how they are getting inside the transaction. While their sites initially serve as marketing, for many restaurants, they will actually take orders and collect money on behalf of the restaurants. They then deduct the advertising spend from the money collected and end up paying restaurants at the end of the month, rather than billing them, meaning no collections issues, while at the same time taking what had been a lead business and making it transactional.

TeachStreet - To me, this was the #1 wow company of the conference. TeachStreet focuses on non-degree learning/classes (things like cooking, dancing, art, etc). They have taken an interesting approach to this multi-billion dollar market. The first step is that they determine a market to enter and have an offshore team scanning all the sites in that market to collect information on businesses and instructors, and classes available. They create pages for each of these and are focused on comprehensiveness of data. However, rather than creating a walled garden for that data, they are clearly focused on making it as open as possible. How can they do this? Because in my view, they are focused on being a platform for these businesses, helping businesses market themselves, schedule classes and collect money. So they are making themselves part of the transaction, regardless of where the user comes from on the Internet. This also makes it easy for individual instructors to set out on their own and make money outside of the school they work in, giving them more revenue and potentially lower prices for buyers. Finally, looking at their website, they are making the smart move of encouraging their instructors to create content for their site, both adding value for users and SEO traffic.

There were several other impressive companies, among them the Active Network (up to $250MM in revenues with 3000 employees with plenty more growth to come - most interestingly they get a lot of their revenue from large brands) and Oodle, who really is taking the lead in classifieds aggregation and sounds like they really understand how to interact in the new, social world on the Internet.

All in all, this has been a great conference, interesting seminars and the ability to interact with the decision makers from a lot of great local/vertical companies.

Even in a Recession, You Can't Afford to Pass on Social Media

2009-03-16T09:32:00.001-07:00

It's a recession, and a lot of companies are looking to cut back on Marketing spend. However, a new Forrester study says that, even in this economy, more than 50% of companies are increasing their spend on social media. This makes a lot of sense. Social media is fairly cheap to invest in and provides inexpensive content for your site. And, in a good scenario, it can create an ongoing content creation machine that can power your site far more cheaply and effectively than paid media.

In the local space, many of the traditional YP companies have been slow to adopt social media (in fact, some might say they haven't adopted it at all, with the exception of Reviews and Social Bookmarking). Instead, they are allowing insurgents like Yelp and Angie's List to take the lead on that, and as a result, those companies are gaining quickly. YP companies, and others in the local space who have yet to adopt social media, must look on it as an integral part of their content and traffic strategies and move forward now, not just integrating reviews, but other basic social features, such Commenting, Topic Forums, Local Content creation and more. If not, the Yelps of the world will no longer be the insurgents, they'll be the incumbents.

Despite Recession, More Than 50% of Marketers Increase Spending on Social Media - ReadWriteWeb

Idearc Results Follow In Line with RHD's - What's Next?

2009-03-16T09:09:00.001-07:00

Idearc has reported their results just days after RHD's, and the reports are very similar. They are both shrinking in revenues and profits (but both still with significant Operating Profits), but both have debt that will never be paid off at the current revenue and profit levels. As their businesses move online more and more, their Internet revenues are not making up for print revenue losses. They're both trapped in the space where they don't want to cannibalize their print revenue too much while they still have it, but are lagging on the Internet side for the same reason?

So what happens next? They have both mentioned bankruptcy, which is a realistic discussion because of the size of their debt and the current market for debt restructuring. The real question is will they really go bankrupt or is this a negotiating ploy? Or does it make a difference? In reality, neither of these companies is going to close the doors. The operating profits are still healthy and selling their assets will bring much less money to the debtholders than continued operation will. So, whether they go bankrupt or not, the only option seems to be for the debtholders to agree to forgive some of their debt, to allow the companies to continue to operate, and to be thankful they're getting paid whatever they get. Whether that happens in bankruptcy or not may be moot.

Of course, there's one more option too: Consolidation. YPC seems to be fairly healthy and could make an aggressive move to take an even larger lead, get national coverage, and try to take the dominant position in local, both on and offline. They already have a deal with Idearc to exchange listings. Could that be the first step?

Kelsey Group Blogs » Idearc Results Are Predictably Grim; Bankruptcy an Option

LocalPrice.com - Comparison Shopping for Local Goods and Services

2009-03-02T11:14:00.001-08:00

There are a lot of companies out there to provide you contact with local service providers (ServiceMagic, the new Sears site, etc). Most of those have a similar model, though: Tell us what you want and give us your information and we'll give it to a bunch of people who will respond and you can take it from there. Those are good solutions if you're looking for a provider who can service your needs, but it definitely does not provide you much information about the person contacting you, pricing, etc. And in some of those situations, having less information that the person you're dealing with can really hurt you.

So today on Screenwerk, I saw an article about LocalPrice.com, a new company that's taking a new approach on things. They are currently only in Atlanta, but have a really interesting value proposition: They provide you information to compare local products or services up-front. Their model is more similar to a shopping engine model, and gives you a lot more information about the person you'll be contacting, pricing, etc. This really allows you to make a more educated decision and probably save yourself some money in the meantime. Their model depends on a lot of high-quality structed content, which is really going to be the bottleneck in their system (which is why its a good idea for them to focus on their starting market, Atlanta, before trying to expand too quickly), but that's also the strength of the system. It will be interesting to see how things go for them.

Price Comparisons of Atlanta Service Providers | LocalPrice.com

New DexKnows.com Site Goes Live

2009-02-25T11:45:00.001-08:00

After a while in Beta, the new DexKnows.com site launched yesterday... It will be very interesting to see how this impacts their positioning in the marketplace and if they see significant traffic increases from the more SEO-friendly structure of the site...

Kelsey Group Blogs » New Dex IYP Goes Live

Yellow Pages Around the World - Entry #1

2009-02-24T15:19:00.000-08:00

For some of us who work in the YP/Local space, things aren't always the most exciting. But we are part of a global fraternity of YP employees, and from time to time, I'm going to try to bring a view of the world of the Yellow Pages. Here's a commercial from our brethren in the Phillipines. I'm guessing this is not officially licensed, but it's called the Jedi video (It's not in English, but there are enough English words that you should be able to figure it out)...

Sears Launches ServiceMagic Copy

2009-02-24T15:12:00.001-08:00

Their hook, apparently, is that users will pay to list jobs, provide detailed project specs, and pre-screened contractors will bid on them. Long story short, I sincerely doubt this will ever get any kind of traction. Users don't want to pay for things they can get for free elsewhere and you're really trying to get them to decide on a provider based on price, when there are many more factors that are important to that kind of decision. Then, Sears wants to hold the money in escrow until everyone has agreed that things have been done to satisfaction, then will take 10% of the contractor's money? Sounds pretty bad on both ends...

Kelsey Group Blogs » Sears Launches ServiceLive, a Leads Site

The Life of an iPhone App

2009-02-20T11:34:00.001-08:00

Very interesting analysis of iPhone app usage. What it shows is, in short, that iPhone app usage degrades severely starting almost immediately after first usage. Paid applications start at higher rates (in terms of % of users returning to use them on a given day), but degrade more quickly, almost zeroing out by 90 days out. Free apps, on the other hand, degrade more slowly, but are still around 1% of users returning by 90 days out. Sounds pretty similar to what I experience with apps on my own iPhone. This definitely doesn't mean every app loses its users, since this is an average, but it means if you want to really build a business on an iPhone app, you better find a way to differentiate yourself and make an app that brings people back beyond the first couple days.

The Life of an iPhone App: Nasty, Brutish and Short

Local Web Advertising is Slowing Down

2009-02-18T15:05:00.001-08:00

All advertising spending will be going down in the next few years, with the state of the economy. Rates for ad space are decreasing and there are fewer people looking to buy. Even local, which had been the fastest-growing part of the online ad market, is looking at a decrease in spending, if this articles is correct (not just a slowing of growth but a decrease).

Local Web-Ad Market Cools Down - WSJ.com

SuperPages will be guaranteeing some advertisers' work

2009-02-17T10:22:00.001-08:00

This is interesting. In around 300 categories (they don't mention which here, but I would imagine most are service-based categories like plumbers, locksmiths, etc - but ones where success or failure are fairly clear-cut), SuperPages will be insuring work done by specific advertisers who have opted in. If there is a dispute that can't be resolved by SP, they will pay the user up to $500 to make up for it. There's also some mention of potentially "punishing" the advertiser if they misbehave on this plan.

It's an interesting move, and a potential differentiator in the market. SP may have some issues getting advertisers to opt-in, but nonetheless, it could work (and I doubt they'd end up paying much out, though I don't know if they're prepared for the volume of problem resolution they might be dealing with). To me, though, the whole point of this is getting users engaged. SP is using this as a way to get users to register and leave reviews, which is becoming more and more important in the space (especially given the success of Yelp).

Superpages’ New ‘SuperGuarantee’ a Bold Move « Screenwerk

ServiceMagic getting into SEM and site building

2009-01-29T09:46:00.001-08:00

ServiveMagic announced an interesting acquisition today, buying a company called Market Hardware, which does websites and SEM for SMBs in some high-volume online verticals. This is going to be interesting, as it makes them more competitive to the IYPs and companies like ReachLocal who are all going after the same customers. I have to think that SM's stable of Lead customers will have huge potential to convert to SEM customers as well (and may shift their spend to SM from those other legacy providers). We'll see what happens...

Kelsey Group Blogs » IAC’s ServiceMagic Buys Market Hardware

Idearc and YPC working together

2009-01-22T10:28:00.001-08:00

Looks like the big boys are starting to work together. Idearc (SuperPages) and AT&T Yellow Pages (YellowPages.com) have signed an agreement to share advertisers (and I would assume revenues). This is the first step to creating a super-IYP that can start to think about competing with Google in the local space and give them a real competitor. Interesting stuff and will be interesting to see if RHD and others follow suit...

Idearc, AT&T YP in Distribution Agreement « Screenwerk

YellowBook showing strong growth online

2009-01-20T10:11:00.001-08:00

Some strong numbers out from Yellowbook...

Interesting Yellowbook Stats « Screenwerk

RHD's new DexKnows site is in Beta

2008-12-23T08:46:00.001-08:00

RH Donnelly has launched the beta version of their new yellow pages site, DexKnows. Lots of simple improvements and looks like a good first step in making more progress online.

Kelsey Group Blogs » RHD in Beta with New IYP Platform

MapQuest is really ramping up

2008-12-12T10:03:00.001-08:00

MapQuest is doing a lot in the local portal space now... This article is about them adding Twitter, which I don't think is going to provide too much value, but the item to note here is that they say they've had 1 MM people register and personalize in the first 20 days since launch...

MapQuest Local Adds Twitter Feed « Screenwerk

CitySearch vs. Yelp Apps

2008-12-11T16:50:00.001-08:00

CitySearch launched their iPhone app today. On the surface, it has a lot of the same data as Yelp, although Yelp has better deeper reviews (it is their specialty after all). However, CitySearch did one-up Yelp in one area: While Yelp allows image uploads from their app, CitySearch allows reviews to be uploaded through their app as well...

Citysearch Vs. Yelp On The iPhone: Can You Tell Them Apart?

Yelp's iPhone App gets even better (and smarter)

2008-12-09T11:35:00.001-08:00

The Yelp iPhone App, which I already thought was the best in local, has now been updated with a bunch of new features. The most interesting, though, it that it allows users to upload pictures of the businesses straight to the site. With so many users running around with camera phones, this only makes sense. For the broader "local" business community, though, this doesn't necessarily provide a lot of content around the big revenue categories (most of which are services), but a cool feature for those categories Yelp specializes in...

Yelp Updates iPhone App « Screenwerk

Layoffs starting in the online local space

2008-12-04T11:31:00.001-08:00

Looks like Marchex is cutting 10% of their workforce (35 people)...

Marchex cuts 10 percent of workforce - TechFlash: Seattle's Technology News Source

Oodle to Power Facebook Classifieds

2008-12-02T17:22:00.001-08:00

Oodle continues to gain market share on classifieds, though I don't think they make any money off it. but now they'll be powering both MySpace and Facebook...

Confirmed: Oodle To Power Facebook Classifieds

Demand in the Home Service Categories

2008-11-20T17:27:00.001-08:00

Some anecdotal evidence about the big-revenue home services categories the local business depends on so much. During the Kelsey get-together in No Cal, some industry people have indicated that because the home services companies are now less busy (because of decreasing home equity withdrawals to fund improvements), they're looking for more lead sources (although they also mention those lead costs are decreasing)...

Kelsey Group Blogs » Insigthts from Home Services Heavyweights

Yelp Stats

2008-11-18T16:49:00.001-08:00

Some great stats from Yelp. 15MM users a month is nothing to sneeze at, and if they start to trust Yelp for Restaurants, etc, it's only a matter of time before they start using it for high-revenue categories too...

Kelsey Group Blogs » Yelp Traffic Stats Suggests Broad Local Usage

Free Print Ad with Online?

2008-11-12T13:43:00.001-08:00

It's only for jobs and only for a test period, but the NYTimes is offering their online job advertisers free print ads when they buy an online one. This is going to become more and more frequent as print advertising degrades to such a level (especially in classifieds categories) that, by itself, it wouldnt provide enough content for print readers. So, to fill in content in print and retain any readers it has, print publications will have to go in this direction. A first shot over the bow perhaps?

Print in Crisis: NYTimes Gives Ads Free Paper

MLS going direct to consumers

2008-11-11T09:43:00.001-08:00

Trying to build a real estate site (a huge local category) one of the problems has always been where to get the data. Working with MLSs is the best way to get data, but they're all regional and not all that easy to work with. To get national coverage, you need to do a lot of deals, and as you can see from sites like Redfin, Trulia, etc, its just not that feasible. A new site called HomesDatabase has been created by an MLS in the mid-Atlantic part of the country and is one example of MLSs trying to expand their business model. Their goal is to go national, but we'll see if they have any more luck than the rest. At the very least, though, if local MLSs all over the country do this and allow sharing of their data, aggregator sites will have some good stuff to work with.

MLS Tired of Zillow, Trulia: Goes Direct To Consumers

Writeup of 15 Local iPhone Apps

2008-11-10T10:06:00.001-08:00

Yelp is still the best in my view, though the Google Earth one is pretty sweet as well...

15+ FREE iPhone Apps to Navigate Your World

Financial Discussion of YP Companies

2008-11-10T09:38:00.001-08:00

Interesting summary of a financial article on the state of the Yellow Pages business...

Dense ‘Deal’ Piece on YP « Screenwerk

Not that many SMBs use the Internet as their main traffic source

2008-10-03T13:10:00.001-07:00

Many San Diego SMBs Advertise Online, Or Do They?…

Google Maps Listing Quality Guidelines

2008-09-16T09:46:00.001-07:00

Some good info from Google on how to submit good listings to their maps site and avoid being Map spam...

Google Maps Adds Business Listing Quality Guidelines

Local Video Spam!

2008-09-16T09:36:00.001-07:00

Leave it to MerchantCircle to figure out how to game the system. They've done a big deal with Spotzer (similar to Spotrunner, etc - produce local videos) to produce thousands and thousands of video ads for local businesses. They'll use the businesses information to create the ads, but from the looks of the sample, they aren't doing any customization or adding any information, real value, or real images or video of the business. Here's the text from the sample ad (a home theater store in Tennessee):

"When it comes to shopping, it's not easy to find just the right thing. Well look no further. We've got what you're looking for" (business name, phone number, city state and zip shown at the end - no street address)

So, what's the point of these ads, since they don't really provide any information on the business. They don't even include the street address, just a phone number (most likely a tracking number) and City information? The point is to be taken in by Google as "video spam", hoping Google will index the city information and phone number. If a user looking for information does see this, they'll have to call the number or click through to get any real information. This is what makes it spam. No real value or information, just there to fool Google. Let's hope they're too smart for this. But that's MerchantCircle for you.

MerchantCircle and Spotzer Partner for SMB Vids « Screenwerk

Phone Book Myth on Mythbusters This Week

2008-09-09T12:25:00.000-07:00

For those of you who can't get enough of Local (and Yellow Pages specifically) at work, Mythbusters is doing an episode this week that includes a YP myth (there seems to be a myth that if you collate 2 phone books together, their pages will magically stick). I've never heard this myth before but apparently it exists. Tune in to the Discovery Channel Weds at 9PM Eastern/Pacific.

Mythbusters Phone Book Episode Schedule

The Worlds Oldest Phone Book

2008-09-09T12:23:00.001-07:00

Time for the lighter side of local. Christie's auction house has just auctioned off the world's oldest phone book. It had a residential directory and a yellow pages. Here's the great part, though: There aren't any phone numbers in it, just a list of people who have phones (I guess you just asked the operator for the person you wanted). If you click through, there's a video of it too. No mention of what it sold for.

Video: the world's oldest telephone book - Boing Boing

Drop in Real Estate Newspaper Advertising

2008-09-09T09:43:00.001-07:00

Adding to the earlier story about newspapers losing money, look at this chart, from the Trulia Blog, another of those sites I mentioned that's killing the papers' classifieds business.

Ouch! Trends in Newspapers and Real Estate Advertising

Can Newspapers Be Saved? Here Are Some Ideas...

2008-09-08T10:21:00.001-07:00

Building on the Newspaper discussion begun the other day, Search Engine Land has an article asking the question Can Newspapers Be Saved and how? The gist of it is:

This is the standard one we always hear. Advertiser relationships are the biggest asset for newspapers (just as they as for yellow pages), so they must defend those relationships and extend them, acting as trusted resources to provide a broad base of advertising products.
Sell everything your advertisers want. Not just newspaper, but IYPs (YellowPages.com, SuperPages and Dexknows are mentioned) and other local Internet traffic sources like CitySearch.
Focus on phone calls. As we've discussed here, most advertisers are not focused on directing clicks and traffic to their websites, except as it drives phone calls. Their sites are typically not optimized for conversion and they are not set up to do rapid responses to emails, so just skip the middle man and send the phone calls directly.

Everything else in here has to do with sales. Invest in your team, keep it easy to sell (this is a key - package products together rather than making it a complicated sale that seems like you're nickle and diming them), and make sure your sales comp is aligned with the new product set.

Sounds like pretty good advice. Will newspapers take it? That's another story...

Can Newspapers Be Saved? Part 2: Potential Solutions

Yelp 2.0 for iPhone on its Way

2008-09-08T10:14:00.001-07:00

According to Greg Sterling, the next iteration of the Yelp iPhone app is coming. The first version is by far my favorite local app on the iPhone, and it sounds like this one will only improve on it, offering more information, more search options and some other fun things on top of it. These guys definitely get how to build an iPhone app.

Yelp 2.0 for the iPhone Coming Soon | LocalMobileSearch

Newspaper Ad Revenues Dropping Fast

2008-09-05T09:44:00.001-07:00

I don't post too much about newspapers here, but they are a large (though shrinking) and important part of the local advertising ecosystem. I've argued for a while that, while yellow pages companies are in a tough position, newspapers are even worse off. Why is that? Because they face a lot more competition and on different factors compared to YPs. Any local blogger can cover local news (sometimes better than the big papers, especially when you're talking about a neighborhood or smaller area). They can go deeper on topics, have a better understanding of the day-to-day life in an area and, most importantly, they can be more timely with their news delivery. While newspapers publish once a day (and their online schedules are not that much more frequent), bloggers publish anytime. And via blog readers and other notification channels, interested people can know the news as soon as it happens. While this will impact other local players, like radio and TV, the biggest impact is in the newspaper industry. Yellow Pages obviously face significantly new media competition as well, but it's not as likely that one person in their house will provide the same competition for YPs that they provide for newspapers.

So what's the point of all this? According to the Newspaper Association of America (via Techcrunch), newspaper advertising revenues have been dropping off a cliff. Not only that, but their Internet revenues are decreasing as well. Most people I know think we're in a recession and advertising is bound to drop off as a whole. But it definitely looks like newspapers are taking the brunt of it (though the YPs are not exactly feeling good either). Classified ads, one of the big revenue areas for newspapers, have been eaten away for a while now, by Craigslist and vertical sites like Rent.com, Realtor.com, Monster.com and the like. But now it seems like display is following, and it's just going to keep going down from here.

Negative Momentum: Newspaper Ad Revenues Gaining Downhill Speed (Even Online Is Declining)

What does a New Zealand YP Company have to do with us?

2008-09-05T09:29:00.001-07:00

Kelsey group had an interesting writeup today of Yellow Pages Group New Zealand's acquisition of a majority stake in a couple sites targeted at people over 50. On it's face, seems like it's not a big deal, but thinking about it further, I tend to think this is a really astute move and something we should think about when looking to expand our local (and YP specifically) businesses in the US.

The core Internet demographic (teen-40 years old) are getting pretty locked in to going to Google or Yahoo or other Internet pure-play sites to get their information. It's that activity that's hurting YP revenues with those types of users. However, print Yellow Pages still experience strong usage among people 40 and over, and haven't slowed too much in that age group. However, that slowdown is likely to come, and before it does, Yellow Pages companies should be looking to expand their brand equity with that demographic by providing them with Internet destinations and experiences that suit their needs and wants. Similar to the posting I wrote about women being a core demo of YP sites online, I'm going to argue that we need to focus our experiences towards those customers who still provide us good usage, that we have not yet lost to the Internet pure-play companies.

YPGNZ has shown us an example of that kind of forward thinking, and we need to start thinking that way here as well.

Kelsey Group Blogs » Yellow Pages Group New Zealand’s Boomer Acquisition

Search Insider Recommends Yahoo! Buy RH Donnelly

2008-09-03T10:30:00.001-07:00

What should Yahoo! do? How can they improve their business? How can they undo the major mistake they made in not selling to MSFT? Lots of people have their opinions, but according to the Search Insider column (via Greg Sterling), one of the recommendations is for them to buy a yellow pages company, specifically RHD. Why not Idearc? Not sure, any more than I'm sure why Barron's recommended RHD stock vs. Idearc.

But what this shows is that there are potential synergies between Search companies and Yellow Pages companies. Search, like many Internet businesses, has trouble getting a critical mass of small businesses. Yellow Pages companies have those relationships (and long-term established ones), but for the most part, don't have the Internet products to go with them. The question is going to be, does a Search company want to take a huge cut on their margins by acquiring a company that has a huge sales force in exchange for increasing their market share? I guess we'll see...

“Buy the Yellow Pages” Returns « Screenwerk

Taxonomy and Local Search

2008-08-29T13:27:00.001-07:00

Kelsey references a piece from the head of BD at Localeze talking about Taxonomy and IYPs/Local sites. The gist of it is, we need to be designing these sites to be more than just category and geography driven and make them more focused around a search-based structure, where users can really search for what they need and not have to try to figure out what category to look for. This really gets back to that discussion that the last generation focused on browse by category and this generation is all about search.

Kelsey Group Blogs

Verticals in the Local Space

2008-08-27T08:54:00.001-07:00

A "consultant specializing in vertical development" talks about how the local space has been slow to really build out Vertical sites, focusing on areas like auto, wedding, legal, etc. This is definitely a direction local sites need to go in, and the first site that gets to become a one-stop-shop, with solid content in all the major verticals, along with their core business listings, should gain good traction with users as their default local site. And the good news for all of us who aren't Google is that this is not the kind of thing they do, so the door is open for someone else to step through.

Kelsey Group Blogs » Vertical Slowdown? Teresa Lawlor Discusses Challenges

IYP Reach in the US (according to Google)

2008-08-21T11:11:00.000-07:00

Via TechSoapBox:

IYP Reach in the US (according to Google) - Tech Soapbox

Medical Categories Slowly Moving Online

2008-08-19T10:56:00.001-07:00

For traditional yellow pages companies, Doctors, Dentists and related categories are huge revenue generators. Online, though, they've been very slow to adopt (as with Real Estate, which we discussed yesterday). Several companies have tried different approaches to bring these categories online, like HealthGrades and several competitors, which offer reviews of medical professionals. Looks like there's another new site moving into this space, called ZocDoc, which has information on doctors, the insurance they accept and allows you to schedule appointments. Like many Local startups, I suspect this one is going to run into a Sales issue, with doctors being very busy people and their front offices not really being equipped to spend their marketing money. Like all categories, this one will eventually be fully engaged online, but for the time being, I think the YPs, IYPs and Google will be the primary resources they'll use.

ZocDoc Gets $3M to Help You Find a Doctor

Optimizing Google OneBox and Yahoo! Shortcut Local Listings

2008-08-19T10:49:00.001-07:00

Good article talking about how to best optimize your business listings to get good Google and Yahoo! local placements.

Optimizing Google OneBox and Yahoo! Shortcut Local Listings

Barrons Promotes RH Donnelly as "Risky, But Attractive"

2008-08-18T12:22:00.001-07:00

RHD's stock is up 14% at the moment based mostly on an article in Barron's which indicates that, despite the 97% drop in stock price in the last year, RHD's directories are still experiencing strong usage in some sectors and are "far from dead". The albatross, as they say, is the $9.7B of net debt the companies holds. But, as they say, if you're looking for a high-risk, potential high-return stock, RHD may be one to check out. This article made me wonder if they feel the same about Idearc, but they didn't really say here.

Flashing Yellow, With Lots of Green - Barrons.com

Zillow Launches Mobile Search for Real Estate

2008-08-18T11:44:00.001-07:00

Certain categories have seen good mobile/iPhone applications developed and others have not. I would put Real Estate in the latter category. Real Estate as an industry is known as a late adopter of technology, and apparently the mobile space is no different. Zillow, however, has launched a web application (not downloadable) allowing users to search for properties by street address, city, state or zip. I haven't been able to try it out yet, but it sounds good.

It is surprising that none of the larger real estate sites had an application ready at the launch of iPhone apps because of the natural fit of RE for the mobile space. It's natural to be out taking a walk, see a For Sale sign and want to know the price/bedroom/bath/etc. Or to be able to find open houses near your location.

While Zillow is getting a start, there are limitations to a web app which would be overcome with a downloadable iPhone app (which I'm sure Zillow is working on). The ability to easily save properties to your phone is one, but the bigger one is the ability to tap into the GPS/location-aware features of your phone to reduce the need to type in an address. As I've said, I'm sure it's coming, but hopefully it'll be here soon.

Touch-Tap-Click-Push…Search Properties From Your Mobile Browser | Zillow® Blog

User-Generated Reviews and Their Impact on Local

2008-08-18T10:16:00.001-07:00

We talked about reviews and the ability for businesses to respond to them last week. Today on Valleywag, there was some discussion of a company possibly offering to push negative reviews to the bottom if businesses bought a paid ad with them (I'm not mentioning the company's name here, because Valleywag thinks this was just a rogue salesperson, not a real policy of that company).

However, this brings up some of the complexities of reviews and serving two masters: users and businesses. For users to really find the reviews content useful, it has to be real information that cannot be "bought" by businesses. Of course, if this is the case and a business already has significant numbers of negative reviews on a given site, it will make it more difficult to sell paid products to that business.

On the other side of the coin, there have been stories about consumers/users threatening businesses with negative reviews if they don't get what they want (which many times includes them demanding free product or the like). This is the downside of user generated reviews. While they give users the ability to provide information to others, there will always be some that abuse them.

So how can businesses solve this problem? To me, the answer is twofold:

Do the best you can to keep your customers happy. This may seem simple, but if you want good reviews, provide good service.
Promote your customers' involvement on the sites where you advertise (and for sites, this means give businesses the means to promote you on-site). Put up stickers in your window letting consumers know where to post reviews. Tell your staff to promote this (especially to happy customers). Happy customers will go out of their way to send you more business, but you need to give them the means to do so.

Finally, as we talked about last week, it is important that sites provide businesses with the means to respond to negative reviews and even challenge their validity from time to time. The purer the review system the better, but as local Internet companies, we always have to balance the needs of all of our constitutents.

Commentards: Yelp protection racket alleged by anonymous cowards

Yahoo Launches Fire Eagle

2008-08-13T10:03:00.001-07:00

Yahoo's advanced research division, called Brickhouse, has released a highly anticipated platform called Fire Eagle. This platform allows developers to receive geo-location data from their users to easily integrate into their sites.

As GPS-enabled devices like the iPhone continue to proliferate and users start to see more value in providing their locations to websites, in order to get customized results, see who's nearby, etc, platforms like this will be key. This will allow the web to do some of its transition from a "pull" platform (ask for what you want and it will be shown to you) to a "push" platform (it will show you things you will be interested in without having to ask for them).

Yahoo Fire Eagle Launches Geo-Location Platform To The Public

iPhone Food Apps

2008-08-13T09:52:00.000-07:00

Mashable has a writeup of 21 iPhone food apps, most of which are restaurant finders and reviews. Their review of the YPMobile App? "When worse comes to worse, hit up the Yellow Pages". They also had some good apps I haven't heard of, like one that includes the menus of many popular restaurants. A good read if you're looking for new apps for your iPhone or just want to see what your competitors are doing.

21 iPhone Food Apps to Eat Your Heart Out

Local-20 - Review and Analysis of Local 2.0 Sites

2008-08-12T09:44:00.001-07:00

A new blog has launched which is doing analysis of Local 2.0 sites from around the world. Could be a great place to do some competitive research or pick up some best practices from sites you wouldn't otherwise see.

Local-20

Advertiser feedback on negative reviews

2008-08-12T09:40:00.001-07:00

Today, Greg Sterling asks if the ability for advertisers to provide feedback on negative reviews is the future of reviews. I tend to agree with him that it's the future of online reviews, but it's also the past of reviews. Why do I say that? Because this is what eBay has been doing for years. As we all know, feedback is the key to the success of eBay's marketplace. Without trust in the buyer/seller you're dealing with, their system will not work.

However, as with local sites, one negative review can really impact your business on eBay, so they needed ways to deal with that negative feedback. The first thing they do is that they have the ability for users (sellers especially) to dispute negative feedback, although this ability is used sparingly. The ability for the seller to respond to negative feedback is really the main tool they have to keey their rating solid.

As IYPs and other local sites prepare for the next stage in their evolution, content is going to be critical, and reviews are a big part of that content. Local sites implementing reviews need to make sure they're not just slapped into the site, but that they are built with thought behind them, processes to support them, and the ability to get the advertisers involved and engaged. As we've seen from Merchant Circle's infamous launch strategy, negative feedback on a website is always a strong impetus for advertisers to get involved.

Is This the Future of Online Reviews? « Screenwerk

Should consumers be able to opt out of phone book deliveries?

2008-08-12T09:01:00.001-07:00

Don't know how I missed this yesterday and is was on one of my favorite blogs, The Consumerist. It discusses attempts by some local governments to allow their residents to opt out of receiving phone books and the difficulties that previous governments have had in passing such laws.

It really seems like allowing people to opt out shouldnt negatively impact business much if advertisers are looking at their ads based on performance instead of on circulation. In fact, it could reduce costs for yellow pages companies (though it would require them to keep a database of who has opted in/out). However, there may be more impact than we would think.

Are there a lot of people who would opt out but end up keeping the phone books they are delivered and using them? I have heard the argument that phone books have the benefit of being able to find things faster than you can online and perhaps, if a pipe has burst or you have to do something really quickly, where you aren't familiar with a vendor, people still grab for Old Faithful. In any case, if you look at the comments on this article (which is read by some of the more tech-savvy people around) there is still a fair amount of support for the books, and people still see value in them.

Phone Books: Should Consumers Be Able To Opt-Out Of Phone Book Deliveries?

Self-Storage Reports Strong Profits

2008-08-11T10:57:00.001-07:00

This one may be a bit off-topic, but relevant. As we move forward on this blog, we are going to talk a bit more about big local (Print, IYP and Search) categories, as it is relevant.

Storage and Moving and two big categories for us, and they're categories that are undergoing some growth right now, if this story is any indication. In this case, Public Storage has had their profits increase by 500% this quarter (vs last year), mostly due to the housing market. Realtors and Loans are two other big categories for the local space, and ones that are undergoing drastic shifts with the changes in the housing markets. We can probably all look for their investments in advertising to decrease a bit (at least temporarily). However, it looks like storage (and likely moving as well) may pick up some of the slack. Time for local sites to shift focus a bit?

Amid 91201 Foreclosures, Public Storage Inc. Reports Strong Gains | Redfin Los Angeles Sweet Digs

How Google Ranks Local Businesses

2008-08-08T09:13:00.001-07:00

Here's a really informative paper on how Google ranks local businesses for their maps site (and I'd assume for other local searches as well).

Local Search Ranking Factors « Screenwerk

Why are hotels eliminating Yellow Pages

2008-08-07T10:21:00.001-07:00

The Kelsey Group blog today has an interesting post about yellow pages in hotels. Some of the major chains, Hyatt, Omni and a few others, are discontinuing providing yellow pages in hotels. Seems a strange move, since people in a hotel are usually in an unfamiliar town and need to look up business information. But, the Kelsey blog thinks this is actually a move to get more people signing up to pay for the in-room Internet connection. Makes sense to me. That being said, I think hotel guests are probably a big enough traffic source for print YP usage to make it worthwhile for the YP companies to compenate the hotels to carry the books. That way, the hotels get their monetization either way...

Kelsey Group Blogs

MerchantCircle Launches Website Creation/Hosting

2008-08-06T11:11:00.001-07:00

MerchantCircle has a new templated Website Creation product, which they're using to hook advertisers more deeply and offer a broader product set for those SMBs who don't have their own sites. Interesting quote for me here is that their next step is to move from impressions and clicks to calls. Seems a common theme that most local sites are moving to promoting calls as their key metric.

Kelsey Group Blogs » Merchant Circle Launches Web Site Creation/Hosting

Local Shopping on a Mobile Phone and What It Means

2008-08-06T11:04:00.001-07:00

One area where there have been relatively few iPhone apps that have launched is the Shopping space. TheFind just launched what I believe to be the first shopping app, and while it's still in private Beta (which means I haven't gotten to test it yet), it got me thinking about what shopping on your phone will be about.

I'm sure sites like Amazon and others will have nice little apps you can use to buy products that are available on their websites (basically just extensions of their sites), but I think the real impact of these kinds of applications will be on brick and mortar prices. When shoppers go into stores and see prices now, they often don't have any basis for comparison (although many do check the price online before they go into the store). Some stores have kiosks in the store where you can browse their inventory, but a few (Best Buy comes to mind) have a different website for in-store purchases which may have prices that are different from their websites.

That's where mobile shopping could be really powerful. As a consumer, you can now enter a store with a mobile device that will show you prices for an item from all retailers. You will now have immediate transparency to whether you are getting a good deal from a retailer or not. As this gets more user penetration, if the prices at retailers are significantly different from online (taking into account things like sales tax and shipping), users will shift even more purchases online. So, this will force retailers to make their brick and mortar prices more competitive with online and should cause price parity across sources (of/when consumer penetration and usage is achieved). Could be the start of something big.

Local Shopping Coming To A Mobile Phone Near You

Women are more likely than men to be IYP users

2008-08-06T09:27:00.001-07:00

I saw an interesting tool on another website today (it can be found at the link below). You activate this tool and it will go through your browser history, analyze the sites you've visited, and tell you if it thinks you're male or female. When I ran it, it said with 100% probability that I'm male (I am). But more interesting to me was the male/female ratios it displayed for various IYP/Local sites I've visited. Here they are:

Yellowpages.com - 0.72 male/female (1.38 women per man on that site)
Yelp - 0.77
Yellowbook - 0.8
ServiceMagic - 0.71
DexKnows - 0.79
Google - 0.98

As someone working in the local space online, this tells me that, across the board, 55-57% of our users are women. That's without any specific outreach effort to that group. Perhaps we should consider market more directly to them, or at least focus on the sites they're using, as they seem more predisposed to using us to start with.

Mike On Ads » Blog Archive » Using your browser URL history to estimate gender

Business Networking - The Future of Local Business Relationships?

2008-08-05T09:47:00.001-07:00

Kudzu is a site for users to submit recommendations for their favorite businesses (like a Yelp or the like). They've just introduced something new, though, which is quite interesting: business recommendations. Basically, businesses can recommend other businesses who they think do a good job. So, for example, you may want to ask the general contractor you used once who a good plumber would be for a small job. That contractor may have recommended plumbers, roofers, etc through Kudzu. Good extension to the site if they can get the businesses to submit recommendations.

For me, this brings up the concept of business social networking, which has not really been done anywhere yet (that I know of). Not Linked-in style social networking, but the ability for businesses to network and meet/discuss issues with other businesses. Are you a plumber in Denver who wants advice from other plumbers across the country? Are you a restaurant in Denver who wants to discuss business with other Denver merchants? As the next generation, who has embraced social networking, become business owners, this concept will catch on, but as of now, noone has tried to do it yet. The best bets will be existing business directories like Kudzu or Yelp, or the IYPs, who have the customer relationships in place.

Kudzu Introduces Business Networking « Screenwerk

Top 10 IYP Search Categories (from the YPA)

2008-08-04T10:00:00.001-07:00

So according to the YPA, here are the top 10:

1.  Restaurants
2.  Physicians & Surgeons
3.  Hotels
4.  Auto Repairing & Service
5.  Florists-Retail
6.  Auto Dealers-New & Used
7.  Dentists
8.  Auto Parts & Supplies - New & Used
9.  Beauty Salons (tie)
10. Hospitals (tie)

What does this all mean? Not sure, though it shows that people are using IYPs for the same searches they're using print for. To me, though, while IYPs will have a tough time maintaining their print shares in some of these categories, their online positions should be more defensible, if they go the right direction. Some of these categories, like Physicians and Dentists, are ones where users want significant data to help them make a decision. Right now, levels of data on IYPs are low, but if investments are made into collecting more data (like specialties for doctors, or types of insurance accepted, etc), they can become trusted sources for information on these categories.

Yellow Pages Association Names Top 10 Internet Yellow Pages Searches Reflecting How Consumers Are Using Local Search Sites

Canada's Yellow Pages Group (YPG) Entering the US Market

2008-08-01T09:38:00.001-07:00

YPG from Canada is coming to the US, through an acquisition of Volt Information Services. It sounds like it's mostly for their technology/Internet assets, although they do have a bit of print business as well. From what I've heard, YPG is usually pretty aggressive and on the frontlines when it comes to Online, so it will be interesting to see how this manifests itself in the US.

Kelsey Group Blogs » YPG Enters US Market with Volt Deal

WSJ Discusses Borrell Local Report

2008-07-31T09:22:00.001-07:00

The WSJ discussed the Borrell report I mentioned yesterday, although focusing on it from a newspaper perspective. The long and short of it is that they say newspapers are trying to train their sales forces to sell online ads, but when they do that, they cannibalize print (which as we know is higher priced and higher margin). Craigslist is eating their lunch on Classifieds, Google and others are taking share of local traffic and they are having a tough time. Doesn't sound good...

Newspapers Think Locally for Online Ads - WSJ.com

Marchex Launches New, Improved Ad Platform

2008-07-30T11:18:00.001-07:00

Marchex has updated its private-label ad platform, including a new focus on calls. Key quote "Calls are the currency that small businesses want"...

Kelsey Group Blogs » Marchex Launches New, Improved Ad Platform

Borrell says YPs to lose $5 Billion in Revenues in 5 Years

2008-07-30T10:56:00.001-07:00

Not sure I believe this one, but that's the headline. If you look at the comments of the post I linked to on Screenwerk, Borrell indicates the changes in each category over the next 5 years:
Directories -38.9%
Direct Mail - 32.0%
Telemarketing -28.9%
Newspapers -11.0%
Radio -7.0%
Other Print -3.4%
Broadcast TV -2.1%
Online +22.7%
Out of Home +30.2%
Cable +54.8%
Cinema +313.8%

Not to nit-pick one number and use it to impugn the whole survey, but the newspaper number strikes me as being off. They are losing share every day in classified advertising and are talking about raising prices, which should reduce their reader bases (print at least) and hurt their ad revenues more. I think directionally, these numbers are correct, but not sure about their magnitudes.

Borrell: YPs to Lose $5 Billion in 5 Years « Screenwerk

iPhone Apps - 4 of Top 5 are Local

2008-07-30T10:26:00.001-07:00

There are now over 1000 apps in the iPhone store and if you look at the top 5, 4 of them are local applications:
1. Google (the only non-local)
2. UrbanSpoon, with its cool "shake me and get a surprise result" feature
3. BoxOffice, with an easy to use local movie time application and Rotten Tomatoes critic ratings
4. WeatherBug
5. Yelp, which in my view has the nicest local implementation, with the ability to easily search near you, a map view, and the ability to read every review in detail (so many apps do shortcut reviews, including the iTunes store, which doesn't give you anything beyond the star rating

It really seems that the iPhone is the platform that will finally drive broad acceptance of mobile applications and mobile search. Approx 10MM iPhones are out there in the US right now and with their ease-of-use and full-time access to the Internet, they will become the local platform of choice. And they're just scratching the surface of what they can do.

» Local Mobile Search

RH Donnelly (RHD) Announces Earnings

2008-07-30T09:54:00.001-07:00

(One-year chart shown, same as Idearc below)

RHD earnings came out today and, based on the response of the stock market today, look pretty much as expected. There was a one-time charge of approx $600MM which put it in negative territory on earnings by approx $300MM, but other than that, they were positive and are making progress on paying down the debt (approx 3% paid off in the period). One potential area for concern is that sales were down 8%, which is an indicator of future revenues. If you're interested in more than approx $s, click the link below.

One interesting point is that RHD stock has been moving in lockstep with Idearc for the last year, and while RHD stock was down 13% yesterday, Idearc was down 40%, so that effect has somewhat lessened (most likely because of the differing results seen from yesterday's report to today's).

Yahoo! Finance Charts

Idearc's Earnings Were Not So Good

2008-07-29T09:18:00.001-07:00

Idearc's earnings came in today and they weren't very good. Profit down 30%, revenue down 5.7%. And if you look earlier this month, you'll see a press release about them bringing in a former Private Equity person to be their CEO. That can't be good for the employees there. Any by the way, the stock is currently down about 35% on the news (RHD is down 20ish percent as well, and report earnings tomorrow).

IAR: 1.44 -0.76 (-34.55%) - Idearc Inc.

Oodle now powering MySpace Classifieds

2008-07-29T09:06:00.001-07:00

This is Oodle's second major partner pickup, after Wal-Mart... Oodle really does have a fairly nice, simple platform to do classifieds... I'm not sure if Wal-Mart and MySpace are taking paid classifieds through their site or if Oodle is paying them, but out of all the classified aggregation sites, Oodle seems to be taking the lead...

MySpace Classifieds, Now from Oodle « Screenwerk

YellowPages.com Buoys AT&T in First Half

2008-07-25T09:11:00.001-07:00

Kelsey Group Blogs » YellowPages.com Buoys AT&T in First Half

Selling SEM: It's Complicated

2008-07-25T09:10:00.001-07:00

Some people think SMBs are just too busy or too confused to buy SEM, or its just too complicated in general, which is why they keep buying the old media and will keep doing so for a while at least (until the younger generation, who has grown up with the Internet, are the business owners)...

Kelsey Group Blogs » Selling SEM: It’s Complicated

Local iPhone Apps

2008-07-18T09:51:00.001-07:00

Local iPhone apps are among the top downloaded apps on iTunes, with the YellowPages.com, Yelp, Where and UrbanSpoon apps near the top. Also, local social networking is getting some traction, with Loopt, among others, making progress. In my book, Yelp is the best local app out there...

Kelsey Group Blogs » After One Week, Lots of Volatility for Local iPhone Apps

What role will IYPs play in next generation mobile search?

2008-07-17T10:04:00.001-07:00

They discuss mobile apps and how IYPs will integrate. One thing in here I don't agree with is that YellowPages.com launched with a nice app. There's no integrated maps in their app and its really kind of a subpar effort, in my estimation. Yelp has done a much better job and I think is going to be the local app to beat for some time.

Kelsey Group Blogs » What Role will IYPs Play in Next Generation Mobile Search?

Google Enables Local Reviews from Mobile Phones

2008-07-17T10:01:00.001-07:00

Doesnt say anything about an iPhone app for this yet, though, which is where I would expect this kind of functionality to reside in the future. I'm actually kind of surprised no yellow pages or other local companies had a launch app with this included.

Google Enables Local Reviews From Mobile Phones

CityVoter Gets Bigger TV Deal

2008-07-08T09:23:00.001-07:00

CityVoter is a site that focuses on Questions and Answers for local businesses and has just expanded their TV partnerships...

CityVoter Expands Hearst TV Deal « Screenwerk

Google Keyword Tool Adds Search Volumes

2008-07-08T09:15:00.001-07:00

Search Volume Comes To Google Keyword Tool & Live Search Updates

Nieghborhood Data Adoption Growing

2008-06-24T10:22:00.001-07:00

Neighborhood Data Adoption Growing « Screenwerk

Eye-Opening Local Exercise

2008-06-13T10:01:00.001-07:00

An Eye-Opening Local Exercise « Screenwerk

MetroSeeq Launches: Search Engine for Promotions

2008-06-06T10:25:00.001-07:00

Kelsey Group Blogs » MetroSeeq Launches: ‘Search Engine for Promotions’ (via Google Maps)

ShopLocal Distributing Ads via Yahoo!

2008-06-05T10:01:00.001-07:00

ShopLocal Distributing Ads via Yahoo! « Screenwerk

Yelp's New iPhone Application

2008-06-05T09:58:00.001-07:00

Yelp’s New iPhone Application « Screenwerk

New Report Tracks Local Ad Spending

2008-05-30T10:02:00.001-07:00

IYP - 7.8% of local spend - $1.2B in 2008

New Borrell Report Tracks Local Ad Spend « Screenwerk

Wal-Mart.com Adds Oodle

2008-05-29T09:49:00.001-07:00

Wal-Mart integrating with Oodle

Wal-Mart Adds Oodle Classifieds « Screenwerk

Does Microsoft want Yell?

2008-05-28T09:13:00.001-07:00

Microsoft may be looking to buy Yell, now that their Yahoo deal has fallen through...

Kelsey Group Blogs » Does Microsoft Want Yell?

Yell announces earnings, cuts sales staff by 10%

2008-05-21T09:25:00.001-07:00

Kelsey Group Blogs » Yell Cites Tough Times in Dividend Cut

SuperPages Creates iGoogle, My Yahoo! Widgets

2008-05-13T11:04:00.001-07:00

SuperPages Widgets

Yelp Lets Businesses Fight Back

2008-04-29T08:57:00.001-07:00

Yelp has provided some tools to let businesses try to fix their feedback, contact people who have left negative feedback, etc...

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/28/yelp-lets-businesses-fight-back/