DexKnows launches Mobile Platform

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

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

Search Insider Recommends Yahoo! Buy RH Donnelly

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

IYP Reach in the US (according to Google)

Via TechSoapBox:



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

Barrons Promotes RH Donnelly as "Risky, But Attractive"

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

Idearc's Earnings Were Not So Good

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.