Comic strips such as Popeye, Terry and the Pirates and Blondie marked the rise of the newspaper as entertainment in the early part of the 20th Century, and the top comic strip artists prospered greatly, some earning the equivalent of $1.8 million a year. But the success of Peanuts and its characters was in [...]
Monthly Archives: August 2008
JD Power: Auto Dealers, Dissatisfied, Ramp Up on Leads
August 26, 2008 – 8:43 pm
Auto dealers have ramped up their use of online lead providers, according to a new Dealer Satisfaction study by J.D. Power, which was conducted in May and June with 4,141 respondents. They’ve gone from using an average of 5.6 lead providers in 2006 to 6.8 in 2008. In addition, more than half the dealers in [...]
LA Times Unit Seeks Share of Real Estate Transactions
August 25, 2008 – 9:18 pm
Real estate advertising revenues will give way to transaction revenues, at least in SoCal, as The Los Angeles Times Media Group teams with several partners to launch ZetaBid, a new site that will display and auction foreclosed homes and other properties. The other partners are London-based GoIndustry-DoveBid, an auction specialist, and CataList Homes of Hermosa [...]
Vertical SlowDown? Teresa Lawlor on Vertical Challenges
August 25, 2008 – 8:15 pm
The development of verticals is an obvious growth strategy for newspapers, Yellow Pages, search engines and as standalones. The Kelsey Group projects that verticals and classifieds will make up 25 percent of interactive local revenue by 2012.
But nothing happens overnight. And at this point, still early in the game, there have been some initial [...]
Google Ranks IYP Traffic; Adds to Ranking Confusion
August 21, 2008 – 4:46 pm
iBegin head Ahmed Farooq is shaking things up by publicizing Google’s take on top IYPs. Per Google’s methodology, Citysearch leads the way with 7.4 million uniques, and a 3.2 percent reach. It beats YellowPages.com with 6.8 million uniques, and SuperPages.com with 6.2 million uniques. Next up are Yelp with 4.6 million uniques, and Local.com with [...]
Zillow Changes Self-Serve Ad Platform
August 19, 2008 – 11:48 pm
Since launching self service EZ Ads in April 2007, Zillow.com has set a new standard for simple-to- buy, one price ads, and 13,000 (mostly) local advertisers responded. Typical ad spends were about $50.
Now as Zillow begins to have its inventory sold to 282 members of Yahoo’s newspaper consortium, it is rebranding EZ Ads as “Showcase [...]
Newspapers and E-Billboards: 1-2 Punch?
August 18, 2008 – 11:26 pm
Out of Home advertising is booming, thanks to the emergence of super high definition electronic billboards now commonly found on the nation’s highways. But can they be used to boost the fortunes of an industry that is not so booming: newspapers? That’s the question posed by execs at
