Amazon.com, which is moving in multiple directions vis a vis local, has agreed to buy TeachStreet, the service for matching teachers and students. Amazon’s interest appears to be less in TeachStreet than in the underlying ecommerce platform for SMBs. The platform already is being used by The Washington Post for its Service Alley SMB leads service.

TeachStreet had raised just over $3 million from Madrona Venture Group, Bezos Expeditions, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar and others. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has been involved form the beginning of the company.

The connection between Amazon and Teach Street is partially personal. TeachStreet founder David Schappell previously worked for Bezos from 1998-2004. GeekWire reports that the entire TeachStrret team has already joined Amazon Local, which now has offers in 40 markets. It reports that TeachStreet itself is being shut down.

Schappell also told Geekwire that he’s pumped to be “working on things that millions of people use.” At TeachStreet, he said they had been “pushing the peanut up the hill for a long time.”

In 2008, Schappell told BIA/Kelsey that he eventually expected TeachStreet evolve into all kinds of expert services. “We’re helping to find local experts near you,” he says. Categories could include a full range of advisory services, such as career counseling, or kitchen remodeling. “You might need someone to guide you through some of the steps. Or you may want some help negotiating to buy a car.”

Living Social, in a battle with Groupon and other deal providers to gain (and keep) market share, lost an eye popping $558 million beyond its $245 Million in net earnings, according to a regulatory filing by Amazon.com, which owns 31 percent of the company. The filing was written about in today’s Washington Post.

The Post article notes that Living Social has 4,900 employees, and claims more than 60 million members worldwide in 647 markets across 25 countries. Its vouchers grossed $750 million.

Here are the accounting details. Its vouchers grossed $750 million, giving Living Social net earnings of $245 million. It had operating expenses of $686 million. It also had other expenses associated with various acquisitions and stock compensation of $117 million, resulting in the $558 million loss.

In our view, companies such as Living Social (and Zynga and Groupon et al) aren’t really tied to earning immediate profits. The gamble is whether their massive spending leads to a solid foundation for growth –and profits– going forward.

The Home Depot is set to significantly boost its home contractor leads network with today’s acquisition of RedBeacon. No price was announced for the acquisition, which puts Home Depot in the same boat as Sears, which has been quietly developing ServiceLive, its own contractor leads service.

RedBeacon, which takes a 10 percent commission for service jobs, was one of a number of socially driven leads companies that started in the 2008-2009 time frame. Others include Cox’s Kudzu, which has developed an intriguing partnership with Scripps’ HGTV; The Washington Post’s Service Alley; LikeList, HelpHive, and Thumbtack. The latter received $4.5 million in venture funding last week.

Last year, Red Beacon announced $7.4 million in funding from Mayfield and Venrock, but it hasn’t been easy sailing for the company. The service never landed media partnerships that it had been hoping for, and replaced its founder last year with new CEO Anthony Rodio. It has, however, managed to launch services in nine markets. Under Home Depot, one assumes it will take a national approach to contractor leads.

ILM East is coming back to Boston March 26-28 with a lineup of do-ers and innovators that are transforming and re-defining the local space.

Highlights include a featured keynote from industry legend Ted Leonsis (Groupon Vice Chair/Amex Board Member/Sports team owner/AOL mastermind), along with keynotes/interviews from Jason Calacanis, Leslie Berland, Jay Herratti, Michael Zimbalist and Michael Silberman.

Other highlights of the 2 ½ day event includes a pre-conference rundown on Local search run by Andrew Shotland of Local SEO Guide; a full plate of Top BIA/Kelsey research and forecasts; a special Venture Capital panel; and innovator panels on Social, Mobile, Deals, Video and Hyperlocal (the latter co-moderated with Merrill Brown.)

KEYNOTES/KEYNOTE DISCUSSIONS
• Ted Leonsis: Owner, Monumental Sports (Washington Capitals, Washington Wizards;) The Vice Chair of Groupon;, Board member of Amex, former Vice Chair of AOL; Author, The Business of Happiness
• Jason Calacanis: CEO, Mahalo; Investor. Calacanis’ career has been at the cutting edge of local and social media and reflects all the big trends, from his development of The Silicon Alley Reporter to Weblogs (AOL), Mahalo, and the creation of TechCrunch50 and Launch.
• Leslie Berland, Vice President, Social Strategy, American Express. Berland’s a major deal maker deeply involved in Amex’s mega FourSquare and Facebook deals.
• Jay Herratti, CEO, CityGrid Media. Herratti always gets top rankings at our events. He runs IAC’s super quad of the CityGrid Media Network, Citysearch, UrbanSpoon and InsiderPages.
• Michael Zimbalist, VP, Research Operations, New York Times Co. Zimbalist leads the NYT’s 12 person research unit. He’s deeply immersed in cutting edge social, mobile, tablet and video efforts.
• Michael Silberman, GM, New York Magazine Silberman is the mastermind of NYMag’s development of a super set of verticals catering to the “New York state of mind.”).

FEATURED SPEAKERS
• Bill Bice, CEO, SpaBoom
• Merrill Brown, co-founder. MSNBC.com, Court TV
• Jim Douglass, EVP, Cartera Commerce
• Jere Doyle, CEO, EverSave
• Walt Doyle, CEO, Where
• Adam Japko, CEO, Digital Sherpa
• Maria Kermath, Dir.,, New Tech & Sales Apps, AT&T Advertising Sales
• Mark Josephson, SVP, AOL Local
• Charlie Kim, CEO, Next Jump
• John McIntyre, CEO, Pixelfish
• Randa Minkarah, SVP, Revenue, Fisher Communications
• Randy Parker, President, SMB Apps
• Mark Schmulen, GM, Social Media, Constant Contact
• Andrew Shotland, Publisher, Local SEO Guide
• Andy Slater, VP, Digital Agency Sales, Katz 360
• Christopher Tippie, CEO, FindNSave
• Darren Waddell, EVP, Product and Corporate Marketing, Reply.com

Join hundreds of senior level local executives at ILM East for the local community’s best networking and insights. You can register here for earlier bird rates.

Internet Pioneer Ted Leonsis

Thumbtack, which has set itself to compete against Angie’s List and ServiceMagic in the SMB leads space, has raised $4.5 Million from Javelin Venture Partners, with MHS Capital and Tim Draper participating.

The eight person San Francisco company, founded in 2009, claims nearly a quarter million active merchants — up from 150,000 in July — and “hundreds of thousands” of visits. Founder Marco Zappacosta tells us that the company continues to scale well on “both sides of the marketplace” — merchants and consumers. He says the company will use the funds to hire 12 people as soon as possible, and focus on building the user experience. “The money is all about investing in the experience and really develop a marketplace solution,” he says.

Zappacosta notes that the company provides standard features such as quotes and finding the right people, but “there is a lot more we can do.” For instance, Zappacosta hopes to add payment and invoicing capabilities throughout the site, as well as scheduling.

The events listings space has taken a number of twists and turns with Zvents trying to steer people to retail events as a business model, and also become a media driver in its own right; Eventful focusing more and more on Hollywood studios and TV shows to drive viral demand for their entertainment properties; GoldStar focusing on quiet, sophisticated events; and others focusing on social media and transaction hybrids.

Not everything has worked out as planned. Today, ZVents announced that it has been sold to eBay’s StubHub. For StubHub, which is a reseller/scalper of events, it will get a chance to work ZVents’ list of events from 140,000+ local marketers and promoters. Typically, 60,000 events are listed at any one time.

It — along with other eBay properties — may also seek to do more with Zvents large network of newspaper partners. But that would likely be a second phase, if ever.

Universities stimulate major business zones in various cities. So do airports. Hence the Dulles tech corridor in DC. So do the success of major companies.

People leave with their stock options and develop their own companies. Witness Wang in Boston; Microsoft in Seattle; AOL in DC; Qualcomm in San Diego. Too many to count in Silicon Valley. Qualcomm alone has lead to at least 500 wireless companies in San Diego.

But the impact dies down after a while, and local development slows. That makes it harder for a market to recruit quality engineers and other positions to the area.

Now, two former AOL principals seeking to re-inject the infusion of cash that AOL once provided for the DC metro area: Steve Case and Ted Leonsis.

Case and Leonsis – interestingly, competing investors in Living Social and Groupon, respectively — have announced a $450 million Revolution Growth Fund to jumpstart the DC area’s technology startups, and hopefully, find the next “Living Social.”

Both men have been major philanthropists in the DC area, but this, of course, is also a major business initiative.

Leonsis – owner of The Washington Caps and Washington Wizards, vice chair of Groupon, board member of Amex, investor in SB Nation, author of This Business of Happiness — – is keynoting ILM East, which is taking place March 26-28 in Boston. Can’t get enough AOL nostalgia? Former AOL Time Warner President and current CEO of Clear Channel Entertainment Bob Pittman, is keynoting the great lineup at ILM West Dec. 12-14).

ILM West is shaping up to be one of the great ones. Taking place Dec. 12-14 in downtown San Francisco, ILM West really reflects a sea change in local marketing from advertising to the new hybrid model of advertising and commerce (i.e. prepaid deals, reputation management, mobile app sales etc.).

We’ve made some big additions since our last update, starting with Google and Facebook. These add to the existing lineup, including our “rock stars” (Clear Channel CEO and industry legend Bob Pittman AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher, Media News Group/Journal Register CEO John Paton and Deseret Media and former Harvard Business School Professor Clark Gilbert), and major sessions on deals, offers, verticals and the whole spectrum of local trends.

We will pursue three unique angles on Google at ILM West:

1- The local efforts, under Marissa Mayer’s local team. Jeff Aguero, head of local marketing, will present on everything local, from Zagat, to Google Places, to the Big G’s new “Get Online” program for SMBs. These strategies have really developed since this summer.

2- The global reseller effort. Global Channels head Todd Rowe will engage in an in-depth conversation with BIA/Kelsey President Neal Polachek on all his efforts.

3- Google Mobile. Mobile and Local Search exec Surojit Chatterjee will provide insights into this critical area for Google as part of our All SoLoMo morning on Day 3.

We’re also going deep with Facebook at ILM West. Facebook’s new local leader Matt Idema is our afternoon keynote on Day 2, with a lot of new details and a progress report on the local and vertical strategies. On Day 1, we are also taking a special look at working with Facebook’s platform with execs from Trada, Oodle and Kenshoo Local/Social weighing in. Eager but not sure how to play with Facebook? You will be when ILM West is done.

The SoLoMo event on Day 3 itself is going to be quite the cornerstone for ILM West. Curated by the research teams from our Social Local Media and Mobile Local Media programs, SoLoMo features top line data; and indepth and fresh looks at SoLoMo implementations from leaders at Google, AT&T Interactive, Zaarly, PayPal, XAd, JiWire and AppStack (Steve Espinosa’s new project.)

You can see the full agenda here. And register here.

Remember: We are making a donation to the SF/Marin County Food Bank for all registrations that come in by Thanksgiving.

Yelp’s S1, which was issued last week as a run-up to a $100 million IPO, reveals a lot of new data about the reviews leader. The big question about Yelp has been whether it can grow against increased pressure from Google, and also begin to take market share away from traditional media players such as Yellow Pages.

Yelp’s plan for growth relies heavily on overseas growth. It is now in 22 international cities on top of 43 domestic markets. But it would also grow its primary business via local and brand advertising; monetizing mobile services that now make up 40 percent of its searches; boosting revenue from deals (where it has lowered expectations); and more revenue sharing dollars from restaurant reservations and travel.

Launched in 2004, Yelp had initially risen to the top of the heap among service and city guide leaders by dominating Google’s organic local search. After Google’s effort to acquire Yelp for $500 million ended under murky circumstances, Yelp has seen its prior dominance of Google search fade away. Moreover, Google Places – enhanced by Google’s purchase of Zagat — now looms as a competitor in its own right for reviews and advertising.

“Our success depends on our ability to maintain a prominent presence in search results for queries regarding local businesses on Google,” notes the S1.

Yet, Yelp is growing splendidly, even with the apparent Google woes. Yelp earned $47.7 million in 2010 and $58.4 million in net revenue in the first nine months of 2011, representing 80 percent growth over the first nine months of 2010.

During the nine months of 2011, the company claimed 19,000 paid accounts – up 75 percent from the same period in 2010, And 529,000 claimed pages –up 114 percent. And in a business where the number of current reviews is its currency, it has an archive of 22 million reviews, up 66 percent from the same period in 2010. Overall, it sees 61 million monthly users.

Yelp is primarily known for its restaurant reviews. That is still its primary image, and what has made “to yelp” a verb. But Yelp is also more diversified than generally perceived, and resembles a combination city magazine/Yellow Pages.

Restaurants and dining now make up 23 percent. Other major segments include shopping (22 percent), services (10 percent); beauty (9 percent); arts and entertainment (8 percent); Health (5 percent) Night Life (4 percent) and Travel and Hotel (4 percent). It also has a broad demographic, with 42 percent between the ages of 18-34, and 33 percent between the ages of 35-49.

What investors will be looking at is not only Yelp’s ability to grow and move into new areas, but also it’s potential for profits. The company has accumulated a deficit of $32.1 million since its launch, and lost roughly $7.6 million in the first 9 months of 2011. Sales and marketing costs have been especially heavy, eating up $38.5 million for the first nine months of 2011.

Business Insider suggests that “Yelp is Groupon without the cash flow,” basing its comment on Yelp’s increasing marketing costs for customer acquisitions. But to us, Yelp is working to get over a tipping point. And unlike Groupon’s one-time relationship with local businesses, Yelp is working on Yellow Pages-like renewal rates.

In fact, the key to Yelp is to continue its ability to maintain and leverage its huge user base; satisfy advertisers; and stay abreast of social media trends that help match users with establishments based on their interests. It won’t be easy and is not a sure thing. But Yelp’s trajectory to date has been an impressive one.

Shares of Yelp Searches

Matchbin has spent $10 million to acquire 800 radio and TV accounts from Navteq’s Radio and TV Group (formely Traffic.com). It has also raised $12 million for working assets from Silicon Valley Bank, and is rebranding the combined entity as Radiate Media. The money to acquire the Navteq broadcaster accounts came from Level Equity, Greycroft Partners and vSpring Capital.

The company will have dual headquarters in Malvern,PA and Salt Lake City, with additional offices in several media capitals. Radiate Media CEO Chris Rothey will now assume the same title for the combined entity, while Matchbin CEO Hal Widlansky becomes President and COO.

Matchbin been one of many vendors vying for local media partners to build an ad network and provide online services such as directories and SEO. It has been competing with the likes of CItyGrid Media, Local.com, Datasphere, Local Thunder, Planet Discover, Triton Online Services, MediaSpan, Ellington, ShopCity and others. The challenge has been to differentiate itself from the pack. One way has been to assert itself as a cutting-edge technology provider. Along these lines, it has focused on such things as providing mobile apps and iPad specific services.

The purchase of the Navteq broadcast accounts is a bolder move. It includes the accounts that had been grandfathered from Navteq’s $210 million purchase of Traffic.com in 2007, but never deeply integrated into the main business of providing map and data content to mobile carriers.

The new accounts will be added to Matchbin’s 1,300 existing media accounts – which are mainly newspaper and local news media. They now put Matchbin in 49 of the Top 50 markets, reaching 50 percent of U.S. households. Previously, Matchbin’s largest market was Orange County, CA via The OC Register. More typical markets were Marietta,GA and Albuquerque, NM. The company also reports having a base of 6,000 advertisers.

COO Hal Widlansky told us he likes the new positioning because it creates a network of 4,000 ad spots a day on the network. He also notes that the former Navteq properties will provide near-term cash flow, accounting for roughly 75 percent of the company’s revenue. Over time, however, he anticipates that the provision of online services from a variety of players will even things out. Much of the growth of the new company will come from the digital side of the business.

Mobile also figures largely in the company’s plans, adds Widlansky, especially with HTML 5 changing the mobile dynamic away from apps.