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

CBS plans to build deeper local online content by commissioning specific local topics for articles from thousands of writers at Examiner.com. Both parties were mum about whether there is revenue sharing involved, but did note that writers will receive a different payment plan than they receive on Examiner.com.

Leonard Brody, president of Clarity Digital, which is Examiner’s parent company, told BIA/Kelsey that the economics of the deal will make it profitable for both companies. Examiner has been approached by many media companies to lend its editorial resources. While such loaners of editorial resources aren’t likely to become a dominant revenue stream, “you may see us do a few more of these,” he says. CBS, for its part, is free to also work with other content aggregators and developers.

CBS brings to the table a network of 15+ city sites, such as CBS Denver, CBS Los Angeles, etc. Some sites have had customized Examiner.com content since December 5. “It is a great showcase, and brings great reach for content. It also provides strong credibility via the CBS brand,” says Brody.

While Examiner’s content for CBS will have some branding elements on it, the intent is not to bring people to Examiner.com, Brody emphasizes. It is CBS’ audience. CBS Local Media President Ezra Kucharz adds that the deal with Examiner is “a great way to augment our great content in local markets.”

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.

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.

A new partnership between ClearChannel and Living Social is seeking to leverage the power of on air personalities on 500 Clear Chanel radio stations. The personalities will rap about the deals in unscripted segments. It would be interesting to know what the split is for something like this. The arrangement is described as a “commission.”

We know that on-air mentions by radio personalities provide a lift for websites and e-commerce – especially for things that have urgency requirements, such as events. But there hasn’t really been the much cross-over between the two channels.

Many station groups, however, are adding deals and other offers to their websites. BogoPod, for instance, leverages a local radio show for mentions. Similarly, Cumulus Media has developed its own daily-deal site, Sweetjack. That service will be live in 18 markets by the end of 2012. On a much broader basis, CBS Local stations push out deals powered by BluLabel. http://blulabel.com/ But we aren’t sure they have been pushing them with on air mentions.

ClearChannel CEO Bob Pittman is the opening keynoter at ILM West Dec. 12-14 in San Francisco.

We’ve long known that coupons provide real traction for SMB advertising. Nothing beats a customer walking through the door with a coupon in hand. But a lot of SMB website publishers haven’t really focused on them.

DataSphere, on the other hand,,has had a coupons product for some time. But it only recently has really zeroed in on their potential as “an adjacent space” to normal SMB activities, along with events, notes SVP Gary Cowan.

Coupons are actually easier to pull off than daily deals because “they don’t require the level of investment from partners,” he says. “They’re accessible to a wider set of companies. And they target advertising in a similar way.”

DataSphere, which is now in 85 markets with more than 300 sales reps, has taken an approach that more closely resembles “closed loop optimization,” adds Cowan. “We’re now helping businesses provide better content, and to make better offers. We tell them what the difference is between making an offer that is 10 percent off and 30 percent off.”

While coupons don’t drive the same volume as deal publishers such as Groupon, they lead to higher profitability because they feature smaller discounts, and have no commissions. They also typically run for longer time periods than deals.

DataSphere has also been focusing on exposing the coupons across a larger network of relevant sites, including Coupons.com. “There is no reason not to publish a coupon on several sites,” says Cowan. “It all goes to help the SMB advertiser in the end, and if they see more value, they’re more likely to stick around.”

With TV station partners such as Gannett and Fisher Communications, Cowan says the focus is on leveraging DataSphere’s increasing scale to “continuously evolve and add services with clear and demonstrable value for small local advertisers.”

The big destination deal sites such as Groupon and Living Social have developed sites in most of the 150 or so large and medium markets in the U.S. How about markets with populations less than 250,000? There are 84 markets with populations between 150,000 and 249,000, and 121 markets between 100,00 and 149,000.

The major destination sites already hit many of the medium-sized markets. But smaller markets have been zeroed in on by vendors such as Matchbin, working with local media. We’ve also been closely watching Deal Garden, a five person destination site in four small markets (Topeka KS, Sioux City, IA, Lawrence KS and Manhattan, KS) powered by Nimble Commerce. Two more Deal Garden sites are set for launch: Rochester, MN and WaterLoo/Cedar Valley, IA.

The rub against small markets is they don’t have the volume to do many deals. The deals they do have need to spread out over multiple days. Moreover, most residents don’t need to discover merchants in their tight-knit communities. Many are also spread out geographically, and less attractive, demographically. There’s also an interesting theory that consumers get into the deals mode when there is intense competition among many players.

But Deal Garden co-founder Pat Lazure, who previously founded WikiCity, tells us that the pros of a small town site may outweigh such negatives. Small town sites aren’t competing with 60 other deals sites, as in Boston, and you have a great word of mouth factor in smaller markets, he says. Moreover, consumers are very loyal with excellent open rates. He’s seeing a 33 percent open rate for emails.

It is also easier to grab market share with local media buys since media outlets are less numerous. A campaign he’s been running on Topeka’s WIBW-TV, for instance, has made giant strides. Ultimately, the gross proceeds per subscriber are many times what Groupon reported in its S1.

The negatives are there, too, he candidly concedes. Deals typically need to run three days, instead of one. Also, markets are jump-started with low cost restaurant deals, where average spending is about $11 or $12. While deal averages are up from $9 at launch, they are still less than half of the major destination sites, which might see an average over $30.

Lazure figures local small town consumers need to get acclimated to the deals culture. “Food first; salons and spas second; and sky diving last,” he jokes. Local merchants are also more likely to use deal sites to drive customers to new selections or to bring them back into the store rather than to get introduced to new consumers.

Yet Lazure rejects the idea that small markets might be ghettoized as simple, one deal-at-a-time Internet deal sites, even as the rest of the industry begins to move towards multi-deal, multi-channel with lots of services. They’ll get there, he says.

Lazure also says that it is also important for sites to be truly local. Some of the sites run by competitors in his areas have tried to batch several markets together in order to get volume. No one wins when deals are spread out beyond where consumers typically shop, he notes.

NBC’s local websites for its 10 owned-and-operated stations have effectively lowered the average age of users from 44 to 33, boosted the average time spent on site to 12 minutes, and grown its user base to 10 million unique visitors, according to NBC San Diego Director of Integrated Media Sean Monzet, who was speaking at San Diego Interactive Day yesterday.

Monzet says that NBC’s big strategic move a couple of years ago was to remake its sites from TV station promotional websites to NBC city sites, reflecting a broader mission. A number of verticals have since been launched, including The Feast (a dining/lifestyle site); The Goods (a group buying site launched last month); and The 20 (top special interest stories).

Local properties also are encouraged to build their own, unique content franchises. Soundiego, a local music site, was launched in early 2010 and features six bloggers. It is updated three to five times a day and is San Diego’s largest local music site, says Monzet. Other local verticals include PropZero (a politics site); a site for The San Diego Padres, and a travel destination site called “Worth the Drive.”

Social media has played a big role in NBC’s growth. Twitter followers are up 300 percent and Facebook friends are up 100 percent since July 2010. “Everyone is on Twitter,” notes Monzet, who adds that staff members are awards karate style “belts“ ranging from white belts to black belts for their prowess on Twitter. Each of the stations’ vertical sites have their own social media accounts, he adds.

On the hyperlocal front, the San Diego station has partnered with The Voice of San Diego, a local nonprofit news organization. The two organizations now produce a couple of weekly segments, and are working to cover specific stories and topics, says Monzet. The arrangement has gotten national attention. Under terms of the FCC’s agreement earlier this year allowing NBC and Comcast to merge, every NBC owned and operated station is required to develop similar arrangements.

Angie’s List, Kudzu and The Washington Post’s new ServiceAlley are providing group buying promotions for home and trade services. But is group buying the right paradigm for home and trade services?

Regional Help Wanted Co Founder Eric Straus says “no.” Instead, Straus has launched 10LocalCoupons.com, which offers home and trade services the ability to include their coupons in an email flyer featuring 10 coupons. The coupons are created on a self-serve basis and cost $49 per month.

Straus believes the deal a day space has gotten too bifurcated with too much competition. They also have a difficult model to understand, and don’t really hit the sweet spot for home and trade and other “Val Pak” advertisers. “These are really DM dollars,” he says. Moreover, a straightforward coupon allows for more inventory than a main deal and two sides – the stock in trade for group buyers.

Indeed, Straus says his “Digital ValPak” like-service can reach more consumers, in part by building out a consortium among local media players, who each benefit from each other’s participation. As with Regional Help Wanted, consortium members split the proceeds equally, and promise to promote the service on-air (or on cable) with a certain number of remnant ads. Greater responses lead to more revenue.

In Des Moines, for instance, Clear Channel, Citadel, and Sago radio stations are participating, as is MediaCom, the local cable company. Although the site is still in beta, it is currently operating in more than 110 markets, says Straus.

The interrelationship of daily deals with TV and radio stations and newspapers intrigues us with potential. While not a big factor, traditional media companies can parlay their brand name, promotional power, sales forces –and Web sites — to reach new merchants that never would have otherwise advertised with them.

Second Street Media, Tippr, TownHog and a host of others are among daily deal white label companies focusing on broadcasters. San Diego-based Deal Current has also been working with broadcasters such as the Journal Broadcast Group among the 66 markets that it is operating in. Now, via a partnership formed with Triton Digital Media’s Loyalty Division, it will be in position to power some of Triton’s 700+ radio clients.

Triton and Deal Current are pitching a package where broadcasters and marketers can keep most of the deal revenue between themselves, with just five percent of revenues assigned for sales, tech, and administration (plus processing fees, which are roughly three percent.) The daily deals package is an optional part of Triton’s “StickyFish” program, which includes loyalty features such as contests, surveys, games and other content.

Triton Loyalty President Chris Bell tell us that Triton and Deal Current can afford to take a smaller chunk from commissions because it already has the relationships in place with the stations. “There is going to be a lot of pressure on margins,” he says.

Bell says Triton and Deal Current’s role with the stations primarily taps their technology and expertise for selling deals and sending out emails. While the stations are not contractually obligated, it is certainly in their interest to also promote the deals on air, and extensions such as their website and social media, he adds.