Here’s what we’ve been waiting to announce: Google Offers’ head Nitin Mangtani will join our great list of keynoters at ILM East March 26-28 in Boston. We believe Mangtani’s appearance marks one of the first public debuts of Google Offers, which is playing a major role in Google’s vital local strategy, along with Google Places, Google Maps and Zagat ratings and reviews.

Previously announced ILM East keynoters include Groupon Vice Chair +++ Ted Leonsis; American Express SVP of Social Media Leslie Berland; CityGrid Media CEO Jay Herratti; New York Times Research Ops VP Michael Zimbalist; and New York Magazine Digital GM Michael Silberman.

Mangtani joins Google Channel Sales BizDev Head Christine Merritt at ILM East. Merritt will provide Google’s perspective on its emergence in the local ecosystem, and the most effective way to work with Google as a partner.

The next wave of Deals is, in general, a key focus for us at ILM East, along with mobile local media, social local media, video local media, hyperlocal and locally targeted national advertising.

In addition to the keynotes from Google Offers and Groupon, we have a special Day 1 session dedicated to the next wave of deals, featuring EverSave’s Jere Doyle; Find n Save’s Christopher Tippie; Closely’s Perry Evans; and Boomtime’s Bill Bice. That session will be followed by a broader view of deals and ecommerce, which featured NextJump’s Charlie Kim; Cartera’s Jim Douglass; and Bundle.com’s Jaidev Shergill.

Other recent adds to the program include The Boston Globe’s Lisa DeSisto, who joins Boston.com VP of Digital Products Jeff Moriarty as a presenter; and MIT Sloan Associate Professor Catherine Tucker, who gives the low down on the effectiveness of local social media.

Before the show, we’re making a special trip to The Boston Globe’s R&D Lab (Limited Space, RSVP required). Or come to Andrew Shotland’s SEO for the Enterprise session, which also features SEO Expert Will Scott and Advance Digital Media VP John Denny. We’re looking forward to a great show.

Venture Capital
•David Hornik, Principal, August Capital
•Scott Maxwell, Senior Managing Director, OpenView

Mobile Local Media
• Walt Doyle, CEO, Where
• Doug McDonald, Director, dotMobi
• John Valentine, VP, East Coast, SCVNGR/LevelUp

Hyperlocal
• Merrill Brown, Principal, MMB Media
• Josh Fenton, CEO, GoLocal24
• Zohar Yardeni, CEO, Main Street Connect

Social Local Media
• Geoff Cramer, CEO, Social Made Simple
• Adam Japko, President, Digital Sherpa
• Jeff Moriarty, VP, Digital Products, Boston.com
• Mark Schmulen, GM, Social Media, Constant Contact

Video
• Juan Delgado, Managing Director, Americas, Perform
• John McIntyre, CEO, Pixelfish
• Randa Minkarah, SVP, Revenue, Fisher Communications

Deals and Promotional Ecosystem
• Bill Bice, CEO, BoomTime
• Jere Doyle, President and CEO, EverSave
• Perry Evans, CEO, Closely
• Christopher Tippie, CEO, FindNSave

Transactions
• Charlie Kim, CEO, NextJump
• Jim Douglass, EVP, Retail Advertising, Cartera Commerce
• Jaidev Shergill, CEO, Bundle

National/Brands
•Adam Epstein, President, AdMarketplace
•Pete Gombert,CEO, Balihoo
• Steve Sherfy, Local & Mobile Search, GroupMSearch
• Karl Siebrecht, President and CEO, AdReady

Elections 2012
• Andy Slater, VP, Digital Agency Sales, Katz 360

SMB Marketing
• Dave Galvan, President, Schedulicity
• Maria Kermath, Director, AT&T Ad Solutions
• Randy Parker, President, SMBApps
• Darren Waddell, EVP, Reply.com

Sign up now (and hint: reserve your room earlier rather than later).

The focus for vertical sites is likely to shift in coming months. In addition to regular features, such as listings, many vertical sites will also begin to blend personalized or on demand “maintenance” information with various social media features such as scheduling and reviews.

We’ve seen it with garden and health sites, and also, increasingly, with car maintenance sites. DriverSide and RepairPal, both launched in 2008, have pioneered the personalized garage approach, which links car owners with auto diagnosis and leads to service providers.

A new site, CarCareKiosk, aims at DIYs — Do It Yourselfers. Founder Hans Angermeier, a former investment banker, has developed the site to provide car owners with “how to” videos that are specific to their car make. AT&T/Compete research shows that “How to” videos are major drivers for vertical sites. The site now has 8,000 car repair videos in its library.

Based in Milwaukee, CarCareKiosk has a team of seven who work with new and used car dealers to contribute videos on everything from how to check your own oil to changing the cabin air filter. “Every car is quite different – the cabin air filter on one car might be behind the glove box on one model, but in a completely different place on another car,” says Angermeier.

CarCareKiosk currently has a PayPal “donate” button for support the site, but Angermeier says he expects to sell some search-based advertising. There is also a directory for finding local mechanics, a la RepairPal and DriverSide, but that is just at a starting phase.he real target are used parts manufacturers. Sites such as eBay Motors are stores onto themselves.

He cites research showing that used parts will account for $43 billion in sales in 2012 and $47 billion in 2013. The poor economy might be contributing to people keeping older cars and maintaining them, and also doing their own work, he suggests.

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

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.

Internet display and text advertising are great. But nothing really matches video for engagement and open rates. A number of players are specializing in SMB video. A new company, Webshoz (pronounced “Web shows”) is focused on presenting an onscreen “bar” of several video choices that viewers can click “video previews” on demand.

The application, which was built by Placelinks, may be used for national services (i.e., showing 5 top movies for DirectTV). But CEO Alexandrea Day anticipates several possible uses for local players, who can be targeted based on the user’s IP address and also provides a full set of analytics.

Real estate brokerages, for instance, can highlight specific homes in the first three video segments, and an agent in the fourth based on location. A major brokerage like Century 21 can use the service’s dynamic rotation to integrate any of its thousands of agents.

Similarly, insurance companies (i.e., State Farm) can highlight several types of insurance products in the first few frames, and introduce a video for the local franchise holder in the fourth. Travel is also envisioned as a key local application, and could even tie video previews with daily deals. “Every hotel has a video and wants to make a deal,” says Day.

Day notes that Webshoz launched 15 months ago with angel funding, and has a patent pending on its technology. She says that average videos are viewed about 15 seconds.

The small business market is always attractive to vendors in terms of volume, but many give up in frustration because of its fragmentation, low margins and high service needs (and churn.) Many of these vendors typically seek to move up the value chain to medium and large sized businesses. With these, they get both larger contracts and more security.

Among these vendors re Seattle-based Mixpo, the online video specialists that track video effectiveness and embed actionable information, such as click-to-call and email buttons.

The 30 person company started three-and- a-half years ago with the idea that many SMBs would use online video as a new channel for advertising. But the company is now squarely focused on working with larger companies that basically want to extend their existing TV advertising.

“There is a fundamental reason to move up-market – it is so simple to put ads together and easily customize campaigns for creative versioning,. ” says CEO Anupam Gupta. An auto manufacturer, for instance, could quickly create local versions for 2,000 dealerships. “They can promote their sale next weekend,” says Gupta.

Gupta adds that “we’ve learned that customer segmentation is really, really important. The common base is TV ads. But we (use online to) get people to engage; to do things they can’t do with TV,” such as order brochures or click to call.

Mixpo has not only focused more on larger advertisers, but it has also started working closely with agencies and marketers, in addition to media partners such as Comcast and Belo Interactive, who remain an active channel. “It is strategic for us to expand into the demand side,” says Gupta, who notes that more than half of Mixpo’s revenues now come from agencies.

In talking with agencies, Mixpo focuses on how to use video to drive awareness and create more engaged users. “You can use it all the way down to a direct response campaign,” he says. “That’s not SMB.”

Hot categories for Mixpo currently include automotive, political and entertainment. “Political is huge,” says Gupta. “They get video. There is lots of advocacy work.” On its site, Mixpo shows success stories for tea party candidates such as Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) and Rep. Michele Bachman (R-MN)

Entertainment mostly consists of “tune in” advertising promotion TV shows. A number of local TV stations and cable franchises are utilizing Mixpo services for their websites. “They can change the content very rapidly based on day of the week, time of day, or whatever audience they are in front of,” he says.

Ultimately, Gupta says the most successful Mixpo campaigns are run by those that have video assets (especially TV); a time sensitive element (i.e. political campaigns); or some interactive needs with their advertising (i.e. coupons).

The transition to an agency-focused approach has also changed the competitive parameters for Mixpo. Previously, when it was focused on SMBs, it competed largely with companies such as TurnHere and Jivox – both of which still report strong results in their sectors, and have evolved their own strategies. But now Gupta feels that the company competes mostly against companies doing rich media campaigns, such as is EyeWonder and Gannett’s Pointroll. It also competes against companies engaged in dynamic ads, such as Tumri.

Video, social and mobile will each play a major role for the growth of display ads in Wojcicki’s vision. “Every campaign will have desktop, mobile, video and social elements,” says Wojcicki, a core member of the Google leadership team since the company’s inception, and a leader behind the integration with DoubleClick, which was acquired two years ago for $3.1 Billion. She also noted that all display should be integrated with other ad types across the board to boost yield management.

“Video….will be one of the largest industries for us,” adds Wojcicki. “It could be one of largest segments for display. And social too. Over time, everything is social. We haven’t even figured out how social will play in different ad segments across web.”

Indeed, Wojcicki notes that “ad models aren’t clear in the new online world.” But she expects volume for display to grow astronomically, in part, as Google moves buying to its auction process. Using auctions have boosted display sales by 130 percent, she claims. Ad syndication will also be vital for publishers, as we have seen with projects such as Citysearch’s CityGrid . “Rather than having everyone come to your site, it will be your content and your ads everywhere.”

Google is also working to create a seamless purchase process. “The buying process for display and online inventory is really difficult,” she notes. “Inventory should be frictionless when you are buying it. Everything should be online. All creative should be checked automatically. With these principals in place, “there should be hundreds of thousands of display advertisers,” she says.

Along those lines, DoubleClick has rewritten its buying program for publishers using Google technology. “It is one of the largest integrations between Google and DoubleClick,” adds Wojcicki. “It is faster and fixes a lot of issues.” The program has also been well tested, with more than 500 hours of User Interface time to “get it right,” she says.

The event is totally dedicated to the higher value/conversion/engagement ethos of vertical media. For sure, this isn’t one size fits all of newspapers and Yellow Pages anymore (but then again, these traditional media are rapidly verticalizing too).

Featured sessions include 5 big keynotes; Mike Boland’s Mobile Vertical Superforum; a preconference session on the Tools of Marketplaces, including experts on search, video, enhanced calls, online scheduling, promotion and classifieds.

We also have cutting edge panels on new directories and city guides; small business marketplaces; vertical ad networks; vertical search; content aggregators (a great session with Examiner.com CEO Rick Blair); and local retailers and marketplaces. To top it all off, there is a special “making money” session with Classifieds Master Tony Lee, Chief Alliance Officer of Adicio.

Our keynoters include:
* Jon Brod, EVP, AOL Ventures
* Jay Herratti, CEO, Citysearch
* Andrew Mason, Founder and CEO, Groupon
* Sam Sebastian, Director, Local & B2B Markets, Google
* Craig Smith, CEO, ServiceMagic

The Mobile Vertical SuperForum has eight great speakers:
* Sam Altman, Cofounder and CEO, Loopt
* Alec Andronikov, CEO, MoVoxx
* Craig Hagopian, President, LocalAdXchange
* Scott Jampol, Senior Director of Consumer Marketing, OpenTable
* Steve Larsen, CEO, CallSpark
* Alexander Muse, Cofounder, Big in Japan (ShopSavvy)
* Eric Singley, Mobile Product Manager, Yelp
* David Sturtz, Cofounder and CEO, RepairPal

Other featured speakers include:
* Ethan Anderson, Cofounder, RedBeacon
* Jeff Beard, President and GM, Localeze
* Rick Blair, CEO, Examiner.com
* Reed Brown, President and CEO, Matchbin
* Jim Delli Santi, Cofounder and CEO, AlikeList
* Craig Donato, CEO, Oodle
* Todd Dubner, SVP, Development, NCI
* Jennifer Dulski, CEO, Center’d
* Sean Fox, COO, Reply.com
* Jordan Glazier, CEO, Eventful
* Krista Glotzbach, VP, Marketing, Vast.com
* Martin Herbst, GM, Kijiji U.S., eBay
* Greg Isaacs, Exec Director and GM, AT&T Interactive
* Jaan Janes, CEO, Pulse 360
* Joelle Kaufman, SVP, Marketing, Adify
* Warren Kay, VP, Local, Fox Audience Network
* David Kidder, Cofounder and CEO, Clickable
* Tony Lee, Chief Alliance Officer, Adicio
* Colin Pape, CEO, ShopCity.com
* Ben Saren, Cofounder and CEO, CitySquares
* Julie Smith, Group Product Manager, SuperMedia
* Mat Stover, CEO, Local Matters
* David Vazdauskas, President, Local Thunder

Do you think it will be a great conference? Do you think you can do major business? Please get more info here; or sign up to register here. Rates are better in advance than at the door.

While media companies (and their associations) have previously tried to kluge their online and offline numbers together to mask declines, Buchwald makes the case that radio, PC, mobile and TV really are complementing each other based on different day parts and accessibility. Consumers seek mobility and a seamless content experience,” he says. But TV still owns the evening. “It is increasingly about escapism.”

Buchwald also makes the case that consumers are increasingly “poly local.” They grab local information about their own community and others from a wide range of media. “The distinction between national and local is eroding,” he said. “There are thousands of places I can go to in LA to find out what’s going on in New York. Given the circumstances, it is up to local media to redefine the local experience with deep context. “Local matters less unless there is pull for me in the local community.”

“Local lifestyle needs are under-served,” added Buchwald. NBC’s answer is to “explore areas of high interest and low satisfaction. What people want in San Diego is different than in New York City.”

NBC is especially orienting itself around “social capitalists” between 25-44 years old, with high social demographics. They enjoy “discovering new content, their love for the city and being a key influencer that makes up the pulse of the city,” said Buchwald. “They love to try new thinks, and what’s new. Anything that keeps them ‘in the know’ is a keeper.”

Online, NBC is taking this guidance and building out NBC Local. The company has dedicated 140 people to the division, up from 20, and include a wide range of “functional experts,” including ex-staffers from other prominent media properties, such as The New York Daily News and Valley Wag. “People who actually get it.”

NBC is also negotiating partnerships with valuable content providers and curating unique information and stories from reliable sources. “We understand what we need to own and what we do not.” The ultimate goal is to build “families of products, rather than focus on a single property,” he said.

“Local online is a highly immature space,” concluded Buchwald. “We are a huge work in progress. Echoing others in the room who said that the era of any one company dominating local is over, Buchwald added that “we’re all in this together. It is a very, very nascent part of web. Nobody has yet conquered or mastered it.”

It is also shows a shift to third party sales sites as possible substitutes for directories – or so third party sites hope. It is especially important as small businesses shift a disproportionate amount of their spending on marketing from traditional media to the Web as the economy recovers.

The sales challenge, however, is that many SMBs don’t always fully understand what their expectations should be and continue to churn at uncomfortably high levels. WebVisible CEO Kirsten Mangers cited an “inflection point” in month four of a contract. Once an SMB reaches it, their churn level is likely to dramatically reduced among SMBs.

Mangers also noted that SMB sales is positively impacted by the diffusion of Web-based technologies. “Whatever happens in national will make it to local in the next eighteen to 24 months,” she said. Video, for instance, has arrived in a major way. SMBs get a five to thirty-five percent lift in conversions by including video with their website.

Yodle’s Cunningham echoed Mangers on churn issues. “After six months, people are very, very loyal. Customer lifespans may be three or four years,” he said. And they should be loyal, he says, since third party sales groups do so much for SMBs. “They need the power of our ten person marketing department,” and so forth, he notes.

Cunningham and Mangers also said the search environment is getting more competitive and probably cheaper, as Google gets more competition from the likes of Yahoo and Microsoft Bing. Mangers noted that the efficacy of Yahoo is up 123 percent from last year as better technology has been applied. With relevance up significantly, “we can spend more money on Yahoo,” added Cunningham.

Money can also be spent on other marketing products. “It is not a one size fits all approach,” said Cunningham. Search advertising doesn’t make sense for every restaurant, for instance – especially is acquisition ends up costing $30-$50 a pop. If they’re smart, they’ll take a restaurant.com coupon-like approach, he said.

The LA Times’ Andy Vogel, meanwhile, said his paper has been making a different kind of pitch to SMBs, mostly focused on its broad, increasingly involved, 92 percent reach, which includes the flagship paper and its related verticals, as well as The Tribune’s other area radio stations, ethnic media, community papers and local blogs. Vogel noted that ten of the 50 most read blogs in the U.S. originate from a LA Times Media Group Brand.

“We produce tons of hyperlocal content,” he said. Tribune’s community paper in Newport Beach, for instance, produces more content and has a higher level of readership than any other local media.

On a sales level, that will be reinforced in 2010, as the sites integrate advanced mapping and geo-spatial applications. A new iPhone app, for instance, allows users to create programs and sell ads on specific streets, all nicely plotted for advertisers. “Small things like that can help customers absorb it better,” he said.. The site has leveraged this capability by adding a “geo-proximity celebrity” watch that users can tap into to report sightings of favorite stars.

Vogel also says that Tribune sales efforts are triply reinforced, thanks to a recent restructuring. “We have a sales force that includes ‘hunters,’ ‘farmers’ and ‘customer service reps,’” he says. That means “we have three people always thinking about your business.”