Business and Marketing News
The newspaper recruitment deal with Yahoo first disclosed here in an Oct. 24 post has finally been confirmed, with some interesting twists. The deal puts in place a recruitment network of seven companies with 176 newspapers in 13 of the Top 15 markets. Additional activities that go beyond the scope of recruitment are to be “filled in … Read more
MojoPages, a 12 person local search/directory player based in the San Diego beach town of Solana Beach , has landed $5 Million in Series A funding from Austin Ventures. Mojo has settled on $5 million as the amount it needs to get to breakeven on a cash flow basis, says CEO Jon Carder, who founded the … Read more
A few years ago, Merchant Circle pushed the boundaries of SMB marketing,– getting claimed profiles from over one million SMBs with just minimal staff but the latest in social marketing (and telemarketing) techniques. The site has continued to develop after it was acquired by Reply!, Inc. in 2011 – it continues to gain new profiles — but it … Read more
TargusInfo, a major direct marketing tools provider and the parent company of Localeze, a “Big 3” provider of business listings, will be acquired by NeuStar for $650 Million in cash. The deal enhances NeuStar’s positioning as a leader in authentication services across the Internet and voice networks, whether fixed-line, cable, or mobile. Authentication is expected to dramatically grow … Read more
We’re over it by now. Yellow Pages aren’t universally used anymore, or as frequently used; and that there is a lot of competition for driving small business sales. But at BIA/Kelsey’s DMS ’11 Summit last week in Denver, one walked away with a real appreciation of the foundational role that Yellow Pages still play in … Read more
We all live in Google’s world now. Nobody would dispute that there are many positives associated with that. But how do industry practitioners really feel about it. Can it be improved? We asked three executives who cover different parts of the local ecosystem, promising them anonymity. An aggregator said he thinks he should be treated as … Read more
We all live in Google’s world now. Nobody would dispute that there are many positives associated with that. But how do industry practitioners really feel about it. Can it be improved? We asked three executives who cover different parts of the local ecosystem, promising them anonymity. An aggregator said he thinks he should be treated as … Read more
Five-year-old Yelp has been something of a phenomenon, and is a preferred ratings and review directory for millions of people online and mobile in 24 cities. In December, ComScore pegged its traffic at seven million visitors, up from 2.8 million a year before. It also has gathered a library of five million reviews, which are widely syndicated across many … Read more
AOL Local has teamed with Oodle to launch AOL Classifieds in the U.S. and Canada. In addition, AOL is launching a U.K. classifieds site at the end of the week. Oodle aggregates listings from more than 250 partner sites (including MySpace, Facebook and WalMart). The timing might be especially useful for used person-to-person goods, as people try to raise additional money … Read more
Several years ago, it looked like real estate brokerages might be marginalized by “Virtual Office Websites” (VOWS) that grabbed multiple listings service listings from the Web, using a licensed agent. They then acted as cut-rate sales agents to home buyers. At the time, it was envisioned that major online entities such as Yahoo! might use … Read more