Business and Marketing News
Its not just about advertising anymore. Social media is important too. Accordingly, a number of vendors and network providers have developed tools to help them see where there best placements are; how their reputations are unfolding online; and to simplify and automate their processes for listings and other information. Today, Oodle has taken several steps … Read more
Oodle has added Twitter to its outlets for social classified listings. Oodle’s other social media outlets also include Facebook, MySpace and AOL. CEO Craig Donato says he hopes to apply the learnings to Twitter from its launches on the other sites. Oodle is obviously less impacted by Twitter’s 140 character limit than other media, since classifieds are typically pretty short. Many other … Read more
Driven by the vision of newspaper innovators Rob Curley and Chris Jennewein, Greenspun Media, the publisher of The Las Vegas Sun, has spent heavily to develop a next generation local media division focused on online video, databases and other services. Indeed, it has sketched a path for other local media companies in the space. Its presentations have … Read more
Here’s some irony: by going national, AmericanTowns has become more local. The company, founded in 1999 by ex Time Warner exec Mike Kelly (who later went back in and became President of AOL Media Networks) was one of the original hyperlocal sites. Kelly’s idea was to build out a template, serve affluent suburban communities, and have local … Read more
Google sees great usage and potential for mobile with features such as Google Maps, “which is one of the most popular Apps on any phone,” noted Surojit Chatterjee, head of mobile search ad products, who was co-keynoting at MLM San Francisco. Mobile “is an extension of the Web” and can get “better usage than banner ads,” … Read more
Marketplaces 2010 takes place just 7 weeks from now in San Diego (March 22-24). We are putting the finishing touches on the program, and have added MANY exciting new speakers in just the past few weeks. The event is totally dedicated to the higher value/conversion/engagement ethos of vertical media. For sure, this isn’t one size fits … Read more
Google’s march into local reached another milestone today with the acquisition of Zagat, a major, international provider of high end restaurant and lifestyle reviews in 100+ cities. Zagat remains a major player in a reviews space it pioneered in 1979. In addition to hosting its patented “30 point” reviews from some 350,000 “surveyors.” Zagat has a … Read more
Google has acquired Dealmap, a deals aggregator and exchange, and will presumably use it to complement its own sourcing of deals for Google Offers, the daily deal site now in New York, The Bay Area and Portland and coming soon to Austin, Boston, Denver, Seattle and Washington, DC. Terms were not disclosed. Dealmap, a 15 person company, … Read more
The purchase funnel that takes consumers from awareness to transaction and retention has been an article of faith among marketers for many years. TV advertising, for instance, is “upper funnel.” Yellow Pages, at the point of sales consideration, has been “lower funnel.” Google has other ideas. Any purchase consideration must now consider the impact of search … Read more
Every time we turn around another local-oriented web site says they’re targeting rural and exurban audiences. So far, we’ve got Center’d, Topix, Merchant Circle, WeddingMapper.com and others zeroing on the rurals (Are we missing any?) All these sites are drawn by the technical capability of geo-targeting thousands of population centers by zipcode. They’re also encouraged by the relative absence of … Read more