Yahoo Local

AT&T Advertising Solutions 2Q 2009 Results: Operating Revenues Down 12.5%, Income Down 27.5%

~ Sebastien Provencher ~ Leave a comment

AT&T released their second quarter 2009 results yesterday morning. Like Greg Sterling did, I had to dig down in the Statements of Segment Income (excel) document to find detailed information about their directory business. No information was directly provided in the press release.

Directory operating revenues were down 12.5% in Q2 2009 (vs. the quarter one year ago) at $1,231 million and segment income was down 27.5% (also vs. Q2 2008) at $314 million. No online advertising data was provided.

AT&T Yellow Pages Q2 2009 results 

In related news this week,

  • Yahoo! announced a partnership with AT&T Interactive (read YellowPages.com) to start selling Yahoo! local display ads to Yellow Pages advertisers. As the release says, “The agreement between AT&T Interactive and Yahoo! is the latest addition to the longstanding strategic relationship between AT&T and Yahoo!, which runs across many Yahoo! products and services, including portal and mobile services, as well as powering Yahoo! Local with advertiser content from YellowPages.com.”
  • YellowPages.com introduced a new version of YP.com, the URL they acquired from Livedeal late last year. They’re experimenting with a more user-focused online directory site there, but nothing ground-breaking yet.
  • Finally, in a strange and ironic twist of editorial fate, the Yahoo! Small Business blog was explaining to its readers yesterday “When to Pull the Plug on Yellow Pages Advertising“. Bad timing guys!
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More "Local" in Yahoo's Future

~ Sebastien Provencher ~ Leave a comment

(…) discussed what’s emerging as one of Schneider’s top priorities to help jump start the company: more local content and more local ads.

Rather than confine news and other local content to a separate product, Yahoo wanted to extend the “lens of local” across all its programming. That includes everything from being able to show a user news about their hometown on the Yahoo homepage to being able to show them an ad with an offer for their local Costco in Yahoo Mail.

via Yahoo’s Schneider Sees Light Around Local – Digits – WSJ.

What it means: in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Hilary Schneider, Yahoo’s executive vice president for North America, thinks that the portal will embrace “local” more in the future. Expect Yahoo! to try to push local ads to newspapers and directory publishers’ sales forces.

More "Local" in Yahoo's Future

~ Sebastien Provencher ~ Leave a comment

(…) discussed what’s emerging as one of Schneider’s top priorities to help jump start the company: more local content and more local ads.

Rather than confine news and other local content to a separate product, Yahoo wanted to extend the “lens of local” across all its programming. That includes everything from being able to show a user news about their hometown on the Yahoo homepage to being able to show them an ad with an offer for their local Costco in Yahoo Mail.

via Yahoo’s Schneider Sees Light Around Local – Digits – WSJ.

What it means: in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Hilary Schneider, Yahoo’s executive vice president for North America, thinks that the portal will embrace “local” more in the future. Expect Yahoo! to try to push local ads to newspapers and directory publishers’ sales forces.

NaviCity: Yahoo! Local Meets Airport Wi-Fi

~ Sebastien Provencher ~ Leave a comment

Logging-in to the Wayport Wi-Fi access of Austin’s Bergstrom International Airport, I was happily surprised by the home page displayed. It seems like Wayport has partnered with Yahoo! to display geo-targeted local information. The home page shows you the map of the neighborhood (in this case, the airport), a series of top category links and a search brick. Local weather and news complete this mini hyperlocal portal.

Navicity Yahoo Local

What it means: just as I’m writing a blog post covering the excellent muni Wi-Fi session I attended yesterday afternoon at SXSW, this home page pops in front of me. Smart move by Yahoo! Local. There’s an interesting case to be made in matching local search with Wi-Fi providers.

Australia: Google and News Corp Partner to Launch Google Maps

~ Sebastien Provencher ~ 2 Comments

Following the launch of Google Maps in Australia, people were left wondering when business listings would be added to the site. Wonder no more. Google has announced it is partnering with TrueLocal.com.au, a News Corp local search property, to get the required business data for Australia.

“We are putting our entire database of business, paid and unpaid, into the Google database,” News Digital Media operations chief Nick Leeder said. “We also provide Yahoo Local with data for their local search product but ideally we would like to see people use Truelocal.”

“Google’s launch introduces yet another cashed-up media player to the local search market and further highlights the increased level of risk that Telstra will face as search revenues migrate from print to online,” Macquarie Equities analyst Andrew Levy said. (…) The deal with News is understood to have been signed more than six months ago but Google was prepared to wait until it had its product right, people familiar with the project said.”

The Google blog provides some examples: “The next time you’re looking for an address, tiger meat pie in Sydney, cafes in Melbourne, or how to get to the beach, Google Maps can help you find the answer”

Finally, Lisa Barone over at Bruce Clay Inc. says that “local search engine optimization has just hit Australia in a really big way”

(Via Australian IT, The Google Blog, and the Bruce Clay Blog.)

What it means: I’m surprised it’s not Sensis (Telstra’s business directory division) that ended up providing data for this launch. Then again, maybe the major Google/Myspace ad deal (MySpace is owned by News Corp.) influenced the outcome. Or maybe they just did not want to do the deal with Google. We might never know.