The Praized Blog

MediaPost’s OnlineMediaDaily reports on a speech given by Team Detroit SVP Cary Tilds at CTIA Wireless in Las Vegas:

Mobile is mainstream–no longer emerging–which means advertisers and marketers need to be always on to reach consumers, according to Tilds, an executive from an agency created about a year ago combining JWT, Y&R Wunderman, Ogilvy and GroupM. “The more mobile data people use, the more they search, and I think it will continue to increase this way,” she said. “People are using mobile for impulse local searches, impulses, and restaurant and entertainment. Today, hotels make up about two thirds of the pay-per-call ads served.”

What do consumers search for on mobile phones? People look for local listings first–which gives smaller businesses an opportunity to reach a wider audience, followed by news and information, and mobile content. Tilds told conference attendees it’s not just about sending and receiving text, but rather about finding things online to consume.

What it means: mobile and local search, approaching a turning point. Will become strategic before the end of the year for anyone playing in the local search space. The merger of Local Matters and mobilePeople makes complete sense in that context.

It looks like Canoe411, the new online directory from MediaPages (Quebecor Media’s directory company) has soft-launched. Powered by Local Matters’ Destination Search Platform, it includes data from InfoCanada.

MediaPages has announced that, in 2008, they will “begin publishing urban directories, co-branded with Vidéotron (Quebecor Media’s cableco), in the Greater Montreal and Greater Quebec City areas. These directories complete an array of regional directories currently published by MediaPages in communities across Canada, co-branded with local and community newspapers owned by Sun Media and Quebecor Media.” You can see an example of their print book here.

Canoe.ca, Quebecor’s portal, has yet to replace 411.ca with the new site.

Update (02/11/2008): it looks like the site is gone.

A selection of some of the praized-worthy news in the last few days:

1) ContactAtOnce!, a provider of presence-aware solutions (click-to-call, IM, etc.) just announced that BargainNews.com, one of their customers, improved the conversion rate of its auto classified website by 77% after adding the ContactAtOnce! service (see screenshot below) to their enhanced advertising packages.

2) Bret Taylor and Jim Norris (both seen below), two of the masterminds behind Google Maps and several other Google products, have joined Benchmark Capital as “Entrepreneurs in Residence.” This gives them paid positions to hang out at Benchmark’s offices on Silicon Valley’s Sand Hill Road and think through starting a business. They have a specific idea in mind, but are secretive about it, telling VentureBeat only that it’s a “consumer Internet” company. I’ve had the chance to work closely with Bret when Google launched their Local site in Canada and it was great fun. I wish them both good luck! (via VentureBeat)

3) R.H. Donnelley officially launched DexKnows.com, their new local search web site powered by Local Matters (previously known as Dexonline.com). It now includes comparison shopping, a better mapping experience and some personalization tools.

4) Yellow Pages Group in Canada released their latest heading modifications. It’s always interesting as it gives us a perspective into changes in culture and society. Amongst others, Pilates, Organic Products, Geothermal Energy, Tapas, Brunch, Vegetarian & Vegan Foods are in. Telephone Booths, Shoulder Pads, Chewing Gum and Buttonhole Makers are out.

Lots of things I want to blog about today (the Facebook f8 Platform announcement, Christer Pettersson’s presentation at the EADP conference) but, as I’m just coming back from Barcelona, I have a lot of catching up to do and am still jet-lagged. So, here’s a grab bag of noteworthy news that happened while I was away:

• Local Matters launched a beta version of LocalGuides.com, their Local-Social play (what I call Local 2.0). Perry Evans had shown me an alpha release a few weeks ago and I was very impressed with the concept and the site. They describe it as “a new approach to creating a “social-local” experience in the Local Search domain”. Perry adds: “The site empowers consumers with the tools to create, annotate, expand and share lists of local businesses
  and places – publishing their own personal local guides.” You can read more on Perry’s blog. I’ll get back to it in a few days once I’ve had the chance to play with it.

• Publicar announced the re-launch of their local search engine for Latin America at www.PaginasAmarillas.com. The new site powered by i411 provides business and residential information for 14 countries in Latin America.

• Directories.ch offers 3D views from selected Swiss localities (via EADP.org)