I’m failing in my attempt to limit blogging this week. But dagnabbit (cue the Walter Brennan impersonation), there’s so much news. Instead of seven different posts, I’m just going to do a summary post today:
Zotspot, a search engine with its eye on social good, launched yesterday. Here’s more from my post at Search Engine Watch.
iMedia reports on a very successful video ad for Dove that has garnered buzz and been seen by millions virally. Viral video ads will compel better (or more vulgar) creative to generate views. The success of this campaign stands in contrast to the Wendy’s ads uploaded to YouTube.
In a bit of indirect self-promotion, eStara’s CEO discusses the shortcomings of the Google and eBay approaches to PPCall.
Here’s a BusinessWeek overview of IAC, in the wake of its positive Q3 earnings announcement, with speculation about the more and more central role that Ask will play. The question from a local POV becomes what’s the “going forward” relationship between a growing Citysearch and Ask Local?
Backfence just did its first deal with a local newspaper publisher, Virginia’s Loudoun Independent (the site is way too flash-heavy, yikes). The deal provides Backfence’s user-generated content tools to allow readers of the Loudoun Independent’s website to comment on stories.
Newspaper search and e-commerce vendor HarvestINFO announced a deal with Cox Newspapers to integrate its online marketplace tools “Deal Storm” and “ShopMountain” into several Cox-owned properties in Florida.
Metasearch travel side SideStep, run by former Yahoo! Shopping GM Rob Solomon, acquired TravelPost.com. TravelPost is a TripAdvisor competitor and boasts 500,000 hotel reviews and ratings. This reflects the importance of user reviews in travel, but more broadly online in general. SideStep recently added local travel guides and local activities.
Brian Smith reports (as part of a larger series) on Yahoo! Shortcuts. The big picture here is that search engines are uniformly trying to become more vertically oriented by including specific content or functionality at the top of search results.
The UK’s Jen Telecom taps SMS Q&A service AskMeNow to provide mobile “answers” for UK Blackberrys.
White label mobile search provider JumpTap announces deals with AutoDesk, SuperPages and WhitePages.com for mobile local search tools and content.
The NY Times invests in “citizen journalism” site Daylife. More from PaidContent and TechCrunch.
Screenwerk 