Here are some interesting and noteworthy developments I didn’t or don’t have time to write about now:
Hearst sells its entire Local.com stake (announcement of investment here) and takes a quick profit on share gains related to two patent announcements.
Voice services and local mobile search provider Call Genie announced the renewal/extension of its contract with Yellow Pages Group in Canada. Call Genie is behind YPG’s pioneering “Hello Yellow” ad-supported mobile search offering. The company also has newer relationships with Jingle Networks (powers their category search) and Verizon in the US.
A new voice-activated mobile directions service launches: “DIR-ECT-IONS” (347-328-4667). According to the release, it “enables any cell phone user to call and ask for directions to any address or store destination. The free service asks callers for their start and destination and instantly sends driving directions by text message.” I haven’t yet had time to test it out.
White label city guide provider CityVoter announced a new relationship with McGraw-Hill Broadcasting, which owns a number of local TV affiliates. Those local affiliates essentially integrate the outsourced CityVoter city guide into their sites (see example).
Go2 continues to build out its mobile verticals with the launch of a new go2 Pets site. It also recently launched college centric mobile sites.
Tribune Co. newspapers: the LA Times had “one of the worst quarters” but its parent is rolling out its popular Metromix entertainment/city guides to LA and New York. Very popular in its native Chicago, this is not a newspaper site but a newspaper-owned competitor to Citysearch, Yelp, etc.
Without much fanfare (really any) Amazon starts broader push for its Q&A social media site “Askville.”
