DexOne, YPG Announce Q1 Results

Both publishers posted Q1 2010 results today. Revenues and earnings were down in both cases, although YPG fared better.

YPG:

For the quarter ending March 31, 2010, consolidated net earnings were $121.8 million compared with $132.1 million for the same period in 2009. Income from operations was $166.8 million versus $185.7 million last year. Cash flow from operating activities reached $143.5 million during the quarter as compared to $197.4 million in 2009.

Consolidated Adjusted Revenues and revenues, at $408.1 million, decreased by approximately 1% and $0.2 million respectively from last year. Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA was $219.8 million, down from $225.9 million twelve months ago. EBITDA (income from operations before depreciation and amortization, and acquisition-related costs) was $216.1 million compared to $223.9 million in 2009. EBITDA on a reported basis is net of non-recurring rebranding and conversion costs aggregating $3.7 million in the first quarter of 2010 . . .

Combined online revenues for Directories and Vertical Media reached $98.4 million for the quarter or $393.6 million on an annualized basis, representing online organic growth of 20%.

If I’m doing the math right, online revenues were 24% of overall.

DexOne (formerly RHD) “a leading provider of marketing solutions for local businesses”:

New accounting rules/procedures make the results apparently anomalous. But here are some excerpts from the release:

“First quarter ad sales declined 19 percent largely reflecting selling activity during the third and fourth quarters of 2009. Recent sales campaigns are generating sequential improvements in ad sales trends, which we expect to continue throughout the remainder of 2010 . . .”

Dex One is affirming full year 2010 guidance originally provided on March 4, 2010:

– Year over year decline in advertising sales of between 12 percent and 15 percent.

– Combined adjusted net revenue(1,2) of approximately $1.8 billion and net revenue of approximately $0.9 billion.

– Combined adjusted EBITDA(1,2,3) of approximately $750 million and operating loss of approximately $100 million.

– Combined adjusted free cash flow(1,2,3) of approximately $450 million and cash flow from operations of approximately $400 million.

Again: “Year over year decline in advertising sales of between 12 percent and 15 percent.”

To what extent is this a benchmark for the rest of the industry?

YPG Mobile App Sees 1 Million Installs

Canada’s Yellow Pages Group announced that it had passed 1 million downloads of its smartphone application:

Yellow Pages Group (YPG) marked a key milestone in its accelerated digital transformation as it delivered its quarterly results today. On the heels of a new brand identity, a heightened focus on digital innovation and recent upgrade of its YellowPages.ca mobile application, the Company announced the YellowPages.ca mobile app has achieved its first million downloads on smart phones . . .

Beyond the million users of the YellowPages.ca app, YPG also serves hundreds of thousands of people through its other mobile apps including Urbanizer (mood-based local search) and RedFlagDeals (coupons and offers), as well as through its mobile web service at mobile.yp.ca for mobile users without a smart phone.

Trulia Pushing Mobile in Newsletter

I just received the newest Trulia newsletter and it puts mobile front and center:

Trulia says that about 10% of its traffic comes from mobile devices. Zillow told me about the same number, spiking to 15% on weekends.

Trulia recently added rental listings, which CEO Pete Flint said were even more likely to be searched on mobile devices in his view. But this is clearly not a case where mobile is cannibalizing traditional PC search behavior. It’s very much a complement to PC usage and an illustration of how local sites need to offer good mobile experiences — to deliver utility but also to cement loyalty.

Local.com Adds Newsday to Publisher Network

Local.com has added Newsday to the network of publishers that use its white-label directory product:

Local.com’s private label local search platform, to power the search directory for its widely known flagship local news and information site, www.newsday.com. Local.com will also power the directories for two of the company’s other local properties, Explore Long Island (www.exploreli.com) and Get Local Long Island (www.getlocalli.com).

The press release boilerplate copy says there are 800 partner sites for Local Connect:

[Local.com] uses patented and proprietary technologies to provide over 20 million consumers each month with relevant search results for local businesses, products and services on Local.com and over 800 partner sites. Over 50,000 small business customers use Local.com products and services to reach consumers using a variety of subscription, performance and display advertising and website products.

That network is arguably Local.com’s most valuable asset. It’s not clear to me that the company is building any “brand equity” in its destination site, although according to Compete it has very respectable traffic:

Yelp Says ‘Bonjour’ to French Market

BON-jour! Yelp is now available en Francais. Yelp.fr is the first non-English-language site for the company. The press release also says that “Yelp users everywhere will have the option to view Yelp’s interface in French or English, as well as write and access reviews in these supported languages via a link at the bottom of any business listing.”

Also:

The launch of Yelp France underscores the site’s increased effort towards broader availability in Europe. In April 2010, one million unique visitors consulted Yelp UK and Yelp Ireland, with the vast majority of that traffic coming from London. Reaching one million unique visitors after 16 months is an even faster growth rate than Yelp experienced in its first U.S. market of San Francisco and a strong indicator that Yelp is poised to gain the same type of traction in Europe.

Part of the $100 million from Elevation Partners was toward additional international expansion. Germany would be a logical next non-English European country. And in Asia I would imagine Japan would be first.

Groupon Buys Mob.ly, Opens Valley Office

Groupon has acquired mobile development shop Mob.ly, which has a number of A-List clients, and simultaneously opened its Silicon Valley office:

Groupon has announced the opening of an office in Silicon Valley to gain better access to the Bay Area’s technology talent, with a focus on Groupon’s mobile- and business-intelligence practices. The core of Groupon’s mobile team comes through the acquisition of mob.ly, a mobile-development firm led by former Yahoo! Senior Director of Product Management Mihir Shah and Yishai Lerner, former Director of Engineering at Carrier IQ.

This obviously indicates a big mobile push to come from Groupon:

The company recently raised more than $100 million at a valuation of over $1 billion.

Yahoo! Taps DexOne’s Biz.com for B2B Exposure

Yahoo! has joined Citysearch in utilizing DexOne’s (formerly RH Donnelley) Business.com site for B2B exposure and distribution:

Hot on the heels of a recent agreement with Citysearch Dex One’s Business.com subsidiary has inked a deal with Yahoo! to help businesses achieve greater online exposure.

Yahoo! advertisers now have the opportunity to have their paid search ads appear on select sites within the extensive Business.com Network, providing them with expanded opportunities to reach online customers.  Simultaneously, users who search on Business.com Network sites now have additional results to choose from, thereby helping them find more products, services and businesses that best suit their needs.

Business.com claims 40 million uniques for its ad network, which contains a range of B2B sites such as Financial Times and AllBusiness.com. There’s some very targeted vertical exposure in these impressions/clicks.

Google’s UI Refresh & Local Filters

There are already lots of posts and articles discussing the update to Google’s UI this morning. Preceded somewhat by the old Ask 3D, and more directly by Yahoo! and Bing, Google is promoting a three-column format with various filters (search options) on the left.

There are a dizzying array of options and tools there (previously text, now expanded and mostly graphical). Most of this is “power user” stuff. It comes out of “Universal Search” and is a successor strategy in a way to the blended organic content Google has been displaying in the body of search results. To my knowledge all that remains as it has been and won’t change.

Danny Sullivan at SEL has a very complete discussion and roundup of all the new features. I’ve done a quick write up of the mobile version of all this at Internet2Go.

To illustrate the new look, here’s the query “solar energy” before and after (I’m not seeing it yet so I borrowed Brad Stone’s/NYT’s graphic):

But what about local? What are the local features here worth noting? Most prominently you can filter by “Maps.” Because I can’t see it yet on any of my machines, I’ll have to speculate that it simply takes you quickly into Local/Maps.

There’s also the existing ability to sort by “nearby,” based on IP address or you can specify a custom location alternatively. Those have been part of the “search options” for a few months.

However I just noticed a “social” filter, which has probably been there too. I just hadn’t noticed it. This is what my options look like for the query “sushi” (new UI not yet live for me):

Danny Sullivan mentioned that there was also supposed to be a “reviews” filter (which is not exclusively local of course). It had existed previously, but apparently “didn’t make the cut.”

If you sort by “shopping” you’ll eventually be able to get to local product inventory information. It currently exists in mobile for a small number of large retailers and will be coming to the PC.

Some time ago Google changed the name of Maps to Local and back to Maps, citing consumer confusion over the idea of “Local.” However in mobile there’s a “Local” tab, which people “get.” In a way it would be better to have a Local icon/filter than a Maps icon. You could still have the maps icon at the top of the page. Local represents a broader sent of consumer intentions and use cases than Maps. However it would be problematic perhaps for Google to develop a new local filter.

Local is really a “horizontal vertical” — a more “narrow” category than general search that also happens to be broader than any other vertical, because it contains most other verticals. How to best reflect and represent this in this new set of UI changes and filters is both a daunting challenge and right now something of a missed opportunity.

vFlyer Adds FB to Listings Distribution Network

vFlyer is intended to simplify the process of distributing local (mostly real estate) listings around the Internet. Like others the company is also trying to solve the local “fragmentation problem.” All the Local SEM firms offer a version of this service too. As part of that vFlyer has added Facebook to its “network.”

The new functionality now allows real estate professionals to show their listings as part of their Facebook pages:

Earlier Roost introduced similar functionality.

MerchantCircle Releases API

MerchantCircle has released an API, which allows third parties to incorporate or build on top of the company’s content and listings:

• Over 2 million pieces of unique, merchant-generated content such as blog postings, videos, and pictures.
• Over 650,000 local business reviews contributed by local consumers
• Over 350,000 current, local deals and coupons created by local businesses
• Over 80,000 questions and 100,000 Answers from the MerchantCircle Answers Program

Companies that will be utilizing this include Citysearch/CityGrid, FootFeed.com, HelloMetro, 8coupons and Locomatix.

Between MerchantCircle, Facebook, Twitter, CityGrid, Foursquare and other local APIs in the market, the amount of local content available is exploding. There’s also a ton of valuable local content locked up in Yahoo! Answers right now too.

It used to be that there was a shortage of local data and reviews, now we’re almost approaching the opposite problem. Now the challenge becomes de-duping, integrating and elegantly presenting this via the PC and mobile devices.

We’re in a new era in local for sure.

AT&T Joins CityGrid

AT&T’s YP.com has joined the CityGrid network. (There was already a traffic deal between Citysearch and YP.com.) The NY Times uses that announcement to discuss Citysearch and its CityGrid strategy. Here are some interesting bits from the piece:

• CityGrid now has 150 publisher sites: “Citysearch’s 18 million business listings and ads from 700,000 small businesses show up on 150 Web sites.”
• Citysearch traffic has been declining: “Over the last year, the number of people logging on to Citysearch each month has fallen 24 percent, to 21 million.”
• Citysearch has 200 ad sales people (Yelp is trying to grow to roughly 400 with its recent investment round.)

CityGrid was in development for some time — maybe years — and it’s a brilliant idea. However it was also something that the market was desperate for: a high-quality source of local traffic and monetization and alternative to Google (both “.com” and AdSense). Publishers, however, don’t have choose between CityGrid and AdSense; both can be used — as InsiderPages does.

Where.com and LocalAdXchange offer local ad networks/exchanges predominantly (though not exclusively) in mobile. ReachLocal also started a local ad exchange but I’ve heard nothing about it for many months. There are also other local-specific ad networks in mobile, such as Verve and LSN.

The yellow pages, because of their own inter-industry competition, missed the opportunity to come together and build this service themselves.

The key here is not the content or advertisers or the platform (though all are important) so much as it is the vision behind CityGrid and the willingness to “flip the model.”

Foursquare Deals on SnackSquare

Will Scott (of Search Influence) just let me know about a new site, SnackSquare, that appears to aggregate and present the deals/specials available via Foursquare (using the API):

This is very interesting as a way to expose deals from Foursquare. Of course most of these are “mayor” or “best customer” loyalty deals that regular folks can’t take advantage of. If, however, there are more services like this that develop you might see a broadening of couponing on Foursquare (happening already to a degree) to appeal to new customers.

Regardless, it’s an interesting effort.

Regulation Is Here, Internet Professionals

I’ve been saying it for well over a year and Facebook may have been the final straw. The concern over privacy and user control raised in the wake of the Facebook “Open Graph” and Social Plugins initiative, as well as ongoing questions over behavioral targeting and online data mining, have created a kind of perfect storm that are all but certain to bring new regulation to data collection online.

New draft privacy legislation in Congress has already been proposed and circulated:

No consent is required to collect and use operational or transactional data – the routine web logs or session cookies that are necessary for the functioning of the website – or to use aggregate data or data that has been rendered anonymous.

Companies need an individual’s express opt-in consent to knowingly collect sensitive information about an individual, including information that relates to an individual’s medical records, financial accounts, Social Security number, sexual orientation, government-issued identifiers and precise geographic location information.

Some version of this Boucher bill (.pdf) will pass in Congress. On the surface and at the highest level it may not be that different from IAB “self-regulation” schemes or best practices employed today. What may be different is that the legislation empowers the FTC to make more rules and enforce the law. The state attorneys general are also empowered to enforce these rules and punish offenders through civil litigation. They can accordingly seek injunctions and civil damages against the offending companies.

This would also open the door to a wave of private and class action lawsuits against companies perceived to have deep pockets that violated the law. It effectively puts the burden on publishers, ad networks and others to very strictly comply with the rules and disclosure requirements or face punishment in the form of damages.

By playing “fast and loose” with privacy, being arrogant, naive, manipulative and aggressive about data collection and ad targeting online firms have brought this on themselves.

Google and then Yahoo have developed relatively clear pages that enable consumers to exercise some control over data collection and privacy (JumpTap has done a version of this in mobile). But this model has not been widely followed by others. Regulation might have been avoided if there were a more sincere and pervasive effort to do something similar across the Internet.

Any “self regulation” efforts now put forth are too little too late. Federal privacy regulation is coming. Indeed it’s almost here.

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The IAB doesn’t like the bill of course, while consumer groups think it’s too lenient.

InsiderPages Finds Its Voice with Doc Finder

InsiderPages, which was purchased several years ago by Citysearch/IAC, just introduced reviews of doctors and dentists. It joins Angie’s List and ZocDoc in offering this information. There are a couple of smaller sites that do a version of this as well, including Ratemds.com.

Angie’s List is a subscription-based model and ZocDoc doesn’t have the same national review coverage. ZocDoc does offer online appointment booking however.

The ratings content here comes from InsiderPages’ and Citysearch reviews and from a partnership with HealthGrades. The key innovation, not totally unique to InsiderPages, is the ability to sort by insurance carrier as well as other criteria:

Most people today are forced to go to their carriers’ sites, which generally offer a bad user experience and little or no valuable information about the doctor or dentist him or herself.

In addition to the insurance carrier filter, users can filter or sort by medical specialty, distance, gender, language, board certifications (and the all important “clean record”). InsiderPages GM Eric Peacock told me that he thought they had reviews for roughly one-third of all doctors and dentists in the US, with higher coverage in major metros.

In addition to reviews InsiderPages is providing HealthGrades’ patient survey information, which offers responses to standardized questions about the patient experience with the doctor or dentist:

When I spoke to Peacock yesterday it immediately struck me that this area would help define InsiderPages. He said that indeed doctor finder will become an area of emphasis and focus for the site, though it will still offer restaurant reviews and other categories.

He also said that over time the business/ad model would probably move into lead-gen for the doctors and dentists on the site.

As a side note, InsiderPages is going to probably get a ton of SEO traffic here as they create pages like “Family Practice Doctors San Francisco.” This is an advantage that the site has over virtually all the competitors in this segment.

Consumer Reports: ‘Social Insecurity’

In a report intended to be somewhat inflammatory, stoke fear and sell magazines accordingly, Consumer Reports reveals data from its latest “State of the Net” survey. Here are two public bullets of interest to me:

• 52% of adult users of social networks such as Facebook and MySpace have posted risky personal information online (personal information, street address, kids photos, etc.)
• 23% of the users of Facebook . . . either didn’t know that site offered privacy controls or chose not to use them

There’s lots of stuff about scams, fraud, malware and so on. I cite the report as further evidence that a meaningful number of Facebook users don’t fully understand privacy on the site and/or aren’t aware of the potential exposure of their information beyond their immediate friends on Facebook.

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Related: EFF doesn’t Like Facebook Connections and points out all the privacy issues.

Google Places Decal Virgin No More!

Today while stealing a few minutes to grab a burrito for lunch I saw my first Google Places decal “in the wild.” Sure I’ve been talking and writing about them for a long time (seemingly) but I’ve never actually seen one in the window until today.

The only use case in which the QR code makes sense (from my POV) is when a place is closed and the consumer is looking for reviews or other information about the business. Otherwise you could just go in and talk to someone, look at menus, etc.

From a marketing standpoint I think the Facebook “Like” SMS decal message makes more sense — although as someone pointed out to me recently the Facebook decal doesn’t explicitly reveal what happens if you comply. The subsequent messages do however.

Guess: Phone #s in AdWords = PPCall

Google, to my knowledge, has always allowed phone numbers to appear in AdWords ad copy. But this has not been a widely employed practice. Or maybe at one point it was allowed and then later disallowed; I’m not sure.

However last week over at Search Engine Land we were sent a screen shot that showed phone numbers in AdWords:

Google’s mobile new Click-to-Call (which translates into PPCall when you turn off the PC targeting) is widely known. But this phone-numbers-in-AdWords development seemed to be new. Indeed, Google confirmed it:

“We’re currently testing a feature with a small number of advertisers in which a phone number can be included within the ad to help them more effectively engage with customers who prefer to connect over the phone.”

However Google wouldn’t say anything more about:

• Whether these were tracking numbers (provided by Google)
• Whether Google was getting paid on a per-call basis

I’m going to speculate that these are tracking numbers (from Google) and that it is a PPCall billing model. The logic behind my speculation is simple.

If people see the ads and just call the phone number there’s no click and so no billable event. Google doesn’t get paid. And the presence of the phone number in the ad in fact explicitly contemplates that some number of people will just pick up the phone and not click.

To determine the efficacy of this program calls would necessarily need to be tracked with unique phone numbers. And Google probably wouldn’t say: just go ahead advertiser and use your own phone numbers and let us know later how many calls you receive. So Google is probably supplying the tracking numbers; and the model is probably PPCall.

Agree? Disagree? What do you think is going on?

Notes about SMX Session Pitches

Lately I find myself having to choose from a tough field of strong speakers for my panels at SMX events. The upcoming SMX Advanced is no exception. The “Search Funnel” session has 17 pitches, at least 10 of which are good. Location-based services and mobile also now have quite a few pitches.

Sometimes in going through these pitches I’m confronted by a strong individual accompanied by a weak pitch. The pitch might have been made by a PR person or internal assistant using generic or recycled copy: “Bob X can speak about this vague laundry list of topics that are somewhat related to the particular session topic.”

That approach all but guarantees such people won’t make it on to panels. Occasionally I’ll go back and email the speaker and offer him/her the chance to pitch more directly to the topic and explain a bit more what they’d speak about. But in a session with 3X-4X the number of pitches as available slots I don’t have the time or general inclination to do so. And in a way I can’t really justify it.

So . . . Please make sure (next time) that the pitch responds directly to the session topic and content.

Calling Angels: New Mobile Startup

I met today with a new startup in the mobile space that I would all-but-guarantee is going to be acquired by either a hardware OEM or major mobile competitor. The company hasn’t officially launched so I can’t identify who it is. Sorry; I realize this is kind of like Hotwire with hotel rooms.

I was impressed by a number of features that the company’s app offer and there’s broad mainstream mobile user appeal there too.

It’s the kind of thing that isn’t just another app; it rises above the noise because of some of the unique features it offers. The company is formally launching soon, first on Android and then on the iPhone. There’s potential global reach here. And there isn’t anything exactly like it — that I’m aware of.

There’s some roughness still around some of the edges, but the team behind the company has multiple successful exits and so on (you know).

They’ve raised a seed round of angel money and are looking for a bit more. If you’re interested in an introduction just email me and I’ll do an intro. There’s nothing at stake for me financially; I don’t get any bounty or deal from this.

New Vigor for Yahoo! Local?

I met briefly with Irv Henderson this morning as part of a Yahoo! breakfast associated with the Web 2.0 event in San Francisco. Henderson is VP of Product Development for Mobile and Local.

I was encouraged to hear his enthusiasm and some interesting ideas. For too long Yahoo! Local has just been languishing and I’m happy to see somebody taking ownership with some new creativity.

Henderson impressed me as a very thoughtful person and said that local is “an increasingly important area of search” for Yahoo! I neglected to ask him for a number (Google’s conservative estimate is 20%.) It’s also good to see Yahoo! connect mobile and local in a single individual. While these categories are distinct in many respects and the user experience and use cases are often different, there’s also huge overlap.

Henderson and I also spoke about how Yahoo! Answers, which just celebrated its billionth answer, is an underutilized asset. He gave me the impression we’d be seeing some interesting developments with that property.

Yahoo! also has more plans for the iPad, which were hinted at in an informal conversation with other mobile folks. And so I’m interested to see what appears in terms of new Yahoo! apps.

Yahoo! Mobile VP David Katz also informally told me that mobile advertising is going extremely well, although the company hasn’t put out any PR on that front in some time.