Damn There’s a Lot of News!

Last night I was obsessing about the election and the coverage and didn’t do any posting. In the last 24 hours a lot has happened:

Google is now reportedly moving forward with a significant push into radio/audio ads. Here’s coverage from the WSJ (sub req’d). There are rumors about potential deals with Clear Channel and/or CBS radio for distribution. When you put this in the context of the recent newspaper print ad “alpha” test + the YouTube acquisition (talks with Verizon for mobile distribution) you see Google’s “agency” or one platform, multi-point distribution strategy starting to bear fruit.

Yahoo! announced the launch of graphical ads for mobile phones. This is not entirely new – others are doing this. Some of the banners will appear on mobile e-mail. Yahoo! Mail online serves huge numbers of graphical impressions for Yahoo! and Yahoo! mail was recently determined to be the number one mobile site. The problem/challenge here is that unless there’s something more going on (e.g., games, offers or targeting) so-called “banner blindness” will be even greater on mobile devices. That said, brands are increasingly seeking ways to get in front of mobile consumers. Here’s more from IDG News.

Marchex announced the launch of and ad network, including numerous vertical/local sites. Much of the content and the navigation on those sites is built on Marchex’s acquisition of Open List. Open List makes those sites much more real/meaningful that in its absence.

Local events destination Zvents announced $7 million in Series A funding from several VCs. Online events has been an area of weakness in the local space and more comprehensive sites are a further threat to print newspaper subscriptions. The challenge for these event sites is that it’s really a piece of a larger offering, which is why Upcoming.org was previously bought by Yahoo!.

The Kelsey Group reiterated its forecast for local search + classifieds in promoting its upcoming ILM:06 event. I was primarily responsible for this conference when I was there and unfortunately I won’t be able to attend the forthcoming event – too much other travel.

Riya’s Like.com “visual search engine” launched with an emphasis on apparel/product search. Here’s more from GigaOm and Walter Mossberg at the WSJ (sub req’d).

Skype, which is morphing into an ad network of sorts announced deeper click-to-call integration and more social features in Skype 3.0. Here’s more from Reuters.

M-Spatial and Orange today announced local search functionality on the Orange World mobile portal. From the release: “The Orange UK portal home page search function has been upgraded to include results from listings of locally relevant businesses and amenities. The results are drawn from the wealth of rich and dynamic local information already provided by the recently re-branded Orange Local (previously Orange Finder) mobile local search service.”

Comcast is launching its own version of YouTube in Ziddo.com. Here’s more from Reuters. Comcast has the benefit of a huge installed subscriber base and can leverage that as well as online.

And MSFT’s Xbox will officially become a video download tool. The advantage here is the installed base that already has Xbox connected to a TV, which is otherwise a barrier to the mainstreaming of video downloads. Here’s more from the NY Times (reg req’d). At the MSFT Live 3-D launch party the other night all the live Virtual Earth stations they had set up were operated by Xbox game controllers. That was really fun and makes the 3-D environment into even more of a game.

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