Seb’s Interview with RHDi’s Sean Greene

Sorry . . . it’s not my interview. It’s Sebastien Provencher’s. He talked to Sean Greene, recently named head of RHD Interactive. Here are some interesting bits:

SG: Interestingly enough, I’m viewed as the Internet guy within RHD but I’m viewed as the print guy in Santa Monica. This gives me a unique understanding of print & online but also a strong knowledge of Yellow Pages sales. This allows me to put in perspective the need of both consumers and advertisers.

He says RHD has 500K advertisers.

He adds that he wants to do a better job with social media:

SP: what do you think of social media as an opportunity?

SG: We’ve been looking at it but I’m disappointed we’re not further along. For example, Work.com is all about consumer generated content and could be a great entry into social media. Next phase: how do we integrate social media in our big opportunities.

He also says that he’s (now) bullish on mobile.

Me: RHD has some great URLs and properties in Business.com and Work.com. It needs to do more experimentation on the consumer side (that’s a cultural challenge in RHD overall). My guess is that on that front (experimentation) it lags AT&T and Idearc. Justin Sanger (formerly of LocalLaunch) might disagree. 🙂

Much of what Greene seems to be talking about in the interview, if one reads between the lines, is cultural: educating people and enabling them to see the other’s perspective.

I keep hearing that the YP industry is going to verticalize increasingly. RHD has spoken in the past about this too. We’ll see how/whether this happens. It’s also the case that some natural acquisitions that should be happening in the local space aren’t because of the financial condition of the YP and newspaper industries right now.

Advertisement