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April 18, 2008
Emerging Vertical Era in Local
Online Media Is the Focus of Upcoming Kelsey Group Conference
More than 500 local
online media executives to examine the rise of local vertical and
niche media at ‘Drilling Down on Local ’08: Marketplaces,’
April 30-May 2 in Seattle.
Princeton, NJ (April 18, 2008) --
Local consumers and businesses are increasingly looking toward online
vertical and niche media as opposed to the horizontal media that
served their needs in the non-digital era, according to The Kelsey
Group. This trend serves as the backdrop for the firm’s “Drilling
Down on Local ’08: Marketplaces” conference, which takes
place April 30-May 2 in Seattle, Washington.
“While major attention has been paid to the
rise of the local search solutions, vertical and niche media meet
the needs of local consumers and businesses on a broader basis,”
explained Kelsey Group Program Director Peter Krasilovsky, cochair
of Drilling Down on Local ’08. “What we are seeing is
that key categories are bringing in up to 300 percent more revenue
when they are verticalized. There are limits to what you can learn
from Yellow Pages and newspapers about autos, real estate, restaurants
or garden centers. But on the Web, there are many options for getting
deeper, richer information.”
“The rapid rise of powerful ‘vertical’
marketplaces and brands on the Internet is evidence of consumers’
insatiable information appetite combined with a powerful medium
that has effectively become ubiquitous and free,” said Rich
Barton, cofounder and CEO of Zillow.com
and founder and former CEO of Expedia.com.
“I believe we are still in the early stages of the Internet’s
transformational impact on so-called verticals.”
Barton is among more than 50 leading vertical executives
who will be speaking at Drilling Down on Local ’08, including
Adam Bain, president, Fox Interactive Media Audience Network; Rob
Barrett, senior vice president of interactive media and general
manager, LATimes.com; Tom Bates, vice president and general manager,
Cox Search; Merrill Brown, founder and principal, MMB Media; Mitch
Golub, president, Cars.com; Erik Jorgensen, general manager, Virtual
Earth and Live Search Maps business unit, Microsoft; Patrick Marshall,
chief new media officer, Yellow Book; Patricia Lee Smith, vice president,
new media, The Seattle Times Co.; and Michael Yang, general manager,
Yahoo! Real Estate and Yahoo! Autos.
Drilling Down on Local ’08 is The Kelsey Group’s
16th conference since 1997 devoted to interactive local media and
local online commerce. Session highlights include:
- The Online City: Close Up on Seattle
- Remaking of the Los Angeles Times (Online)
- The Revolution in Classifieds
- The Big Picture for Verticals: Cars.com and Yahoo!
- Microsoft in Local
- Localizing National Verticals
- The Local Resellers: Taking on Goliath
- Insights Into Geospatial for Phone, Web and Multimodal
Conference sponsors include Acxiom, AdReady, AgendiZe,
Amdocs, Apptus, BIA Financial Network, Call Genie, Hawthorne Executive
Search, Homes.com, iBegin, Lat49, Local Matters, Local.com, Localeze,
Marchex, Matchcraft, MediaTraks, Mixpo, Moon Valley Software, Oodle,
Orange Soda, Spot Mixer and Topix. Association partners include
Association of Directory Marketing (ADM), Association of Directory
Publishers (ADP), International Classified Media Association (ICMA)
and Yellow Pages Association (YPA). Media sponsors are LatinVision
Media and TVover.net. For more information about the conference,
visit http://www.kelseygroup.com/drillingdown2008.
About The Kelsey Group
The Kelsey Group is the leading provider of research, data and strategic
analysis on directories, small-business advertising, online local
media, vertical market advertising and mobile advertising. Founded
in 1986, the company has built a reputation as the premier analyst
firm covering the directory publishing community and the emerging
local search marketplace, providing advisory services (The Kelsey
Report®, Interactive Local Media and Marketplaces), publishing
(Global Yellow Pages™), consulting (more than 400 individual
assignments) and conferences (72 events).
For more information contact:
Eileen Pacheco
eileen@tango-group.com
(781) 556-1026
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