Zvents, the site where you can discover things to do, has secured $24 million in funding from Nokia Growth Partners, AT&T and NAVTEQ. Nokia Growth Partners, is the growth capital arm of Nokia (NYSE: NOK), the world’s leading mobile phone supplier; NAVTEQ, is the world leader in premium-quality digital map data. AT&T (NYSE: T) is the largest U.S. wireless company which, through its YELLOWPAGES.COM subsidiary, is also the leading U.S. internet yellow pages search directory. Zvent’s existing investors, Vantage Point Venture Partners and Red Rock Ventures, also participated in the financing.

Zvents will use the proceeds to expand the reach of its local listings advertising network, which enables both local businesses and national chains to promote their locations with search-targeted events such as sales and weekly specials. Zvents will also further invest in expanding the deployment of its successful local search platform, which currently powers a network of more than 250 media partners.

Paul O’Brien, VP of Marketing of Zvents, told me today that this is “a strategic investment that is notable for the substantial amount, big-name investors, and innovation in local search.” This additional funding has very big implications, showing that local is not going away soon; it continues to grow as people get online and look for things to do in their local communities.

Nokia’s John Gardner said, “We are delighted to have led this round of funding for Zvents, enabling them to bring their world-class local search service to the converged worlds of internet and mobility. We believe that the combination of next-generation mobile devices and powerful server-side search services will be a powerful channel to deliver local information to consumers. Zvents has found an innovative way to connect local search to the marketing needs of local merchants, offering a compelling means of driving exciting, context-based mobile experiences.”

Zvents now powers a local search for a few hundred major media partners, including MSN through City Guides. The great interest stems from the unique ability for local businesses to promote themselves online in ways that match their established media buying patterns - through events listings such as sales and weekly specials that are distributed throughout the network.

Since its founding in 2005, Zvents has built a broad network of more than 250 media, advertising, and mobile partners including: Viacom’s (NYSE: VIA.B) mtvU, Microsoft’s (NYSE: MSFT) MSN CityGuides, AT&T’s YELLOWPAGES.COM, and hundreds of local media and newspaper sites owned by major local media firms including MediaNews Group, Freedom Communications, The McClatchy Company, and The New York Times Company. Zvents is continually growing its network of distribution partners both within the United States and internationally.

Zvents powers a unified international search index for the partner network, on which local consumers everywhere can perform “what, when, and where” searches for millions of events, businesses, performers, and other activities in their areas. This unique search technology platform aggregates data via web crawling and extraction, user- and merchant-generated content, and dozens of data partnerships; and provides localized search relevance and ranking to individual media partners.

Forbes ran an interesting Zvents feature last week in their print mag and online. What I find interesting is that I didn’t realize that local ads are very lucrative and average well over $1.00 per click:

Local ads are very lucrative, averaging $1.20 per click compared to 47 cents Web-wide, but search engines have done a mixed job selling local ads and geographically targeting ads with results. Part of the problem: A third of all searches have the intent of finding something nearby, but only 7% return a location. That limits ad inventories.

In local advertising, though, most small businesses “are still spending the majority of their ad dollars the old-fashioned way, on direct mail and print and online directories. All print and online directories grossed $15.1 billion in ad sales last year; local online search spending was $1.2 billion.”

Commenting on this news, Paul O’Brien has posted some personal thoughts on his own site.

“Zvents has spent four years building a world-class local search service,” said Ethan Stock, Zvents CEO and founder. “This funding will enable us to dramatically scale the value of that service to our network of media partners, local consumers, and local advertisers.”

According to O’Brien, “What Ethan has briefly highlighted is that Zvents is a unique local search engine. Now powering for a network of hundreds of web and mobile partners, including MSN, an index that features event listings to promote your local businesses. Simply, the company enables local businesses, merchants and retailers, and restaurants to submit both free and paid listings to the network.”

From what I am seeing, MSN, Google, and Yahoo! are trying to get into Local, but they’re not necessarily doing a very good job at it. Their core is providing search results for the world wide web, not Local. We’re beginning to see companies like Zvents become strong leaders in Local Search.

How many domain names do you own? One? Five? Over one hundred? You would probably be surprised about how many domain names I own and how many I have developed. Some are currently parked using a domain parking service. Yet some of the domain names I own redirect to currently developed web sites. And I acquired them just for that purpose: to redirect to an existing web site. Enough about me, though. Let’s think about your existing domain names, what you’re doing with all of them right now, and domain names that you could acquire in the future.

Domain names you’re not using
If you own more than one domain name, then what are you doing with the other ones? Did you register them and they’re just sitting there…making someone else money? Seriously. Like many people, they have bought domain names and they never did anything with them. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. If you typed them in the browser right now they would come up with a “Godaddy web page” or other landing page by the domain registrar…advertising that Registrar’s service and (you might now know this) it is making that registrar money when people click on the PPC ads on that domain name. Did you know that if you simply went to a domain parking service like Sedo.com to park your domain names. All you have to do is sign up, change the nameservers on your domains, and tell the parking company what your domain name is about: give them a keyword phrase. That’s it. If you’re just sitting on some domain names that you’re not using, then you should consider parking them, selling them, or developing them.

Redirecting Domain Names
There is a unique group of people out there that use the 301 Permanent Redirect to their advantage: they acquire domain names that have links and traffic: and they redirect them to their current web sites. That is an option that you have if you own a domain name that has links and traffic. But I would only redirect it to a “live” web site if you are certain that the former topic of that domain name is in line with the domain name you are redirecting it to. So, if you own a former automotive site that has 100 backlinks that are good automotive links then it might make sense to redirect it to your existing automotive web site. There are other factors, and I plan on discussing those factors–and buying domain names for links–at a future date.

How do you know when do develop a domain?
Developing a domain name, whether you install WordPress on the domain name and make it a blog or a site or you hire a development team, a web designer, and a writer should depend on several factors. Developing a domain name, whether you do it yourself or not, means time and money. Let’s take a a look at an example of how you could determine, from an Search Engine Optimization perspective, whether or not you should develop the domain name you own or not.

Ultimately, “Should I develop this domain name or not?” is a question only you can answer. But, I would like to give you my unique perspective on this and how I go about logically determining (from my SEO perspective) whether or not to develop a domain or not.

There a few things that you can do that will might help you decide if you want to develop the domain or not. Here’s what I do. I will use “nailerkit.com” as an example, as it is a lot easier to use a real domain as an example. I currently own that domain name and plan on developing it at some later date.

I would also like to point out that this technique is good for “generic” domain names, ones that contain keywords or keyword phrases (keyword-rich), and do not contain a trademark.

1. First, go to Google and search for the domain name’s primary keyword phrase. In this case, I am using “nailer kit“. Are there Google AdWords ads for that phrase? In this case, there are. Companies believe that it’s a good enough keyword phrase for them to actually pay for ads for that keyword phrase.

2. Go to the Google Keyword Tool and search for the the phrase or keyword. I searched for “nailer kit” without quotes and I see that Google says that there are about 40,500 searches for that phrase, and 25 related phrases. That means that there IS traffic for the phrase, there are people who search for it, and there’s 25 potential pages for the site (one page per related keyword). So, I could fairly easily create a 26 page site.

3. Back to the search results for “nailer kit“. I look at the search results’ top 10 to see if someone else is using a domain with keywords in the URL and they’re ranking in the top 10. In this case there is not.

I look at the top 5 search results to see if any of those sites that are ranking are actually targeting that phrase as their main keyword (and they’re not for ‘nailer kit’).

I look at the top 5 search results and check the backlinks to those pages that are ranking. I take the actual page that’s ranking and check it’s links in Yahoo!. In this case, there are 34 links to that page. But, what is important to note is that there are 34 links from the same domain name, Lowes.com, and not from other domain names. If a web site has on-topic links from several different domain names there is a better chance that it will “beat out” a page that only has internal links from one domain name pointing to it. There are a lot of other factors involved in a search engine ranking, but since I should be able to get lots of on-topic links to a whole entire site about “nailer kits” then I stand a good chance of ranking well for “nailer kit” and “nailer kits”.

4. Some other considerations will include questions like:

- How easily can I create the content? How much will it cost to hire someone to write 26 pages of material about nailer kits? I could write it myself (probably about 1 day of time to write the content) or I could get someone else to write it (I have a writer who will write unique content for me at $7 an article or page).

I could also see a very good “link bait” type of articles on the site, one about “how to use a nailer” and “how to use framing nailers” and “how to pick the right nailer”. This is the type of content that other sites like to link to. And they tend to do well in the social media, which will help.

- Can I easily monetize the site? In this case, I can use a combination of Google AdSense and Yahoo! Publisher Network ads as well as affiliate product ads (using affiliate programs, potentially through popshops.com). I can find a lot of “nailer kits” and nailers to sell on the site.

- Would someone want to purchase the domain at a later date if it has traffic, is developed, has a revenue stream, and is a good generic domain? Yes, I think so.

- What is the link strategy? How are you going to get on-topic links to the site? In this case, once the site has enough content (I have already found 26 different pages for the site), submitting it to dmoz.org, botw.org, business.com, yahoo directory, and various home improvement sites will help. Spending about $500 on links and on directory listings will help. Using the content and the link bait articles on the site to promote the site in the social media will potentially help get links to it.

At this point, I have decided that it IS worth it to take the time to develop nailerkit.com. There’s enough potential traffic for the topic and I could develop it. Actually developing it will increase that domain name’s value in the long run and it will appeal the the “sellability” of the domain in the future. By searching for the site’s main keyword phrase, by doing some basic keyword research, and by looking at the overall potential for the domain name’s advertisers or your “potential profitability”, you should be able to determine whether or not you should develop the domain name or not.

Do you have questions? Do you have a domain name that you’re thinking of developing and want me to take a look at its overall marketability? Let me know.

Ask.com has re-launched their search engine for kids at www.AskKids.com. School is now back in session (at least it is for the kids here in Texas), so now is great time for kids to start using this new search engine.

What’s important for me, as a parent of an 8 year old in third grade and a two year old is that the search engine they use is a safe one. But it needs to be a search engine that kids want to use. Ask Kids gives kids a great search experience. After using it a few times this morning, I can see that it has more relevant, kid-friendly search results than any other search engine. And the search results are presented is an interesting, pleasing, graphically-vivid display–better than any other search engine. In fact, it makes Google look sort of “bland”.

What’s great about this new kids search engine is that it’s more “click friendly” than “type friendly”. If you have kids and you’ve ever watched them use a search engine to find something, you’ll know that kids are not very good at typing. In fact, they’re terrible at typing. But, even my 2 year old can use a mouse. According to Ask.com, the Ask Kids search engine was built with this in mind: you don’t have to type that much in order to get good search results. Let’s take a look at the search results.

I did a search for the word Texas at Ask Kids to see what would find. Right there, front and center, you get the stats for Texas:

Governor: Rick Perry (R)
Capital: Austin; Population: 22,490,022
Statehood: December 29, 1845 - 28th state admitted
Nickname: Lone Star State; Motto: Friendship
State Bird: Mockingbird; Flower: Bluebonnet; Tree: Pecan
State Song: Texas, Our Texas

What’s also good is that there are many places to click: you don’t have to actually type again to find what you’re looking for. You can click on over to the official State of Texas website, you can look at images on the right, and you can even narrow or expand your search with related phrases. And, best of all, you can find out the time in Texas as well as the temperature in Austin, Texas.

What’s also interesting to me, though, is that Ask Kids has sponsored search results right in the middle of the screen, right below the stats for Texas:

I know Ask.com needs to monetize their search engine, but to put up sponsored results right there in the front and center like this? Do you really think that kids have the ability to support those sponsors? It just seems kind of odd to me that contextual ads (they appear to be from Google AdWords?) would be so prominent in the search results. I would expect banner ads to be there, not contextual ads.

Just as a test, I went ahead and searched for some keyword phrases that might bring up some “controversial” search results, just to see really if this all-new Ask Kids search engine is more “kid friendly” like they say it is. I searched for viagra. Do it yourself and tell me that this search result is “kid friendly”:

Should AskKids.com, supposedly the best “kid friendly” search engine show sponsored ads for Viagra? I realize that many kids will probably not be searching for Viagra at AskKids.com. But what about their actual search results. Are their organic, natural search results even on-topic for the keyword phrase that I searched for, Viagra? The number one search result for this search phrase is Nature.com. How ironic!

Global digital marketing agency iCrossing has announced their findings of their Vertical Visibility Index: Automotive. They’re saying that Chrysler, General Motors (NYSE:GM) and Nissan are tops when it comes to online search visibility.

The Vertical Visibility Index: Automotive is the first in their series of studies that analyzes the paid and organic/natural search media visibility. They are looking to identify the leaders within each specific industry vertical that they study.

In the Vertical Visibility Index: Automotive study, iCrossing found that “Chrysler, GM and Nissan North America are doing the best job of taking a synergistic search engine marketing approach, with the highest scores for combined visibility. Ford leads for natural search visibility and Hyundai has the greatest paid search visibility for the keyword set analyzed.”

iCrossing released the key findings of their study:

– At the OEM level analysis, Ford Motor Company has the largest natural visibility share of market with 22%. They are followed by General Motors Corporation (17%), Chrysler LLC (15%), American Honda Motor Company (11%), and Mercedes-Benz USA (8%). Together, these top five companies make up more than 70% of the total natural search visibility share of market.

– At the brand level, Ford has the highest visibility for a brand with 18% of the natural search visibility market share, followed by Chrysler (12%), Honda (10%), Pontiac (8%), and GMC (6%).

– Of the top 25 keywords by search volume, eight keywords had no visibility for any brand: used car, buy a car, race cars, muscle car, car search, auto loan, car loan, and used car prices.

– Ford Motor Company and Toyota Motor Sales USA are the only OEMs with visibility on the top volume keyword, “car”.

– Of the Top 50 Most Visible URLs based on 1st page natural rankings, automobiles.honda.com has the highest position (22nd) for this keyword set within the brand URLs, followed by pontiac.com (40th), fordvehicles.com (47th), and toyota.com (49th).

– For the study keyword set, Hyundai Motor Company has the greatest paid search market share of Google paid search with 30%, followed by General Motors Corporation (22%), and Chrysler LLC (17%). Together, these 3 OEMs have almost 70% of the overall paid search market share on Google for the automotive keyword set.

– Combining the information from natural and paid search analyses, Chrysler LLC, General Motors Corporation, and Nissan North America are doing the best job of approaching search engine marketing with a synergistic approach.

In the report, iCrossing talks specifically about how they came about the rankings:

“For the Vertical Visibility Index: Automotive report, iCrossing analyzed natural search engine position data for the following U.S. search engines: Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Ask and AOL. Weighting scores using search engine share of market, keyword volume and keyword positions across each engine, iCrossing used its new proprietary Industry Index algorithm to compute natural search visibility share of market for a set of automotive keywords. Since the score generated for each company represents its share of market across a fixed set of competitors, keywords, and search engines, it is then comparable over time to explore trends.”

What I found interesting is that they looked at Google, MSN, Yahoo!, and Ask, but they also included AOL in the mix. Isn’t adding AOL just going to take the Google findings and multiply it by an additional amount? I mean, the majority of the organic search engine rankings on AOL are all from Google, right? The same with the paid search? So, why would you include AOL?

“For the automotive OEM industry, we generated a set of 102 keywords…”

In this automotive OEM industry, there are a lot more than 102 keywords. I could easily find more. A lot more. Why would this possibly include 102 keywords? Why not 103 or even 100 keywords? Or the top 100 keywords? Anyhow, it’s quite an interesting list, very comprehensive, so I will include it here:

alternative fuel
car online
new car
auto
car payment calculator
new car dealer
auto dealer
car price
new car price
auto incentives
car quote
new car quote
auto industry
car resale values
pickup
auto lease dealer
car retailer
pickup truck
auto loan
car review
pre-owned auto
auto loan calculator
car reviews
pre-owned automobile
auto loan refinance
car sale
pre-owned car
auto online
car search
race cars
auto quote
car show
safe auto
auto retailer
car specials
sedan
auto show
car values
semi truck
auto warranty
car warranty
smart car
automobile
cars online
sports car
automobile dealer
certified pre-owned
station wagon
automobile incentives
certified used
suv
automobile quote
cheap car
truck
automobile retailer
concept cars
truck accessory
buy a car
convertible
truck dealer
buy an auto
coupe
truck part
buy an automobile
crossover vehicle
truck part service
buy new car
electric car
truck repair
buy used car
environmentally friendly car
used auto
buying a car
extended auto warranty
used auto part
car
fast car
used car
car accessory
fuel economy
used car dealer
car dealer
fuel-efficient car
used car for sale
car deals
gas mileage
used car prices
car finance
hatchback
used truck
car incentives
hybrid car
used vehicle
car lease
luxury car
vans
car loan
mini van
vehicle
car loan calculator
muscle car
vehicle sales

For more information and to download their study, take a look here at the research area of iCrossing.

iCrossing is a global digital marketing company that combines talent and technology to help world-class brands find and connect with their customers. The company blends best-in-class digital marketing services - including paid and natural search marketing, Web development, social media, research and analytics — to create integrated digital marketing programs that engage consumers and drive ROI. iCrossing’s client base includes such recognized brands as Epson America, Toyota, Travelocity and 40 Fortune 500 companies, including The Coca-Cola Company and Office Depot. Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, the company has 620 employees in 15 offices in the U.S. and Europe.

Search Engine Roundtable recently pointed out that you can now search all of the US Government web sites courtesy of Google. Using Google’s new Uncle Sam search, you can now search the US Government websites. I can see how this would be very useful, especially if you wanted some unbiased government data. But wait!

Last year I talked about how you can search the college sites. Now you can search the US Government websites courtesy of Google.

Being the curious one, I thought that I would take a look to see how polluted the US Government websites really are. So, I searched this new Google Uncle Sam custom search engine for online casino:

All I can say is, “wow”. Even the online casino spammers have managed to infiltrate the US government websites. I am not surprised, though. They have even managed to get home page links on niem.gov (which now appear to have been cleaned up). Take a look at his screen capture:

Let’s see, you can even find plenty of blog spam on the US Government websites courtesy of Google’s new Uncle Sam search, as well:

And oh yeah, what about the classic “log file referrer spam” what was a big hit amongst the spammers back in 2003. Apparently log file referrer spam or web analytics referrer spam still works like a charm:

This obviously is not Google’s fault. But since Google does such a great job of indexing websites we can really see how polluted our government websites really are. Just imagine how secure these websites are? If an online casino viagra Texas holdem spammer can get their links all over home pages of US Government websites, what’s next? Access to sensitive data about you and me? Wait. That’s already happened. What’s next?

What can you find through Google’s new US Government search?

On June 26th, 2008, I was looking at the domain name auction listings at SnapNames and saw a domain name that caught my eye. For some reason, I just “liked” the domain. So, I bid on it. Apparently I was the sole bidder, so I won the domain, fair and square, for $99. It was promptly put into my Moniker account.

Now, today, on July 18th, 2008, I get what I would call a “disturbing” email from SnapNames:

Good Afternoon Bill,

Thank you for previously bidding and winning the auction of woodentoyboxes.com, unfortunately that domain was erroneously included in an auction. You have been refunded for your purchase and the domain has been returned. I apologize for the misunderstanding.

Thank you,
Jonathan
SnapNames

I was kind of dumbfounded. “Excuse me?!?!!!” I thought. I won a domain name, have been using it for nearly a month, and the prior owner comes back and claims it? I checked the whois information and, lo and behold, the domain is no longer in my name. Furthermore, a call to Jonathan at Snapnames goes right to voicemail; how convenient that he sends an email late on a Friday and conveniently is away for the weekend.

This is totally unacceptable in my opinion. I won the domain name, at an auction. It is my understanding that this domain name was not renewed by its prior owner. I backordered the domain name, Snap acquired it, and I purchased (and paid for) the domain name.

The domain name should be mine. SnapNames, could you please explain to me how you can possibly return a domain name to its prior owner without my knowledge?

I have read the SnapNames Legal page and I cannot find anywhere where a domain name can be returned to its prior owner.

Would someone please explain to me how Snapnames and Moniker can award me a domain name that I paid for and then take it away from me, without my knowledge, some 22 days later? Wow, this kind of reminds me of the Cowboys.com domain name fiasco that I wrote about a while back.

According to Lycos, the rumors of an affair between Alex Rodriguez and Madonna caused a huge surge in the number of searches for their names last week. Other searches that surged last week were searches for Grey’s Anatomy’s Katherine Heigl, Nicole Kidman, Jesse Jackson and the iPhone.

Lycos maintains The Lycos 50(TM), the 50 most popular Internet search results for the week, which is located at 50.lycos.com. If you’re so inclined to make comments, you can comment on their blog located here at their Lycos50 blog or on their new Under the Red Carpet Blog.

Let’s take a look at the list for last week, the week ending July 12, 2008. This is the list of the biggest “movers and shakers” for the week, the searches that suddenly had a surge. This means that previously there weren’t that many searches but all of a sudden there was a huge number of searches for the phrase as compared to their normal number of searches.

  Biggest Movers and Shakers for Week Ending July 12, 2008:
      1.  Alexander Rodriquez     533%
      2.  Madonna                 515%
      3.  Lindsay Lohan           480%
      4.  Katherine Heigl         425%
      5.  Nicole Kidman           400%
      6.  The Bachelorette        365%
      7.  Jesse Jackson           333%
      8.  iPhone                  270%
      9.  Brett Farve             200%
      10. Miss U.S.A.             140%

According to Lycos, there was a big surge in the number of searches for Alex Rodriguez and Madonna because they both have been in the news lately. “Amid swirling rumors of an affair and the breakup of their respective marriages, baseball star Alex Rodriguez (533 percent) and Madonna (515 percent) surged to the top of this week’s Lycos 50 “Movers and Shakers” list. Rodriguez, whose wife Cynthia has filed for divorce, and Madonna have both denied the affair, claiming to know each other only through their mutual manager.”

The “Grey’s Anatomy” star, Katherine Heigl, gained 425 percent on the “Movers & Shakers” list after speculation that her character, Dr. Isabel “Izzy” Stevens, will be killed off the show. Lycos says that “Last month Heigl withdrew her name from consideration of the Emmys, claiming her role wasn’t worth the nomination, leading Entertainment Weekly to report that rumors are flying that the show’s creators are angry with the actress and thinking of killing off her character.”

Lycos went on to say that “New mom Nicole Kidman gained 400 percent following the July 7 birth of her baby daughter Sunday Rose Kidman in Nashville, Tenn. Kidman was surrounded by her country music superstar husband, Keith Urban, and several family members; the couple was married in June 2006.

There was also an increase in searches for Angelina Jolie. “Speaking of new babies, Angelina Jolie climbed to No. 5 on the Lycos 50 for the week following the birth of her twins over the weekend. Jolie, 33, and Brad Pitt, 44, are the proud parents of newborn twins — son Knox Leon and daughter Vivienne Marcheline — who were born on Saturday night at a maternity clinic in Nice, France.”

Lycos also publishes the top 10 search terms for the week, which has Paris Hilton, YouTube, and Clay Aiken at the top.

The Lycos 50(TM) Top 10 Search Terms for the Week Ending July 12, 2008:
1. Paris Hilton
2. YOUTUBE
3. Clay Aiken
4. Pamela Anderson
5. Angelina Jolie
6. Tim McGraw
7. Entwistle Verdict
8. Facebook
9. Madonna
10. George Carlin

Photo courtesy TechCrunch.

Paul Levine, former GM of Yahoo! Local, has joined Zvents board of directors as Zvents continues to grow both its network and innovative local search platform. His experience with local listings will prove invaluable as the platform continues to support local business as is done offline; by way of event promotion.

This news comes amid the release of a top 20 Yellowpages.com iPhone app, powered by Zvents. The app enables users to comprehensively search local on the new iPhone G3 and local businesses to reach iPhone mobile customers through Zvents. A formal announcement has not yet been made but the app is available for download and is being promoted by YellowPages.com.

Zvents is a local search and advertising network of hundreds of web and mobile partners featuring event listings to promote local business. Using unique technology that enables location- and time-based search for businesses and events, Zvents helps millions of people find local businesses and discover things to do. Thousands of local merchants use Zvents’ free and paid listings products to submit local events and activities, thus promoting their businesses and providing unique and hard-to-find local content to users throughout Zvents.

“Zvents has all the elements necessary to build a substantial business in local: an impressive technology platform, a top-tier distribution network, and an active merchant community generating unique local content,” said Paul Levine. “I’m excited to work with Zvents’ outstanding board and management team to help fuel the company’s future growth.”

Paul Levine was the Vice President of Marketing at AdBrite, The Internet’s Ad Marketplace, where he is responsible for the company’s marketing, public relations, and customer operations. Prior to joining AdBrite, Levine was Vice President and General Manager of Yahoo! Local, where he ran Yahoo!’s yellow pages, local search, maps, events, classified, and real estate properties. At Yahoo!, Paul oversaw the launch of Yahoo! Local, grew it to become the internet’s leading local content property with over 20 million monthly users, and led the company’s local advertising partnerships and strategy.

Zvents is a local search and advertising network of hundreds of web and mobile partners, featuring event listings to promote local business. Using unique search technology, which enables location- and time-based search for businesses and events, Zvents provides users with a compelling search and discovery experience, while enabling local merchants and advertisers to effectively promote their businesses. Zvents connects local businesses with millions of monthly users in diverse categories including music, movies, restaurants, sports, retail shopping, and community. The company aggregates rich business and event information from web sites, user-contributed content, and 3rd party sources, and integrates high-quality partner editorial content with its search index. The company is a leader in local search relevance and is the main sponsor of the open-source Hypertable project. For more information, visit www.Zvents.com.

Perhaps it is a sign of the times, but Google is closing their Dallas, Texas location, as well as their Denver, Colorado location. These were primarily sales offices to support their Google AdWords programs.

As one of the founders of the Dallas Search Engine Marketing Association, I have to say that I am very surprised by this move by Google. I honestly can say that I personally believe that Google could have done a better job at selling their PPC products to businesses here in the Dallas Fort Worth area. The DFW market is one of the largest markets in the USA, not to mention the fact that lots of corporations make their headquarters here in Dallas. In fact, AT&T recently announced that they are moving their headquarters out of San Antonio to Dallas.

“Bottom line, North Texas is a great place to do search engine marketing. We believe it’s the best place in the country to do search marketing,” said Tony Wright, Vice-President and spokesman for DFWSEM. “According to our internal survey at DFWSEM, our members represent more than $100 million spent annually in search engine advertising, and much of that money goes to Google. And while our membership is large, it’s only a fraction of the actual amount being spent or allocated from the Dallas/Fort Worth area. I just don’t think the guys in Mountain View have ever been to Dallas and don’t know what they are missing.”

We first had word of Google closing its Dallas Texas office on the Google Blogoscoped blog.

In order to show our appreciation, all current Google members are invited to attend the DFWSEM’s quarterly meeting on July 16 at the Renaissance Hotel in Richardson, Texas for a night of networking and education. There will be many search engine marketers present that are sure to have opportunities for those Googlers that choose to stay in Dallas.

For more information, take a look at the official press release.

Here are some other sites mentioning the closing of Google Dallas office:
Dallas/Fort Worth Search Engine Marketing Association Questions Closing of Google…

Google closing Dallas, Denver office

Google closing Dallas, Denver office

Google closing its Dallas office

Google closing Dallas office.

A friend of mine just sent this video to me, which is pretty amazing, as I know that I was thinking of running for President, but really. Yes, I guess I am now running for President, as it seems to becoming a viral thing.

If you take a look at the video above, you may think it’s just a joke, but really. This is certainly one fantastic viral marketing event.