April 11th, 2012 by Chris Silver Smith
Playroom at Google offices in Dallas area, 2007
The Dallas Business Journal reports that Google opened a new office in Frisco for around 50 employees in March.
The DBJ writer states that this is Google’s “first office in North Texas”, which is unfortunately incorrect. Google Audio, their radio ads project, had earlier opened offices back in 2007 next to the facility I worked at in Coppell, as I reported on Natural Search Blog, and as Search Engine Land mentioned.
Google also previously had an office in Dallas, as Bill Hartzer has mentioned, and I recall that they had previously had an office in Irving which was devoted to PPC ad optimization specialists.
In fact, Google has opened and closed offices with such frequency here in the DFW Area over the past handful of years that one now can’t help but wonder if they’re really serious, or is this to be an extenuation of the schizophrenic office-opening exercises they seem intent upon doing?
Here’s the office location:
View Google's Dallas Area Offices in a larger map
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Dallas, Dallas companies, Frisco Tx, Google Coppell, Google Dallas, Google facilities, Google Frisco, Google office space, Google Offices, Google Plano
Posted in Google | 1 Comment »
April 11th, 2012 by Chris Silver Smith
AT&T has decided to sell a 53% stake in its Yellow Pages unit to Cerberus Capital Management for $950 million.
Jennifer Fritzsche, an analyst with Wells Fargo, referred to the valuation as “sensible” at roughly 2.1 times an estimate for EBITDA, “given that the directory business is declining fairly quickly.”
Beyond “sensible”, AT&T may have well decided that they would incur undue risk of intervention from state and federal regulation authorities if they had pushed for a much higher valuation. I had earlier suggested it would be grossly irresponsible if AT&T overvalued their Yellow Pages, and, after Verizon’s divestment of Idearc/SuperMedia, I’m not sure another company could get away with an unreasonably high price tag. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: AT&T, Cerberus Capital Management, directories, IYP, yp
Posted in Yellow Pages | No Comments »
February 27th, 2012 by Chris Silver Smith
A class-action lawsuit brought by stockholders against the former R.H. Donnelley Yellow Pages company and some of its executives was settled earlier this month for $25 Million.
The stockholders in the suit (“Local 731 I.B. of T. Excavators and Pavers Pension Trust Fund et al. v. Swanson et al“) had said that executives had made false claims during the period, stating that print Yellow Pages were not becoming obsolete, among other things, and that they had made false assurances about the financial condition of the business.
RHD had filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in 2009, and later emerged from bankruptcy under the new name, Dex One Corporation, in 2010.
Aside from the claims around the company’s finances, the issue of whether print Yellow Pages are becoming obsolete or not has been a controversial one in the past. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: class actions, lawsuits, phone books, print YP, R.H. Donnelley, RHD, Yellow Pages
Posted in Law and Legal Matters, Yellow Pages | No Comments »
February 24th, 2012 by Chris Silver Smith
AT&T (NYSE: T) appears to’ve obliquely referred to their YP unit as a “low-performing” “non-strategic asset”, and signaled that they might sell it off.
If this sequence of events sounds familiar, it is — because Verizon did this when they spun off their Yellow Pages to form Idearc.
It’s a little disappointing to see AT&T likely planning to divest itself of Yellowpages.com and their print directories, because only in January of last year it had seemed possible that they might have toyed with the idea Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: acquisitions, AT&T, directories, directory, IYP, phone books, spin offs, yp, yp.com
Posted in Law and Legal Matters, Yellow Pages | 3 Comments »
January 11th, 2012 by Chris Silver Smith
I thought the Google logo commemorating the birthday of Nicolas Steno, popularly known as “The Father of Geology”, was a particularly effective logo treatment:
The 3-D letters which are made to communicate the concept of cut-away views of earth sections to show layers of rock and sediment were effortless-seeming in their execution. This is a really great example of typography and graphic art — it’s very nearly an infographic — and, it does all this without losing the recognizability of the Google name (which some of their special logos have done).
Very cool!
Tags: 3-d letters, Google Logos, infographics, logo design, type design, typographic design, typography
Posted in Google, Usability and User-Experience (UX) | No Comments »
December 2nd, 2011 by Chris Silver Smith
In September, Wendy’s apparently formally launched their new line of hamburgers – cheeseburgers, in fact – after working for around two years on evolving their product recipe, according to news reports. Not normally prone to following or reading news about fast food, my first discovery of the new “Project Gold Hamburger” was a negative interaction with my local Wendy’s staff. I’ve researched a bit further, and I think their product redesign was bad. The burgers can make you fatter and more unhealthy.
Let me say right here: I’ve long been a fan of Wendy’s food, not only because of the cheap menu items which still are of excellent quality, but because they have a handful of really healthy options. I am also never, ever rude to fast food workers, and I’m sympathetic to how difficult it is to work inside of huge corporations and how there’s always some friction with customers when familiar products are changed.
Even so, I have to take Wendy’s corporation to task for how they chose to change their product, and the marketing decisions involved which resulted in my negative interaction at my local Wendy’s. It was quite clear to me that my negative experience was NOT the fault of the local fast food workers, but due to the decisions which came down from their headquarters in Dublin, Ohio. I’m writing this because I have been a longterm, very pleased customer of Wendy’s, and I have expertise in marketing — I’m hoping they understand very clearly how their direction of product change has negatively affected me, and how it’s likely to cause them increasing problems down the road. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: fast food marketing, hamburgers, health and marketing, menus, nutritional information, product development, Wendy's
Posted in General Commentary, Product Marketing | 5 Comments »
Argent Media
February 14th, 2012 by Chris Silver SmithI have just launched my own agency, Argent Media, a search marketing firm focused on SEO, Local SEO, Online Reputation Management, and Social Media.
It’s just me for now, although I have friends and contractors I’ve partnered with to collaborate on some projects.
Read the formal press release announcement at: Local SEO Industry Expert Founds Argent Media Search Marketing Agency in Dallas.
Tags: announcements, Argent Media, chris silver smith, SEO agency
Posted in General Commentary, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Startups | 1 Comment »