Archive for February, 2010
The Woodlands, Texas – February 26, 2010 – GoLocal247.com, a division of The User-Friendly Phone Book, is now tweeting content to Twitter posted by local business owners and site visitors about local companies on its network of 32 hyperlocal Yellow Pages business directory sites in eight states.
Each of the 32 sites has its own geo-targeted Twitter account, which tweets recent reviews, new coupons and links to featured profiles on the GoLocal247 site about local businesses. Coupons and featured profile links are the result of small businesses updating their listing and profile information, while recent reviews are generated by site visitors.
Reviews, coupons and featured profiles on the GoLocal247 network are fed to Twitterfeed via three different RSS feeds available for each local site. The technology of sharing content posted across the GoLocal247 network with Twitter provides small businesses additional exposure of the company on Twitter and in Google, Yahoo and Bing search engine results.
“The local twitter accounts allow us to reach a new audience of Web surfers looking for local business information but not searching our GoLocal247 network directly,” said Mary Beth Brendza, VP, Operations at The User-Friendly Phone Book and GoLocal247.com. “The tweets to our business profile landing pages increases awareness of our local sites and provides additional, free marketing exposure for the thousands of small business advertisers on our sites. We are hoping our advertisers see an increase in traffic to their profile page on the GoLocal247 network, the business’s Web site, and experience higher in-store coupon redemptions.”
Twitter was the fastest growing social network in 2009 and is considered to be the third most popular social network, behind Facebook and MySpace. Google and Bing recently updated their search algorithms to include tweets in real-time search results. Industry experts suggest businesses that embrace social media opportunities via social networking sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube will benefit from the increased visibility social networking provides.
About GoLocal247.com
The GoLocal247 network is one of the fastest growing community-focused website companies in the country with Web sites in parts of California, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas. The company took the hyper-local approach by building community portals with a robust Yellow Page business directory. The first site launched in June 2008 and is now comprised of 32 local sites in eight states.
The heart of GoLocal247 is a robust Yellow Page business directory. Users can locate thousands of in-depth profiles on local businesses, rate and review them, and utilize money-savings coupons. They also can browse and post free classified ads, view and add events to the community calendar, and catch up on the latest news, entertainment and sports happening in the community and around the world.
Golocal247 is the internet division of The User-Friendly Phone Book, a portfolio company of VS&A Communications Partners III, LP — the private equity affiliate of media industry merchant bank Veronis Suhler Stevenson. Learn more about GoLocal247.com at www.golocal247.com. For more information about The User-Friendly Phone Book, visit www.ufpb.net.
The Woodlands, Texas and Herndon, Virginia – February 9, 2010 – The User-Friendly Phone Book, LLC publicly launched a new local search platform at GoLocal247.com using Discovery Engine TM and other
technology from Intelligenx. This dynamic new platform has expanded the robust capability and performance of the GoLocal247 network, creating even more valuable exposure and visibility for small businesses (SMB’s).
Discovery Engine TM provides super-fast performance and extensive search-and-filtering capabilities on keyword-rich data, state-of-the-art linguistics and advanced search refinement functionalities that will help local consumers searching for products and services online find and discover exactly what they are looking for.
“This is a win-win for our site visitors and for our advertisers,” said Andrea Mooney, Internet Product Manager for the GoLocal247 network. “Visitors looking for a particular product or service can easily find the right merchants on the site. Small business advertisers will gain more exposure and visibility because they will now be found under more than just categories – users can now search for businesses by keywords or categories and all relevant businesses can be represented on the first page of the search results through refinements.”
In the second phase of the launch, currently being developed, Discovery Engine TM will provide SMB website crawling in order to obtain additional refinements for users related to reviews and ratings, coupons, local classifieds and events.
“We are pleased to have played a key role in the development of GoLocal247’s new local search application,” said Abid Chaudhry, Product Manager for Intelligenx. “The team at GoLoca247 has worked hard on the new application in order that they can offer a unique content proposition to the users that come to their site and a great return on investment to their advertisers.”
The GoLocal247.com network consists of 32 community-focused websites in parts of California, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas. GoLocal247 network users can search thousands of in-depth profiles on local businesses, download money-saving coupons, review businesses, add events to the community calendar, post free classified ads and connect with other members in their community through the site’s social networking features. Users can also catch up on the latest news, weather, entertainment and sports happenings in their community.
About GoLocal247.com
The GoLocal247 network is one of the fastest growing community-focused website companies in the country with Web sites in parts of California, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas. The company took the hyper-local approach by building community portals with a robust Yellow Page business directory. The first site launched in June 2008 and is now comprised of 32 local sites in eight states.
The heart of GoLocal247 is a robust Yellow Page business directory. Users can locate thousands of in-depth profiles on local businesses, rate and review them, and utilize money-savings coupons. They also can browse and post free classified ads, view and add events to the community calendar, and catch up on the latest news, entertainment and sports happening in the community and around the world.
Golocal247 is the internet division of The User-Friendly Phone Book, a portfolio company of VS&A Communications Partners III, LP — the private equity affiliate of media industry merchant bank Veronis Suhler Stevenson. Learn more about GoLocal247.com at www.golocal247.com. For more information about The User-Friendly Phone Book, visit www.ufpb.net.
About Intelligenx
Intelligenx is a leading provider of faceted search technology in the field of Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) and Local Search. Intelligenx’s search platform, Discovery Engine, combines highly scalable search and retrieval technology with a deep understanding of the nuances of Local Search including specific linguistics and semantic capabilities, and visualization tailored to provide consumers with the ultimate online local search experience. Intelligenx provides technology and related services for some of the largest yellow page publishers in the world looking to bridge the gap between print directories and the online search marketplace.
Intelligenx is headquartered in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington DC, with offices in South America. Learn more about Intelligenx at www.Intelligenx.com.
THE WOODLANDS, Texas (February 8, 2010) – In response to the growing demand for affordable, professional websites; GoLocal247.com, the Internet division of The User Friendly Phone Book, has expanded their line of Internet products with the launch of goWebDesign247.com in order to provide customized websites based on proven template designs.
There are companies offering templates and there are other companies offering custom design; goWebDesign247 has created a process that uses the best aspects of both approaches. Templates, based on proven web design structures and strategies, can be adapted and customized specifically for the information and design needs of the client.
“This allows us to simplify the entire process for our clients and create websites in weeks that otherwise would take months of meetings and thousands of dollars to develop from scratch,” said Mary Beth Brendza, Vice President of The User Friendly Phone Book, the parent company of goWebDesign247.
Many businesses have known that they need a website for years, but they’ve never had the time or knowledge to get everything together or, possibly, they have been burned in the past by trusting friends and companies that failed to deliver on their promises and are stuck with broken websites that cannot be updated. GoWebDesign247 makes it easy by beginning with proven design templates and building on them to meet their client’s specific requirements.
When a customer’s Internet needs grow beyond a 3 or 5 page website, the team of experts that GoWebDesign247 has assembled are additionally able to provide their experience to manage and develop flash, ecommerce, Joomla, Wordpress, and JavaScript solutions.
The User-Friendly Phone Book (UFPB), LLC, is a leading independent publisher of yellow page directories across the United States. The GoLocal247 network is one of the fastest growing community-focused website companies in the country with Web sites in parts of California, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas.
For further information contact goWebSites247 at www.gowebdesign247.com
The Woodlands, Texas – February 8, 2010 – The User-Friendly Phone Book, LLC has updated its GoLocal247 network of 32 hyperlocal business directory sites in 8 states to enable visitors to interact with the site using their Facebook account and share media between the two sites.
Besides a visitor using their Facebook account to login and interact with a GoLocal247 site, users can let their virtual network of friends learn more about their favorite local business services and providers. Facebook Connect users can perform 20 additional tasks on the site that can be shared across both social networks. Some of the tasks include posting business reviews, rating a business, recommending a business, notify friends about an event they plan to attend, and alert friends to changes made on their online social networking profile.
“This feature makes it easier for registered members of the sites to share their favorite local businesses with their friends and the world across multiple sites at one time. For the small business owner, this creates additional and invaluable Internet exposure they would not otherwise get,” said Mary Beth Brendza, VP, Operations at The User-Friendly Phone Book and GoLocal247.com.
Facebook Connect allows Facebook members to easily transport their virtual identity and online network of friends from one site to the next without having to create a unique identity on each site a user visits. Facebook’s 2008 press release announcing the Facebook Connect feature says users who opt to use their Facebook login on third-party sites benefit from trusted authentication, dynamic privacy features and the ability to quickly share actions on partner sites with their network of friends on Facebook.
About GoLocal247.com
The GoLocal247 network is one of the fastest growing community-focused website companies in the country with Web sites in parts of California, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas. The company took the hyper-local approach by building community portals with a robust Yellow Page business directory. The first site launched in June 2008 and is now comprised of 32 local sites in eight states.
The heart of GoLocal247 is a robust Yellow Page business directory. Users can locate thousands of in-depth profiles on local businesses, rate and review them, and utilize money-savings coupons. They also can browse and post free classified ads, view and add events to the community calendar, and catch up on the latest news, entertainment and sports happening in the community and around the world.
Golocal247 is the internet division of The User-Friendly Phone Book, a portfolio company of VS&A Communications Partners III, LP — the private equity affiliate of media industry merchant bank Veronis Suhler Stevenson. Learn more about GoLocal247.com at www.golocal247.com. For more information about The User-Friendly Phone Book, visit www.ufpb.net.
The Woodlands, Texas – February 5, 2010 – The User-Friendly Phone Book, LLC today will begin helping small business owners connect with local consumers via social networking with the re-launch of its GoLocal247 platform.
The second version of the site upgrades the look and feel of the 32 hyperlocal Websites located in eight states, and also adds a completely integrated and locally focused social networking section to each site. Users who register with the site can become fans of their favorites businesses, rate and write reviews about local businesses, post free announcements and events, upload and view photos and share their thoughts in a blog.
Business owners benefit from the social network by being able to update their business’ profile and coupons whenever they want, communicate via the social network’s internal messaging system with the fans of their business, offer professional advice in the “Expert Tips”, and spread the word about a new product or service the business offers. Through the sites internal messaging system, business owners can offer exclusive discounts to their fans, alert fans about an upcoming event at their business, and ask their fans to take their word-of-mouth reviews to the Web by writing positive and thoughtful reviews on their business’ profile page.
“In most of the markets our sites currently cover, we are among the first truly local social network joined with an internet yellow pages directory,” said Mary Beth Brendza, VP, Operations at The User-Friendly Phone Book and GoLocal247.com. “We are excited about the volunteer, business, and social opportunities this virtual network brings to the community.”
The GoLocal247 network of sites is a one-stop shop for all things local – local business information, local events calendar, local job listings, local classified listings, local news, sports, weather, announcements, a place to connect with your family, friends, neighbors and favorite local businesses on the Web.
About GoLocal247.com
The GoLocal247 network is one of the fastest growing community-focused website companies in the country with Web sites in parts of California, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas. The company took the hyper-local approach by building community portals with a robust Yellow Page business directory. The first site launched in June 2008 and is now comprised of 32 local sites in eight states.
The heart of GoLocal247 is a robust Yellow Page business directory. Users can locate thousands of in-depth profiles on local businesses, rate and review them, and utilize money-savings coupons. They also can browse and post free classified ads, view and add events to the community calendar, and catch up on the latest news, entertainment and sports happening in the community and around the world.
Golocal247 is the internet division of The User-Friendly Phone Book, a portfolio company of VS&A Communications Partners III, LP — the private equity affiliate of media industry merchant bank Veronis Suhler Stevenson. Learn more about GoLocal247.com at www.golocal247.com. For more information about The User-Friendly Phone Book, visit www.ufpb.net.