CitySearch, a business of IAC, has launched Deals by Citysearch, a location-enabled local deals app that aggregates deals from advertisers from its CityGrid Media, as well as from third-parties like Groupon, TheDealMap, etc. 

"Consumers are tired of having their inbox flooded with daily deals. What our users need is not another daily email but a mobile offering serving up the most relevant offers so they can say, ‘These deals are about me,’" said JP Bedoya, Senior Director of Citysearch. "We have curated the best local deals and allow users to search based on their individual needs when they are on the go."

CitySearch also added a new Deals section to its website. 

For the Android app, CitySearch worked with Skyhook to integrate its location engine into the Deals product. 

CitySearch complemented the launch with a contest, allowing one person to win a month of free deals.

Citygrid, Citysearch told us, would give local advertisers access to a pay-for-performance ad platform and campaign tools, a scalable SEO solution on the web, local listings optimization, and wider distribution.

One commenter on our previous coverage of Citygrid said, "I saw their presentation and I feel that any SEO value is minimal. I love the concept of a one-stop shop for all things local, but this is not a complete (or even almost complete) solution. Maybe as it gets developed out a bit it will have more value.”

"The expansion of our partnership with AT&T Interactive is an opportunity for two leading names in local to offer additional value to both advertisers and consumers," says Citysearch CEO Jay Herratti. "By combining AT&T Interactive’s massive sales organization with the reach of CityGrid, local advertisers will be able to reach millions of consumers across a variety of local properties."

"The local marketplace is an increasingly attractive and effective opportunity for advertisers to reach ready-to-buy consumers," adds AT&T Interactive President and CEO David Krantz. "Combined with the reach of AT&T Interactive’s comprehensive local ad network, our collaboration with Citysearch supports our long-time commitment to drive qualified leads for our advertisers across the web and other high-trafficked platforms including IPTV and mobile."

Do you see this expanded relationship as a good thing for your local business? Let us know what you think.

Citygrid, Citysearch told us, would give local advertisers access to a pay-for-performance ad platform and campaign tools, a scalable SEO solution on the web, local listings optimization, and wider distribution.

One commenter on our previous coverage of Citygrid said, "I saw their presentation and I feel that any SEO value is minimal. I love the concept of a one-stop shop for all things local, but this is not a complete (or even almost complete) solution. Maybe as it gets developed out a bit it will have more value.”

"The expansion of our partnership with AT&T Interactive is an opportunity for two leading names in local to offer additional value to both advertisers and consumers," says Citysearch CEO Jay Herratti. "By combining AT&T Interactive’s massive sales organization with the reach of CityGrid, local advertisers will be able to reach millions of consumers across a variety of local properties."

"The local marketplace is an increasingly attractive and effective opportunity for advertisers to reach ready-to-buy consumers," adds AT&T Interactive President and CEO David Krantz. "Combined with the reach of AT&T Interactive’s comprehensive local ad network, our collaboration with Citysearch supports our long-time commitment to drive qualified leads for our advertisers across the web and other high-trafficked platforms including IPTV and mobile."

Do you see this expanded relationship as a good thing for your local business? Let us know what you think.

Citygrid, Citysearch told us, would give local advertisers access to a pay-for-performance ad platform and campaign tools, a scalable SEO solution on the web, local listings optimization, and wider distribution.

One commenter on our previous coverage of Citygrid said, "I saw their presentation and I feel that any SEO value is minimal. I love the concept of a one-stop shop for all things local, but this is not a complete (or even almost complete) solution. Maybe as it gets developed out a bit it will have more value.”

"The expansion of our partnership with AT&T Interactive is an opportunity for two leading names in local to offer additional value to both advertisers and consumers," says Citysearch CEO Jay Herratti. "By combining AT&T Interactive’s massive sales organization with the reach of CityGrid, local advertisers will be able to reach millions of consumers across a variety of local properties."

"The local marketplace is an increasingly attractive and effective opportunity for advertisers to reach ready-to-buy consumers," adds AT&T Interactive President and CEO David Krantz. "Combined with the reach of AT&T Interactive’s comprehensive local ad network, our collaboration with Citysearch supports our long-time commitment to drive qualified leads for our advertisers across the web and other high-trafficked platforms including IPTV and mobile."

Do you see this expanded relationship as a good thing for your local business? Let us know what you think.

Citygrid, Citysearch told us, would give local advertisers access to a pay-for-performance ad platform and campaign tools, a scalable SEO solution on the web, local listings optimization, and wider distribution.

One commenter on our previous coverage of Citygrid said, "I saw their presentation and I feel that any SEO value is minimal. I love the concept of a one-stop shop for all things local, but this is not a complete (or even almost complete) solution. Maybe as it gets developed out a bit it will have more value.”

"The expansion of our partnership with AT&T Interactive is an opportunity for two leading names in local to offer additional value to both advertisers and consumers," says Citysearch CEO Jay Herratti. "By combining AT&T Interactive’s massive sales organization with the reach of CityGrid, local advertisers will be able to reach millions of consumers across a variety of local properties."

"The local marketplace is an increasingly attractive and effective opportunity for advertisers to reach ready-to-buy consumers," adds AT&T Interactive President and CEO David Krantz. "Combined with the reach of AT&T Interactive’s comprehensive local ad network, our collaboration with Citysearch supports our long-time commitment to drive qualified leads for our advertisers across the web and other high-trafficked platforms including IPTV and mobile."

Do you see this expanded relationship as a good thing for your local business? Let us know what you think.

"The cityseries app will offer users the great Citysearch editorial content they’ve come to know and love, with an innovative digital magazine format built specifically for the iPad," a Citysearch representative tells WebProNews.

Features include:

- Scoop from Citysearch editors and other users on what’s hot (and what’s not) in your city

- Business profile details: address, phone, maps & directions, photos, hours of operation and more

- A new digital magazine format with design functionality specific to the iPad including popovers and page-flip transitions

"Knowing the iPad will change the way users consume content, we set out to build a different app with a brand new layout that inspires users to discover more about their city," said Kara Nortman, senior vice president, publishing at Citysearch. "With cityseries, we focused on highlighting our content in a new digital magazine format allowing users to interact with the best of Citysearch in a new medium."

The app is a free one, and of course is available in Apple’s App Store.

CityGrid Complete was built around an investment from Citysearch in OrangeSoda. CitySearch tells WebProNews that with the investment, they will offer local advertisers:

- Access to a pay-for-performance advertising platform and campaign management tools

- Scalable search engine optimization solution on the Web, including targeted keyword optimization, and reporting (ranking, conversation tracking and trending)

- Local listings optimization, including business profile optimization and phone call tracking and reporting

- Wider distribution across CityGrid

"Whether it’s driving new customers to our advertisers from major search sites or mobile applications, CityGrid Complete is about delivering local businesses the highest quality leads for the best value," said Citysearch CEO Jay Herratti. "By combining the distribution power of CityGrid with OrangeSoda’s platform, every small business in America now has access to a one-stop local advertising solution with SEO strategies and tactics that historically required a large dedicated team of experts."

"Every search engine has introduced local directory listings prominently in their organic search results and this has given small businesses another way to get featured in the search engine results real estate," said Jay Bean, CEO of OrangeSoda. "For over 15 years, Citysearch has helped small businesses gain exposure on other websites, and now they want to help small businesses gain better exposure through organic search results. By bundling our expertise and tool set with CityGrid, we are offering small businesses a revolutionary local online advertising package that no other company offers."

OraneSoda has provided SEO services to brands like International Truck, Remax, and Jiffy Lube.

In a similar position is Citysearch. As we have discussed here in the recent past Citysearch is working to update and expand its offerings to a much larger audience. The competition that is coming up in the rear view mirror for these guys are the likes of Yelp!.

So what makes sense for two long time players in their respective verticals who are maybe starting to show their age? Combine forces of course. As reported by cnet, the new MySpace Local will

be rooted in existing listings from Citysearch (restricted to major U.S. cities) that are souped up with social features like the ones that you might see on a band or celebrity’s MySpace page (photos, videos, comments, and the like). It’s launching with just “restaurants,” “bars,” and “nightlife” categories, but will eventually expand–and it’ll only be available to a select number of users this week before rolling out to the rest of MySpace’s U.S. users.

One feature is seeing reviews of these places from actual friends. The contention is that anonymous reviews carry less meaning than those that come from a trusted and known source. Can’t say I can argue that point.

Down the line is the possibility of seeing reviews from celebrities, influencers and all around cool people. Considering the age of most MySpace users this could be interesting to them. Will it attract new users to MySpace? No way to tell but who wouldn’t be interested in having someone like Plaxico Burress tell us where the best nightclub to shoot yourself in the leg is in New York City?

Jeff Berman, president of sales and marketing at MySpace, said that

research showed about 50 percent of active Citysearch users have MySpace profiles that they check at least once a month. “There is healthy overlap, but there is also a healthy new audience to be reached”

That’s an interesting statistic but even with our jaded view of what is actually social it seems that using the benchmark of viewing a site at least once a month is not exactly setting a high bar. If you visit any site just once a month do you really care what’s going on there?

As with all pairings like these, only time will tell if there will be benefit for either party. One thing is certain though. Neither one of these Internet stalwarts are standing still but can they overcome the new breed of social media sites that can afford to be very selective on who they partner with? The likes of Facebook and Twitter are growing despite themselves at times. That’s hard to compete with for sure.

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"Today’s announcement marks a defining moment in MySpace’s emergence as a social portal," says MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe. "MySpace is about the discovery of content and culture through the lens of your friends. Building on the success of Music and Video, MySpace Local represents both an evolution in social discovery and a revolution of our larger content strategy."

Here’s what it looks like:

Small Business Listing Pages for MySpace Local Features:

- Citysearch’s database of major cities nationwide

- Small Business categories available at launch: restaurants, bars, and nightlife

- Ratings, reviews, real-time content sharing

- business photos, menus, videos, maps, hours of operation

- Viral functionality – add businesses to profile, share listings, bookmark businesses

- User review module

- Coupons for local businesses

City Hubs include:

- New local search functionality

- Search by neighborhood, small business categories, cuisine type

- Users can browse by subcategories

- Hubs include citywide user reviews

- Celebrity reviews

This week, MySpace is launching MySpace Local for a test group of users to enlist a first round of reviews. Next month it will be launched in Beta. More features will be added.

Mobile and local have always been a good match, but the implementation of this natural pairing hasn’t fully “arrived.” Mobile by Citysearch, however, is a good step along that path. The new site is designed to be compatible with whatever mobile device you use, including content layout and using your phone’s default navigation (thumbwheel, touch screen, etc.) for a more intuitive UI.

Citysearch has long been available through mobile phones—two years ago, they added mobile search to their site as well as local business listings via text message.

Rather than just making the website readable on a mobile phone, however, the new Mobile by Citysearch better integrates mobile and local. Its new design makes reading and even creating reviews from a mobile device easy and makes popular website features mobile-friendly. The new mobile Citysearch is also integrated with text messaging, allowing users to text reviews, directions and ratings directly to mobile phones.

The Citysearch website has also been redesigned. New features enhance not only the interface but the access to the site’s reviews and other information. But the new site is more than just prettier. An enhanced back end allows for even more focused local searches—down to the neighborhood level, instead of just the metro area.

The new Citysearch also integrates social media better—including the seldom-mentioned Open ID rival, Facebook Connect. The integration with Facebook is one of the best applications of social search so far. If you’re signed in to Facebook (currently or using a permanent session), Citysearch will highlight your friends’ reviews of local restaurants. (Image from Read Write Web.)

Finally, the new Citysearch is sure score points with local business owners—it prominently features owner comments alongside editor and user comments. It also is added enhanced features for videos of local businesses through a partnership with Brightcove.

Users will be able to upload their own photos and videos early next year.

This redesign comes just a few days after some bad press for Yelp, a rival local review site. Yelp is alleged to have offered to remove or move down negative reviews of local businesses for a fee (and there’s even some allegations they took the money without actually moving the reviews, doubly unethical).

Yelp has been gaining momentum against Citysearch’s popularity recently, but Citysearch’s new features and Yelp’s bad press might combine to reverse that. What do you think—are the new features cool enough to get your “vote” (traffic)?

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