Citysearch Recasts Itself As CityGrid Media

Erick Schonfeld

Erick Schonfeld is a technology journalist and the executive producer of DEMO. He is also a partner at bMuse, a product incubator in New York City. Schonfeld is the former Editor in Chief of TechCrunch. At TechCrunch, he oversaw the editorial content of the site, helped to program the Disrupt conferences and CrunchUps, produced TCTV shows, and wrote daily... → Learn More

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

Ever since the launch of his CityGrid local advertising network at the beginning of the year, Citysearch CEO Jay Herratti has been putting most of his efforts into building out CityGrid as the largest network of local advertisers and local apps. Citysearch is now simply a flagship publisher on the CityGrid network. To reflect this shift in focus, the Citysearch business unit of IAC (which includes CityGrid, Citysearch, Urbanspoon, and Insider Pages) is changing its name to CityGrid Media

All of the local listings in Citysearch are available through CityGrid’s APIs so that anyone creating a mobile app or local Website can grab business listings, addresses, phone numbers, photos, reviews, and more and build their own apps around them. CityGrid also matches local advertisers with these local publishers.

The geo-local market is developing so quickly that Herratti knows he cannot predict which mobile app or approach will win out in the end. Instead, he wants to scale CityGrid to become the largest network of local advertisers and publishers so that no matter what turns out to be the hot Geo app of the moment, CityGrid ads and content will be at the center of it. CityGrid already has 700,000 paying local advertisers, and is on its way to a million. Some Citygrid partners include YellowPages.com, SuperPages.com, Bing.com, MapQuest, and Loopt.

Company: CityGrid Media
Launch Date: 2010

CityGrid Media is an online media company that connects web and mobile publishers with local advertising organizations by linking them through CityGrid, its local content and advertising network. CityGrid Media owns and operates leading local consumer properties including Citysearch, Insider Pages and Urbanspoon. CityGrid Media is an operating business of IAC (NASDAQ: IACI). For more information, visit IAC’s Investors Website.

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Company: Citysearch
Website: citysearch.com
Launch Date: 1995

Citysearch is an online guide that offers information and recommendations regarding local businesses including restaurants, shops, bars, hotels, and others. According to metropolitan area, people can search for places to go as the site contains information for venues in practically all major US cities. Besides its over 14.5 million business listings, Citysearch is also helpful because it provides informative user reviews and ratings. Having recently acquired Insider Pages in March 2007, Citysearch now boasts over 600,000...

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