Leading French classifieds provider Spir Communication has just unveiled a version of its free-ads site LeBonCoin.fr optimised for mobile phones. The move is a bid to extend the site’s current reach of 11 million unique visitors per month viewing 300,000 new announces per day.

Spir chose mobile specialists Airweb to make the move to the new platform.

The MLS Domains Association project, created by 15 MLS groups in the US and overseen by Bob Bemis of Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service, is making some headway since we last talked with them. Local publishers should be aware of the .mls URLs already spoken for.

The ones we know of so far: Read the rest of this entry »

Ashenhurst Media is no stranger to niche job sites with a stable including SupplyChainOnline.co.uk and GreenJobsOnline.co.uk.

NowAcademicJobsOnline.co.uk joins the list charging £249 for a 28 day listing for jobs at universities and futher education.

The South African based media group Naspers Limited (“Naspers”), which operates globally and owns important online operations like the Polish auction site Allegro,  is investing heavily in the Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies which is one of the largest internet companies in the Russian-speaking market, majority owner of Mail.ru and a minority share holder in Facebook and Groupon. Read the rest of this entry »

LetPropertyRentProperty.co.uk launches for landlords and tenants alike in London and the Southeast of the U.K.

For £19.99 the service runs adverts on its own site as well as the major players (Rightmove, Zoopla, Globrix, Fish4 and Google Maps) while offering tenancy agreements, legal advice, and credit checks courtesy of a deal with Experian. The first 100 landlords to sign up are being offered free advertising.

Internet marketing intelligence firm AdGooroo just published its Q210 Search Engine Advertising update, with a number of statistics that any online publisher should know. Overall, the researchers found “healthy increases in first-page advertiser activity on all three search engines, indicative of an economy which finally appears to be waking up. ” The search engines, of course, are Google, Yahoo and Bing. The changes contrast with the first quarter of 2010.

The increases were not even, however. Google increased first-page advertisers by 7.3 percent, while Yahoo and Bing went up 2.8 percent each. Read the rest of this entry »

Alibaba Group, China’s leading e-commerce business, has announced that EBay CEO John Donahoe will be a keynote speaker at its annual Netrepreneur Summit in Hangzhou in September.

This looks like signs of a major reconciliation between the two corporations. Read the rest of this entry »

Montreal-based Trader Corp. has acquired CanadianDriver Communications Inc., of Toronto, publishers of online automotive mag CanadianDriver.com.

Deal terms weren’t immediately disclosed. Read the rest of this entry »

Kelly (Casalino) Bolyard, who heads up online and classified sales for Paddock Publications, has additionally been named director of digital development for the media group, it was just announced.

Formerly director of business consulting at Morris Communications,  Bolyard came to Paddock and its suburban-Chicago Daily Herald in 2005.

For additional restructuring, see Daily Herald coverage.