Coupons.com and RetailMeNot have announced that they’re going to be distributing the other’s coupons in an exclusive reciprocal deal. The press release, which goes out later this morning says:

Shoppers visiting Coupons.com can now browse and use RetailMeNot.com’s 400,000 online coupon codes that, when entered as prompted during online purchases on participating sites, provide discounts or free shipping on their purchases. In addition, U.S. visitors to RetailMeNot.com can print and redeem hundreds of coupons offered monthly by Coupons.com.

Here are the screens: a “Grocery Coupon” tab on RetailMeNot and “Coupon Codes” tab on Coupons.com house the reciprocal offers.

Study after study reinforce the consumer-user appeal of deals and coupons. There’s also an increasing amount of activity in the segment.

Recently search engine Ask made a big push into “deals” and TheFind has improved and enhanced its deals and coupons search capabilities. This holiday season price and discounting will be a bigger factor than ever in consumer purchase behavior.

Google has done a few things to beef up its presentation of movie listings. The Google Blog explains the catalog of the new features:

• Comprehensive movie pages . . . Our new detailed layout brings together all the basic information you need with a plot synopsis, trailer, reviews and photos in the same page.
• Genre filters: The new movie pages also give you new ways to explore films by genre and find one you’re in the mood for . . .
• Map view: After you’ve chosen a movie, the new map view shows you nearby theaters playing that exact film. You no longer need to do a separate search to find out where you’re going.

Unfortunately the Map View above doesn’t offer Google’s customary “search nearby” capability.

This is a richer and cleaner display than you get at Yahoo! or Bing, which surprised me given that the Bing results for the touch-screen mobile devices are very nice.

Mobile:

PC:

Curiously also I was asked to register for Windows Live when I clicked the link at the top. The new MSN does a better job than Bing right now for movies, although Bing refers people to the old MSN when one clicks through.

These kinds of little changes, such as Google made above, can be meaningful to people and reinforce loyalty and usage.

The other day I was surprised to see a Geico car insurance commercial (couldn’t find today) as pre-roll on YouTube. But now I understand it’s part of a test program that allows users to skip the ads to see which ones are working. In most pre-roll video ads you cannot bypass the commercial (think Hulu) and are compelled to sit through the entire thing. But Google is testing a new approach that may yield a video “cost per engagement” model. MediaPost explains:

Google will begin testing “skippable” pre-roll ads in videos on YouTube Wednesday that could lead the Mountain View, Calif. search engine toward a new advertising model. The small sampling, which runs indefinitely, will allow people who find the videos to click on the link and skip the ad, which takes them directly to the content. The ads will run on videos from content partners, which have already opted into the test.

The goal to move the industry toward more engaging high-quality ads requires a lesson in human behavior. The test that determines if and when people watch the video clips will provide Google with insight into the type of person who may skip an ad, what type of ad they might skip, and what piece of content does better than another. Google also will look at whether some ads are skipped in a specific portion of the session. Does the person skip the ad in the first video versus the third during a 30-minute time slot while on YouTube? . . .

[Product manager Phil] Farhi says Google eventually sees a model where the advertiser only pays for a completed view of the ad. Quality and user signals would determine the correct place in the video to serve up the ad.

The idea of letting users freely skip pre-roll is fairly radical. Most users won’t watch most pre-roll video ads. Most TV advertising is built on the premise that people must be compelled to watch ads, which partly gave rise to TiVo and the DVR. But if the ads are interesting enough people will watch them and even virally promote them (online). 

This move coincides with one toward “addressable advertising” at Google, having just added Nielsen (former Claritas) “Prizm” segmentation to its TV Ads offering: 

This partnership brings more layers of audience data to our existing targeting tools. In addition to demographic and interest dimensions from Nielsen and Equifax already available in our targeting tools, advertisers will now be able to layer on PRIZM segments to find their audience on TV through Google TV Ads. PRIZM categorizes US households into 66 unique segments, using attributes such as lifestage, income, social group, home ownership, employment, and education . . .

How does it work? Advertisers simply select a PRIZM cluster in the Google TV Ads interface, and receive recommendations on which TV networks, dayparts, and programs are popular with that cluster. Advertisers can then add the media they’d like to target and air ads within 24 hours of building a campaign.

These movements portend not only the “convergence” between TV and online video advertising (which parallels audience user behavior) but a dramatic shift in how “TV advertising” is bought, measured and billed.

On Thursday at 1 ET/10 Pacific I’m doing a webinar with MobilePeople called “The Future of Location on Mobile Devices: LBS, Apps & Monetization.”

We could talk for eight hours about this cluster of topics but I want to be responsive to where the interest resides. Tell me what questions and areas you’d like to see explored in more detail?

We’ve got a bunch of questions lined up, but let me know what you’re really interested in and we’ll try and focus more on those areas.

I wrote this morning at Search Engine Land about some upgrades and changes on Google Street View and Bing Maps and I stumbled across a Bing Community post about Yellowpages.com’s use of Bing Maps in mobile. Yellowpages provides the paid ads for local results on Bing Maps on the PC and in mobile.

One thing that’s interesting here is that the display ad in the screenshot immediately above is from mobile ad network Millennial Media, not AT&T or Yellowpages.com.

Here’s a video of AT&T discussing mobile development:

The YP industry is putting more emphasis on mobile partly because of its affinity with location but also because it’s an area that isn’t currently dominated by Google in the same way it dominates local search on the PC.

There are several ways to add location to Tweets: # tags, Praized offers a browser plug-in and Twitter has a geo-location API:

A new API will allow developers to add latitude and longitude to any tweet. Folks will need to activate this new feature by choice because it will be off by default and the exact location data won’t be stored for an extended period of time. However, if people do opt-in to sharing location on a tweet-by-tweet basis, compelling context will be added to each burst of information.

For example, with accurate, tweet-level location data you could switch from reading the tweets of accounts you follow to reading tweets from anyone in your neighborhood or city—whether you follow them or not. It’s easy to imagine how this might be interesting at an event like a concert or even something more dramatic like an earthquake. There will likely be many use cases we haven’t even thought of yet which is part of what makes this so exciting.

Now it appears that Twitter is preparing a local trends API. The NY Times also writes about this:

Improvements like geolocation have the potential to make the Internet suddenly relevant to society as it is lived, not just relevant to what happens online. Mr. Sarver imagines features like “local trending topics,” a list of subjects popular in a particular area; or searches for happy hour in a neighborhood of Dallas that will intelligently link tweets about happy hours to the place they were sent from.

Because GPS will provide the ability to become very “granular” with locations, you could mimic through Twitter the banter at the local diner or a barbershop, by limiting a search of tweets to a two-block radius.

The “Mr. Sarver” in the article is Ryan Sarver, formerly of Skyhook Wireless.

In a related development, “real-time” search engine OneRiot has teamed up with mobile search provider Taptu to offer real-time search to mobile Taptu users:

Now, with the partnership between Taptu and OneRiot, you can track the content – photos, links, articles, blogs, videos -  and other information shared as they happen on the real-time web, right on your mobile device.

To check out the new offering, go to Taptu.com on your mobile device and select the Buzz category.  There, you can see hot topics and hot content being shared on the web, right now.  Additionally, OneRiot results are available in the cluster of regular Taptu search results.

In a location context, quality and usability of real-time search data is going to be determined by filtering. Most of Twitter’s content is currently too “noisy” to be really useful for local search and, especially, local-mobile search. But the availability of Twitter’s geo-location API and local trends (and related developer efforts around these tools) could help start to realize the promise of location and real-time search.

Mike Blumenthal has a nice update on Local Listing Ads (LLAs). He points out that there’s an extensive help/FAQs area now, with questions such as:

• Why does Local Listing Ads offer a free trial? What’s the catch?
• Who qualifies for Local Listing Ads?
• What’s the difference between Local Listing Ads and Google AdWords?
• How much do Local Listing Ads cost?
• What are Local Listing Ads? Why should I use them?

Here are the benefits bullets of LLAs:

• Ads shown on Google.com and Google Maps
• A flat monthly fee based on your location and business category
• First 30 days free
• No bid or keyword management
• Free call-tracking, announcing each forwarded customer call (‘This caller brought to you by Google’)
• Full report on the number of calls, clicks to your ad, requests for driving directions, and clicks to your info window on Google Maps
• The option to cancel your ad at any time

Here’s a discussion (from the link above) of the differences between LLAs and AdWords:

Google Local Listing Ads are designed for small local businesses. It’s a low budget, low maintenance, flat monthly fee ad solution that fits the tight spending and busy schedule of local small advertisers. By claiming or creating your business listing for free on Google Maps through Google Local Business Center (learn more), you can promote your listing on Google.com and Google Maps by creating Local Listing Ads.

Unlike Google AdWords, Local Listing Ads require no management of ad creative, keywords, bidding or budget management. After you select a standard category that best describes your business, Google determines the cost that ensures the ad is seen by the highest number of people looking for businesses like yours in your location. You will be given the chance to confirm the monthly flat fee that is unlikely to change frequently or be notified of the change 30 days in advance via email and your LBC account message.

In addition to providing full performance report on Local Listing Ads-driven calls, clicks, and requests for driving directions, Local Listing Ads also offers free call tracking with a short announcement (‘this caller brought to you by Google’) before each forwarded call. That way, you know precisely when and how often the ad makes your phone ring.

Mike also offers some interesting dashboard shots from one of the LLA advertisers (an SF atty) he contacted.

All of this beefing up of help pages and FAQs is in anticipation of a broader rollout at some point in the next couple of months I’ll guess. It appears that you’re not going to be able to get access to LLAs if you’re not associated with a verified business in the LBC.

I think that as LLAs roll out we’re going to have an answer to the self-service question. Because if there’s any product that could attract self-serving SMBs it’s going to be this one — provided Google promotes and supports it of course.

In response to a lot of controversy over HelpHive’s approach to delivering calls/leads to local businesses, the company has made some changes and is seeking to clarify policies to correct what it says are “false information and half truths that are being purported in the business community.”

I won’t reproduce all the background. You can read it and a very interesting discussion in the comments here:

HelpHive Controversy: One Pissed Plumber

Here’s my original post on the HelpHive ReferralPro program:  HelpHive Launches “Cost per Job” Model

The new Droid isn’t really better than the iPhone, though it has some features that exceed the iPhone. It’s not really credible to keep claiming that Droid is better. But perhaps much more effective is the idea of attacking AT&T’s network, which has been a regular source of frustration to iPhone users.

Here’s a representative example:

AT&T has sued Verizon to stop what it claims are misrepresentations about its network coverage in this series of ads. The ads will likely be modified or discontinued as a result; but while the suit moves forward Verizon continues to land blow after blow. The commercial above is both humorous and very effective in terms of the message it’s trying to convey.

(via Endgadget).

___

Update: Apparently the ads are working and negatively affecting perceptions of the AT&T network and brand.

I wrote about the MSN homepage relaunch at SEL last week. There I mentioned that there was extensive local content as part of a “Local Edition” section. Circling back now, I have to say Microsoft has done a very nice job integrating a broad and useful range of local information here into a relatively deep content area. Although it surfaces local newspaper stories, it’s essentially a replacement for a local paper (with the exception of newspaper features content):

Notice the contextually and geographically targeted ad inventory on these pages. Eventually this all will make it into mobile.

None of Microsoft’s immediate competitors has something comparable. You can get news, sports, movies and traffic information — the same content — from all of them. However the experience is disconnected or verticalized. AOL’s MapQuest Local is probably only thing that’s comparable in terms of its “horizontal” nature and maybe iGoogle; however these pages require (or permit) users to set up the various content modules they’re interested in. (I’m a fan of MapQuest Local.)

Local is one of the “four strategic verticals” that Microsoft is emphasizing with Bing. Along those lines, I had an interesting conversation with Microsoft’s Kevin Hagwell the other day about local and it was apparent that they’re doing some very interesting thinking about it at Microsoft.

Take a look and let me know whether you think MSN has created a winner.