Employees Purchase DirectoryM and Launch One of the Fastest Growing Local Online Advertising Platforms to Monetize Traffic and Content

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Having purchased the company back from its previous investors, the employees of DirectoryM today re-launched the company and its flagship local advertising network. With a new executive team in place, the employee-owned company offers publishers the first online advertising solution to unite and monetize their two key assets—traffic and content—while enabling local advertisers to optimize ad spend by delivering industry leading conversion rates on more than 1.5 million unique visitors per month.

“This is a tremendous opportunity to regain control of the company I helped to create and work with our talented team to take DirectoryM to the next level”

The World Wide Web is Going Local

As people continue to transition away from traditional media, such as newspapers, television and even their local phone books, to the Web, the need for local content has exploded. As such, the global online local search market is set to grow to nearly $13 billion by 2010, according to the Kelsey Group. Similarly, the market for local online ads will reach $8.5 billion this year, according to Borrell Research.

“This is a tremendous opportunity to regain control of the company I helped to create and work with our talented team to take DirectoryM to the next level,” said Panos Bethanis, CEO. “The DirectoryM network is a rare ‘win-win-win’ for publishers, content providers and advertisers. There is no other network that enables publishers to monetize both their traffic and their content. DirectoryM’s technology combines private label local directories (fully loaded with paying advertisers) with helpful guides (fueled by publisher content) and distributes them across the Network.

The DirectoryM network serves three key audiences:

• Online publishers of all sizes, including national outlets such as the New York Times, regional titles of American City Business Journals, and local television affiliates and radio stations; Granite Broadcasting and CBS Radio
• Major content providers, such as PC World and Autobytel, that offer more than 2.5 million contextually-relevant articles; and
• Thousands of hyper-local advertisers representing some 1,300 regions and 300 categories.

“DirectoryM's content and traffic solutions deliver the highest quality we’ve seen in the industry and we’ve made the strategic decision to move up-to 1/4 of our clients Search Marketing spend to its programs,” said Abel Alvarado, President, Leverage Marketing, LLC. “Compared to other alternatives including business.com, we find that the majority of our clients attain a higher ROI on the DirectoryM platform.”

Hyper-Local Poised for Hyper-Growth in 2008

The DirectoryM network is distributed by more than 180 national and local publishers and now reaches more than 1.5 million unique visitors each month. With the new ownership in place, the company is ramping sales and business development efforts in order to add an additional 500 partners in the first quarter of 2008.

DirectoryM provides its publishers with a fully-integrated, hyper-local advertising directory that maintains the look-and-feel of their property—a highly-valuable offering for their readers looking to buy products and services in more than 300 categories. Local advertisements are coupled with contextually relevant, unbiased articles—such as buyer’s guides and product reviews—from DirectoryM’s content providers.

Additionally, content providers can reach new audiences and extend the lifecycle of their articles by serving them up on the DirectoryM network. Older articles that would otherwise be archived on a publisher’s Web site are given new life by serving them to new readers who are in search of relevant, unbiased sources of information.

For example, a reader searching a local radio station’s directory for “digital cameras” will be taken to a DirectoryM-powered page with links to local advertisers, such as camera shops, as well as recent product reviews from PC World. Similarly, a reader looking to buy a new car that searches a local business journal’s directory for information on local car dealers will also find helpful reviews of specific models from Autobytel’s MyRide.com.

"PC World is known for our unbiased content and reviews of the latest technology. DirectoryM provides us with a clean and easy way to deliver this content to end users who are generating local searches with local advertising revenue," said Brian Buizer, Director of Business Development at PC World.

Company Leadership

DirectoryM’s new leadership team features two of the company’s original co-founders, Chief Executive Officer Panos Bethanis and Chief Technology Officer Jim Woodroffe. Chief Architect Imad Qawi and Chief Operating Officer Jean-Eric Penicaud round out the team.

About DirectoryM

Based in Cambridge, Mass., DirectoryM provides one of the fastest-growing local advertising platforms on the Web. The DirectoryM network is the first technology solution for online publishers to monetize their traffic and their content. Publishers on the DirectoryM network provide their readers with a highly-integrated directory that marries hyper-local advertisements with unbiased content from trusted sources such as PC World and NHIOndemand (Natural Health Information).

Founded in 2002, the company was purchased by its employees and relaunched in January, 2008. More information can be found at www.DirectoryM.com.