One of the top performing television station interactive departments, according to Borrell & Associates, is Draper Holdings' WBOC in Salisbury. Here are key strategies that led to 59% digital growth in 2010, and 200% this year, including their Facebook strategy, sales structure, and directory play. more

Company: AutoTrader.com Founded: 1998 Owners: Cox Enterprises, Providence Equity Partners and Kleiner Perkins Site traffic: 16  million monthly unique visitors Key … more

BizzBuzzSearch.com, a spin off from the Evening Post Company, aims to take on Yelp in smaller markets by partnering with high traffic local media sites. Here's how the platform works. more

If you need help shearing some sheep in western Montana, WhoCanHelp.com might be faster than the phone book. Just enter in your request and sheep shearers in the surrounding area - who have opted in, that is - are text-messaged. A customer support team makes sure. Here's how it works and partnership opportunities. more

What do you need to know to select a certificate store (this is not a group deal provider, but a store for on-going deals) provider? Here are ten key questions we vetted with heads of interactive who have launched stores in their markets: more

Halfoffdeals and HalfOffdepot are both nationally branded companies that offer merchants advertising trade in return for gift certificates sold in an online store. Now two stores, MercPerks, created by The Portland Mercury (owned by The Stranger) and Kostizi, owned by Salt Lake City Weekly are alternative weekly-owned certificate stores that offer white label platforms to affiliates. Included are case studies on first year revenues, how the programs work, and how they compare to each other. more

Freedom Communications was the first local newspaper company to develop an iPad app aimed at capturing and building a younger audience. Here's a preview of the app, developed under the leadership of Freedom's president Doug Bennett (update: This app launched in March, 2011). more

On the spectrum of directories that include user-generated content, Wimgo is one of the most advanced. Wimgo doesn’t just use Facebook instant-connect to capture user-information, it also uses integrate people’s Facebook likes and their friends likes with business records in the directory, providing a key advantage over other recommendation sites like Yelp. Here's how they did it, and our take on this as a partnership opportunity. more

The Washington Post is becoming an expert at picking off smaller local verticals in the face of huge national competitors: First they built ServiceAlley to compete with Angie's List, and now they've carved Capital Dish out of Living Social monopolization of group deals in their area. Here's how Tim Condon, Director of New Ventures, Digital, developed the site in partnership with TeachStreet. more

Here are nine take-aways from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies' 2011 Web Conference about who Millennials are and what they want as local media consumers and employees. more