GoYellow.de is offering companies the possibility to present themselves in detail within the web branch directory, at no cost.

Undertakings and service providers can fully inform their potential clients, using the free basic posting “GoBasic”, in so far as profile, team, offerings and services, or the history of the company.

GoYellow Media AG, in a press release, detailed how GoYellow.de will be able to generate significantly more qualified content, through this improved posting. This should also jack up the value of the service and benefit its users.

The company hopes that increasing numbers of undertakings will escalate their presence to a paid level with prominent placement of their postings, as a result of the free service incentive. Addition to the prioritized position on GoYellow.de, undertakings can reserve a top-placed listing on the local ratings portal GoLocal.de, so as to publicize their offerings to an even larger internet target market.

Telegate has announced a strategic alliance with Google. In the future, businesses represented in the Telegate’s online directories 11 88 0 and Klicktel can advertise using Google’s Pay-per-click (PPC) “AdWords“, for which the advertiser only pays when the ads are click-on by users.  Telegate joins the fray in competition with other local-PPC providers such as Yahoo! or suchen.de.

As announced by the enterprise in a press release, the cooperation stands to profit above all small and medium size undertakings.  This target group has historically under-utilized this marketing opportunity. Now firms signed as directory clients with Telegate can now also choose to add search engine marketing via Google.  Thus, a company can have better localized and context-based access to potential clients, by registering specific keywords with the Google AdWords program, with these ads displayed in either or both the online presences of Telegate and Google.

Of course, such a deal needs to bring benefits to both the directory-provider and the search engine giant: Telegate, sees the collaboration as strengthening their position as ‘leading’ special local search provider in Germany. Google profits in turn through the experience and ‘know-how’ of the 400-strong Telegate team.

The Association of German Information and Directory Media (VDAV) recently presented the German Directory Media Prize 2008.

As reported by the VDAV, the winner was announced during the VDAV-BranchMeet, a congress of the German directory media industry, which took place from 18 -20 June 2008 in Bremen. The ‘Branch Oscars’ were assigned in three categories for especially innovative products and applications.

In the ‘Electronic Directory Media’, the victor was the free mobile phone navigation Ö-Navi, a product of DasÖrtliche. This free software has been on offer by the telecommunications directory portal since mid-2007, with which one can effectively convert a mobile phone into a navigation device. Financed entirely through adverts, the user receives not only a route description, but also has access to the entire online-database of DasÖrtliche, therewith all private and business addresses and is able to connect this data to the navigation interface.

The decision of the award for second place was deemed problematic by the 6-person jury, resulting in a tie for 2nd place. The first of the ’silver’ prizes went to the mobile version of meinestadt.de. The mobile version of the town-portal was praised by VDAV, according to its operators Allesklar.com AG, especially for its wide-spectrum offering of local information, including their mobile ’situations vacant’ section and the ability to receive job training classifieds, via free SMS.

The 2nd ‘Silver’ trophy went to the online-cooperation between the association “gesundheitstadt berlin” (en=’health city berlin’) and the branch portal “gewusst wo” (en=’knowing where’). The operators of gewusst-wo.de, the publications group Beleke, announced this in a press release.

Alongside the digital sphere, prizes were also awarded to print media and marketing-events. All prize winners can be found on the VDAV website.

The city portal meinestadt.de is now offering its own improved image of Germany’s towns and cities. Recently it started offering a so-called “Photo channel” for each town.

This new feature allows users, for example, to take a virtual tour of many German towns and communities, via a slide show. Additionally one can also access various thematic categories in the search for different visual motives. One comes across photos of buildings, castles and monuments, and also art, people, landscapes and animals, as well a the expected general townscapes.

However, in addition to viewing photographs, viewers may add their own. According to a press release from the operators of meinestadt.de, allesklar.com AG, all amateur and professional photographers are able to publish their town views. Photos can be uploaded with titles and supporting information reflecting the subject matter, and the name of the photographer is also published.

The new town photo album feature is really nice – even though photos are not geo-tagged, and therefore not linked to specific locations on the map. This mean that if one comes across a photo of interest, it is not always easily linked to its actual geographic location (yet.)