• Search Engine Land, Monday, April 11, 2011 11:48 AM

Local search ad company Marchex has agreed to buy Jingle Networks, operator of free directory assistance service 800-Free-411, for $62 million in cash and stock. "Founded in 2004, Jingle Networks also has a pay-per-call mobile ad network," Search Engine Land notes. Jingle's 800-Free-411 competed with GOOG-411, which was closed down last year, and Microsoft's Bing-411, which is still operating.

"They do own 1-800-Free411, but that is not the reason we acquired them; in fact, this is a declining minority of their total call volume," Pete Christothoulou, COO of Marchex, stated. "The core rationale for the acquisition was ... mobile voice search is an important product for our call advertising network."

Marchex has evolved its business over time to focus on calls and has built a call-based ad network that spans traditional media, online and mobile. The company services national clients and small businesses through partners that include Canada's Yellow Media/Yellow Pages Group, AT&T Interactive and Skype.

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