• by Tameka Kee , January 25, 2008

Less than a year after an employee buyback, DirectoryM is relaunching its ad platform, bridging the gap between local businesses, news and radio outlets, and content publishers like the New York Times, and AutoByTel.

Through a hosted platform, the Cambridge, Mass.-based tech and service provider allows publishers to populate their sites with local business directories and contextually-relevant articles, offering visitors a combination of ads and additional content.

For example, Buffalo-based ABC subsidiary WKBW features a DirectoryM-powered business directory on the right-hand side of the page. With categories like "apartment rentals," "enterprise software," and "pest control," users will find links to hundreds of local businesses--but the platform also allows publishers to serve articles alongside the listings, so users can also get info on how to choose the right apartment, enterprise software or pest control provider. DirectoryM's content engine crawls the database of available partner content and automatically serves relevant articles, how-to lists and product reviews.

DirectoryM pulls local business info from sources like Superpages, Ingenio and PriceGrabber, but they also accept direct feed submissions. Meanwhile, publisher partners sign up via the DirectoryM Web site, where they can customize the directories and content modules to blend in with their site's existing color and navigation theme. Content providers who want syndication through DirectoryM also sign up on the site, and according to CEO Panos Bethanis, it's the platform's simplicity that has made it popular with companies like Jupiter Media.

"The whole process is completely automated, that's why we can support hundreds of partners with only ten people in the company," Bethanis said. "It's intuitive. There's one application, so syndication partners can drop content in the engine, and publishers can put up the content and customize it." DirectoryM operates on a revenue-sharing basis, with PPC, pay-per-call, CPA and other ad models available.