Community Newspapers – Hear Them Roar

 This comes from Peter Krasilovsky’s Local Onliner blog. Peter heads up the online Marketplace ventures at The Kelsey Group. By all means, subscribe to his blog. I thought it was especially important because there’s a “lot of this going around” – the ability for consumers to be able to focus on their own car’s repairs and see that in action, so to speak. Both Geico and Progressive offer thi, and now all these sites are popping up. This could be a very nice feature for newspaper auto verticals, and open the door for more service advertising.

Stepup Alum Launches DriverSide, a Car Maintenance Site – There is a sudden glut of sites that allow people to register their cars and get specific service information and recommendations about them. First, there was AutoByTel’s MyRide. RepairPal launched last week. This week, it is DriverSide, which is being developed by Jad Dunning, an executive with StepUp through its acquisition by Intuit, and Trevor Traina. The site, which has 20 staffers and is funded by Catamount Ventures, is designed to meet consumer needs between purchases and simplify automotive ownership. “We want consumers to make good decisions wherever they are in the cycle,” says Dunning. Here’s the rest of the story.