As many insiders have trumpeted over the years, the future of the Internet is Local. It was precisely that long-standing belief that HelloMetro.com owes their current success to.

HelloMetro.com offers users the opportunity to get to know a city through local history, attractions, real estate, jobs, Yellow Pages, local resources and other partner sites that provide the most complete and up-to-date information in their particular subject areas.

Unlike cluttered city portals that blast online audiences with irrelevant advertising information, HelloMetro.com uniquely dedicates each city site to the flavor of the individual location.

On Oct. 4, the company announced the addition of 750 new local search unique domains in additional cities around the world, bringing the company’s total website count to 1,400. With the new websites addresses, cities large and small throughout the United States and around the world have a completely localized site where citizens can access city-specific information such as weather, lottery results, sports scores, Yellow Pages and White Pages directories.

HelloMetro has also added more than 1,400 dotMobi websites to the company’s portfolio bringing its total count to 3,000 unique domains.

They attribute their success to operating the only locally-oriented informational websites in the top three city information portals on the web. HelloMetro.com has increased its traffic, among it 1,400 websites, to more than 2 million unique visitors each month.

These website traffic increases have followed enhancements for all individual city sites including the addition of free local artist photo galleries and free local original music postings. Also popular are the searchable Yellow Pages and White Pages databases.

HelloMetro has given residents from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to Belvidere, Illinois a completely local opportunity to access the internet, said Clark Scott, President and CEO of HelloMetro.com. We are finding that online audiences don’t want one big, complicated site when theyre looking for information about a city. Local content and local search is where it’s at and we are filling that need with our locally-oriented city information websites.

The Media Section of USA Today printed an amusing article on what they call interactive print ads.

The Web has an unlikely new rival when it comes to “interactive” advertising: magazine pages, writes Laura Petrecca of USA Today.  As technology for song-producing audio chips and light-powering batteries gets smaller  and cheaper  marketers are using the devices in print ads. For instance, a button on a new Yellow Tail wine ad sets off four blinking firefly tails.

The challenge, Petrecca says, is to stand out amid the clutter by whatever innovative (or inventive) means necessary.

Even low-tech print ads have even taken the interactive factor a notch higher. Advertisers have started to add offbeat objects for consumers to “play” with such as temporary tattoos, plant seeds, and even a 3-foot-long replica of an Ultimate Fighting Championship belt.

“The average American adult is exposed to about 3,000 advertising or brand messages a day,” says Rob Gregory, group publisher of men’s magazine Maxim. “If you’re going to be that one in 3,000 that gets remembered  or even noticed  you have to have something that is unprecedented.”

If the trend continues to evolve, we should expect more quirky advertising like, says Philip Sawyer, director of GfK Starch Advertising Research. Technological advances have made multifaceted magazine advertising easier to do.

A GfK study released last November also discovered that “spectacular” print ads (those that had extra oomph, such as scent strips, audio chips or even more pages in a layout) stick in readers’ minds.

An “emotional” connection makes such ads stand out, says Tim Clegg, CEO of Americhip, which creates magazine inserts such as the blinking Yellow Tail ad. In a digital world, “People still communicate with sight, touch, taste and smell.

That was the startling question posed by Brion Feinberg, a consulting analyst of The Diffusion Group (TDG), last Sept. 12.

Although forecasts predict strong growth in demand for dedicated portable music players like the iPod, it is my belief that we’ll soon see a telling shift in the types of devices that dominate this market, he wrote in the TDG site. Within the next few years, demand for stand-alone portable music players will peak and begin to slowly fade into the background; within ten years, these devices will be relegated to museum shelves next to the vinyl LP and the 8-track player.

And what will take its place? The mobile phone, Feinberg asserts. Even Apple is aware of this inevitability, thus one reason for rolling out the iPhone, he says. Yes, Apple will continue to introduce slight modifications and enhancements of the core iPod platform, but the iPhone represents the future of the iPod – just one feature on a mobile phone.

He even goes on to state how these tech-savvy Music Phones will dominate the market in the near future, thereby eradicating the need of a portable music player which no mobile connectivity to offer.

1. Simply stated, mobile phones make great music players.

2. Music phones are less expensive when compared to buying separate mobile phones and portable music players.

3. Convenience implies carrying one device is better than carrying two.

4. Music phones will be less expensive than stand-alone music players.

5. Outside the U.S., music phones are already dominating.

6. Flash memory continues to improve.

Although the ease of use and excellent integration of the iPod and iTunes are hard to beat at the moment, new mobile phone capabilities and improving PC music software such as Rhapsody are closing the gap, he says.

This might seem a tad brash for some people, especially after Apple recently released an enticing new iPod line. But the truth of matter is, mobile phones are slowly evolving into devices that allow you to do just about anything. The battle to determine the future of portable music is far from complete, but the long-term outcome has been squarely identified. The iPod is inevitably doomed, but not just yet.

Superpages.com recently launched a new local mobile application specifically for the BlackBerry. Called Superpages Mobile for BlackBerry, the new app offers a rich user experience for business travelers and mobile users, while also benefiting Superpages.com performance-based advertisers.

The application should help mobile users find local information easily with a BlackBerry mobile device. It offers users everything you’d expect: movie showtime information, business listings, map directions, a local weather check, and even a handy People Finder.

Mobile users, especially those who travel frequently, increasingly want more local information no matter where they are, said Eric Chandler, President Internet for Idearc Media. As gathering local information becomes more pertinent and mobile local search’s popularity continues to grow, users are becoming more aware of the capabilities readily available at their finger tips.

Here is a more detailed rundown of the features:

Get movie information fast Search by movie, theater or genre. See show times, read reviews and connect directly to driving directions from wherever you are.

Locate a business With millions of business listings available from the Superpages.com database, you’re sure to find what you need, when you need it.

Map your way With interactive maps and turn-by-turn directions, you can get where you’re going quickly, easily and without the frustration.

Find a person The People Finder function allows you to find a friend, old neighbor or coworker across town, or across the country.

Track the weather Don’t let the weather ruin your plans. Your five day forecast is available whether you will be in town or far away.

Superpages Mobile is available for multiple BlackBerry models and compatible with wireless carriers such as Verizon Wireless, U.S. Cellular, AT&T, Sprint-Nextel, and T-Mobile.

Idearc Media Corp., which operates the new service, is one of many search companies that have started to offer downloadable applications for mobile users. While mobile users who will go through the trouble of downloading an application are considered a minority, they are in fact an influential one. Search providers seek them out in order to spread the word about their services.

Brace yourselves, we are at the brink of a war on the mobile search front, that is. Media Post Publications reported that two new mobile search products have risen out of Microsoft and Sprint’s year-long strategic partnership: a location-aware mobile search service, and a voice-powered local search application that users can download to their phone.

Sprint’s new location-based mobile search will use the handset’s GPS capabilities to automatically find businesses and listings nearby, conveniently eliminating the need to manually enter a ZIP-code (or other info) with a query, wrote Tameka Kee of Media Post.

Microsoft’s Live has been the search engine behind the entire suite of Sprint’s mobile search offerings since last November, including local search, content search (for downloads like ringtones and games) as well as mobile Web search overall. Banner ads come from Microsoft’s stable of AdCenter advertisers, but local and geotargeted advertisers will be integrated in the future.

The GPS capabilities also extend to the new voice-powered application with a rich, graphical interface designed by Microsoft’s recent acquisition Tellme that lets users speak their search requests into the handset and get results onscreen. Sprint customers need to download the free, Java-based application and standard data charges apply for use of both services.

According to analysts, search is shaping up to be a key source of mobile advertising revenue, and for carriers to get a piece of the pie, they need to partner with branded, third-party developers like Microsoft.

“Carriers are soon arriving at the point that they have to pick partners,” said Matt Booth, senior vice president and local program director, interactive media for The Kelsey Group. “By bundling products like AdCenter, Live Search and Tellme, Microsoft can offer them very sweet deals to use their solutions.”

Booth, whose firm pegged U.S. mobile search advertising revenues to top $100 million next year, also added that “many [carriers] view Microsoft as less threatening than Google, so we’re seeing the next phase of the search war between Microsoft and Google starting to take place.”