Execs and Accounts for March 4

The Cobalt Group, a developer of e-business software for the retail auto industry, has created a car shopping site for The Austin American-Statesman, a Cox newspaper. The site, called StatesmanCars, is intended to provide car buyers in central Texas with access to new and used vehicle listings from local dealers and private parties. The site allows visitors to conduct side-by-side comparisons of various makes and models, locate a specific dealership and search its entire inventory, as well as request a price quote.

Cobalt will manage the vehicle data for all participating dealers and private sellers, ensuring listings are refreshed daily. Cobalt also provides automotive shopping portals for auto manufacturers and large dealer groups such as Toyota and AutoNation, and develops private label auto channels for the National Automobile Dealers Association and other media companies.

Another Cox newspaper, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is in the interactive headlines today. The Georgia daily has tapped Bigfoot Interactive to create, track and analyze a customized e-mail communications program. Bigfoot has implemented an event-triggered e-mail communications program for the Journal-Constitution’s recently launched online career center. The program quickly notifies job seekers of potential positions that match specified criteria in their individual profiles. Bigfoot also helped integrate the paper’s job candidate, employer and e-mail databases.

Staffing conglomerate TMP Worldwide, which owns job siteMonster.com, has put a new chief financial officer to work. Michael Sileck was most recently CFO and senior VP of USA Networks. Prior to joining USA Networks, he was VP of finance at Sinclair Broadcast Group, where he handled financial operations for 60 TV stations and 50 radio stations. In his new role, Sileck will oversee TMP’s global finances as well as implement financial planning strategies to enhance the company’s overall profitability.

Expedia.com has signed up with performance-based travel marketer TripAdvisor. Expedia.com said it will use the niche marketer’s InventoryLink technology to market its available fares.

“TripAdvisor’s InventoryLink correlates the most relevant commerce offerings to a user’s search query, which is why TripAdvisor delivers qualified travel consumers,” said Sarah Jellen, search engine marketing manager of Expedia.com.

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