Street Fight Daily: 10.04.11

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.

In the top 30 US markets, no company that reports purchase counts outperformed Groupon in August. In fact, in only 5 markets is the second largest competitor even generating 50% of the gross revenue Groupon generates. (Yipit Blog)

It was only about six months ago that investor excitement for a Groupon IPO was so high that its expected valuation was $25 billion. Now, institutional investors are wary. A fund manager suggests that Groupon might have to reduce its IPO valuation to between $3 billion and $5 billion in order to get it out the door. (TechCrunch)

Tippr’s efforts to use patents that it had acquired to help persuade deals companies into forming partnerships appears to be over, at least for now. A federal patent lawsuit it brought in February against 14 companies — mostly competing white label deals providers — has ground to a halt, with all actions settled or dismissed by mid-September. (Local Onliner)

Neiman Marcus is hoping to drive customer engagement by inviting customers checking in on Foursquare to participate in an in-store treasure hunt. (Power Retail)

“A few patterns are emerging in the way online community news start-ups develop or stall out,” writes Reynolds Journalism Institute’s Michelle McClellan. “Here’s my latest attempt to make some sense of what I am seeing. In these Five Stages, I attempt to cover both the grief that pioneer publishers experience and the opportunities for growth that successful news pioneers are capitalizing on.” (RJI Online)

Writing of his experience at TBD, Steve Buttry says: “Whether you’re riding high, as we were after launch, or taking heat, as we did when we cut staff, transparency helps build credibility. It’s not the most comfortable approach, but it’s almost always the best approach.” (The Buttry Diary)

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