On the first day of the Street Fight Summit in New York last week, our New News columnist Tom Grubisich moderated a panel about profitability and strategy featuring three successful hyperlocal entrepreneurs — Baristanet‘s Debra Galant, ARL Now‘s Scott Brodbeck, and The Alternative Press‘ Michael Shapiro.
The panelists spoke about their sites’ local authenticity, and their ties to the community — and how that in itself gives them a major business advantage over scaled networks of sites. Baristanet’s Galant said her site pulled in “well north of” $100,000 per year, and suggested that AOL’s Patch would be very happy if its sites had that kind of success. The three also talked about their advertising packages, the importance of quality journalism, and how the daily deals phenomenon was impacting indies.
The entire panel is presented in the video below:
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Facebook is now the #2 mobile app for local search, behind Google Maps, notes MomentFeed CEO Rob Reed. 
2013 could see a handful of established companies look to mergers and acquisitions in order to jump-start their existing hyperlocal strategies — or to help them build new initiatives altogether.