Street Fight Daily: Tending to Patch, Fondu Redesign, Hyperlocal Panel at SXSW

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

The Constant Gardener: My 2 Years Tending AOL’s Hyperlocal Experiment (CJR)
Sean Roach: If anything, I think Patch’s trials and errors will show that online local news can be sustainable, even profitable, if you have good, hardworking journalists, a strategy to keep costs at a minimum, and a willingness to stick to what has made community news a staple across America for decades.

Shoppers Prefer Using Mobile Web Over Retail Apps (Mashable)
Shoppers would rather visit a retailer’s mobile website over using a branded app, according to a new study. A report released by Nielsen Wire on Monday found that retail websites are more popular than retail apps. It also revealed that Amazon is the most visited retail site on the mobile web.

Solving the Problem of Mobile Location: More Consumer Education than Technology (Screenwerk)
Greg Sterling: The big challenge related to location on mobile devices is ultimately about the value chain of permissions and disclosures to consumers and gaining their opt-in. Various consumer surveys have reflected consumer discomfort with location tracking, especially passive or persistent location tracking.

Why Some Hyperlocal Sites Struggle to Attract Audiences, Generate Revenue (Poynter)
Andrew Chavez: Reports about the death of hyperlocal have been greatly exaggerated. That was the takeaway from a panel of entrepreneurs and observers of hyperlocal and local news sites at a South by Southwest Interactive panel Monday.

Combining Yelp & Twitter For Foodies, Fondu’s Redesign Beefs Up Recommendations, Discovery (TechCrunch)
Founder Gauri Manglik describes the new service as “Twitter meets Yelp for restaurants,” in that the team wanted to solve Yelp’s noise problem not with more noise from Twitter, but by targeted, friendsourced recommendations.

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