Street Fight Daily: Patch Editors Anticipate Cuts, Foursquare Opens Data
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.
Patch Editors Say Staff and Budgets are Being Cut in 2013 (Romenesko)
Patch Editor: “We were told earlier this month that all freelance budgets would drop to zero on Jan. 1 but last week, management decided that was too drastic and some freelance money has been restored, although we’re waiting to hear how much… As people leave, some local editors are having to run multiple sites.”
Street Fight Staff and Friends Predict 2013′s Top Stories (Street Fight)
Last week, some top hyperlocal luminaries weighed in with their predictions for what we can expect to see in the coming year. Today we’ve asked Street Fight staffers and a few friends who regularly contribute to the site to submit their own prognostications for what is to come in the realm of location-based services, local search, daily deals, and hyperlocal content.
Foursquare to Make Full Names Public and Share More Check-ins with Businesses (The Verge)
Foursquare has announced that it will begin to show users’ full names in search results, and share more check-ins with businesses that were previously only able to see data from the past three hours. The changes will take effect on January 28th, 2013, and the maker of the location-based social network says that they are necessary changes for an evolving product.
Street Fight’s Most Popular Stories of 2012 (Street Fight)
On this last day of 2012, here’s a look back at some of the Street Fight stories that really piqued your interest this year (at least as far as pageviews go). We’re grateful for all of your support this past year, and we look forward to bringing you more great content, research, and events about sustainable hyperlocal business models in 2013!
Mobile’s Path to Glory (The Wall Street Journal)
More than driving directions, or finding a nearby dive bar, the battle over mobile maps is ultimately about which company can roll out the most sophisticated tools to answer the widest range of questions users ask of their mobile devices. That will be an important driver of shares in tech giants such as Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook, and help determine who has the dominant mobile platform of the future.
Street Fights of 2012: Making Sense of Content Economics (Street Fight)
Steven Jacobs: The economics of content remains a concern for hyperlocal media, as some of the most promising concepts of years past were put to the test in 2012. The Journatic scandal revealed the ethical quicksand that can accompany innovation. Meanwhile, the iterations at Patch reaffirmed that original local journalism produced by professional journalists is difficult to scale.
Airbnb’s Quest to Make Traveling Less Touristy (Mashable)
Airbnb and Localmind, a startup that the company recently acquired, intersect in one key way: They provide a local’s perspective of a town, rather than the sanitized version found in hotels and guidebooks. The real-time aspect of Localmind is a step above the ability of an Airbnb host to recommend activities to a guest — finding out what the best cafe in town is, but also if there’s seating available right now.
New York Makes Subway Arrival Times Available to Mobile Apps (AllThingsD)
There are plenty of apps that offer up info on New York’s popular subways. But, until now, none offered exact train arrival times. New York is now serving up that information via mobile apps for seven of its lines, with plans to add more lines over time.
Facebook Nearby: What Does It Mean for the Local Market? (Internet2Go)
Greg Sterling: Despite Facebook’s privileged position in the marketplace, the company doesn’t have years to develop Nearby. In order for Nearby to succeed, it must become more visible to consumers and must improve considerably during a time-window that is probably not longer than 24 months.
Roamz Prepares A “Street View For Social” Using New Google Maps iOS SDK (TechCrunch)
Roamz, a local search startup for web and mobile, is showing off one of the first implementations of the new Google Maps iOS SDK in its new iPad app, due out after the holidays. The Maps iOS SDK, which was released at the time of the Google Maps iOS app launch earlier this month, allows mobile developers who use maps inside their apps to use Google Maps instead of Apple’s implementation.
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