With the rise of location-based services and apps, the availability of geo-specific data has grown more important than ever. With the recent sale and shuttering of SimpleGeo, a start-up that was beginning to turn heads in the geo-data field, many are wondering where to go for the location data they need. Here are five major services offering similar types of location data feeds...

Foursquare gave us location-based community and merchant information and established check-in behavior among consumers. Now Tagwhat, a Colorado-based company, hopes to build on that legacy by enhancing users' location experience with what they call a “mobile encyclopedia of where you are.”

This week's top quotes come from Twitter and Summify as they discuss their new partnership in order to increase delivery of instant, relevant news. This week also features Harvard researchers explaining why some ventures succeed and Boyan Josic of Daily Deal Media asserting the growing success of daily deals companies...

Hyperlocal publishers have no shortage of ad networks to choose from. Street Fight looked at five of them to get a sense of the offerings available and to get a discussion going about what to look for in a hyperlocal ad network and what publishers and small businesses can expect...

When running a daily deal, some merchants can expect hundreds — if not thousands — of calls and emails from new clients. In an effort to combat this problem and free up phone lines, a number of vendors offer online scheduling tools that reduce the heavy lifting for small business owners. Here are eight popular scheduling systems being used by SMBs to properly manage the influx of deal customers.

In July, Yext raised $10 Million to fund its new Power Listings product, and the company has since amassed a massive customer base, onboarding over 40,000 paying subscribers in a little over a year after the launch. Street Fight caught up with the company’s CEO, Howard Lerman, to take a deep dive into the business of local information and to talk about which hyperlocal companies he sees coming out on top...

As hyperlocal advertising continues to heat up, publishers and merchants are working together to figure out what makes online ads most effective. Here are tips from a few top hyperlocal publishers that can help merchants stay ahead of the curve...

This week's best quote was from Groupon CEO Andrew Mason, who defended his company from attacks on its business model -- saying the issues critics pointed to were simply due to Groupon's rapid growth. This week's quotes also feature Foursquare's plan for a new web presence, a new definition for "hyperlocal," and the integration of social media into television...

At Dragonfly Shops & Gardens in Orange, California, owner Beth Davidson is always on the lookout for low-cost ways to get the word out about her boutique. In the last few years, she's found that hyperlocal platforms offer a much better ROI than print advertising...

In addition to battling it out over features and functionality, more and more platforms and services are upping their game in the way they work one-on-one with merchants. Here are a handful of the ways hyperlocal companies have begun providing support and information to help businesses run more successful deals...