Local Quotables: Crowley, Owens, Gallo, Cheong and more…

The best words about and around the hyperlocal industry.

The quote of the week absolutely goes to the folks at Starboard Value LP, which owns a 4.5% stake in AOL and holds a seat on the board. In a letter to the company, Starboard went on the attack against AOL’s media business… with a pointed mention of Patch. The Batavian’s Howard Owens predicts Patch won’t survive 2012; journo Jane Stevens gets revolutionary; and who better to weigh in on Siri than the guy who created the most popular service based on location, Foursquare’s Dennis Crowley? And more juicy comments this week:

Starboard Value LP, December 21, 2011
Business Insider: We believe that this valuation discrepancy is primarily due to the Company’s massive operating losses in its Display business, as well as continued concern over further acquisitions and investments into money-losing growth initiatives like Patch.

Dennis Crowley, Foursquare, December 19, 2011
GigaOm: Siri can help unlock the power of a lot of apps. It’s not the thing that will get 100 million people to use location-based services but it’s a way of taking what a lot of us are doing with apps and making it more accessible for people.

Carmine Gallo, author, “The Power of Foursquare,” December 21, 2011
TCTV: I thought, just like most people think, ‘Oh, Foursquare, yeah, that’s that mobile app where you check into a restaurant and maybe they’ll give you a free appetizer for checking in.’ … Until I started meeting small business owners, who credit Foursquare… for growing their business significantly during a recession.

Jane Stevens, “journo,” December 22, 2011
Street Fight: We bulldozed the barriers between community and journalists. We tore down the wall between the newsroom and advertising. We jettisoned the old print advertising model.

Howard Owens, The Batavian, December 15, 2011
Nieman Lab: The collapse of Patch will lead to a conventional wisdom among pundits that “see, we told you, hyperlocal can’t build a sustainable business model.” Meanwhile, the local independents will continue to soldier on, incrementally building their sustainable businesses.

Chung Cheong, AT&T December 21, 2011
Street Fight: Transactions are going become much more important. And not the way we think of it now with pre-paid coupons but something wholly more interactive with the ability to communicate directly with merchants and the ability to initiate a call from the ad.