Street Fight Daily: 02.07.12
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.
Agrawal: Yelp Advertising Is a Rip-off for Small Advertisers (VentureBeat)
Rocky Agrawal: At a time when much online advertising is being sold for 60 cents per thousand impressions (CPMs), Yelp is charging some local advertisers $600 per 1,000 impressions. That’s not a typo. Yelp is charging small businesses 1,000-times the standard online CPM rates for local ads that appear on Yelp. Even when compared to its own ads for national advertisers, the company is charging a 100x premium.
Yelp Ads Are Not A Rip-Off, You Pay To Seal The Deal (TechCrunch)
John Constine: Yes, Yelp’s ads are expensive, especially for low-end restaurants. But for lawyers, dentists, jewelers, and mechanics with a high lifetime average revenue per customer, turning someone searching for their services on Yelp into a loyal customer is no rip-off, it can drive big ROI.
Facebook Is Bringing Ads to Mobile Apps (Mashable)
Users of Facebook‘s apps — for Android, iPad and iPhone — may begin seeing ads as soon as early March, as the company looks to gain an addition revenue source before it goes public. Sources close to the matter say Facebook has already discussed proposals with advertising agencies.
Here’s Another Way Groupon Will Personalize Daily Deals (ReadWriteWeb)
Groupon really wants to get to know you. Yesterday the daily deals giant acquired Adku, which describes itself as an “early stage startup working on big data for e-commerce” with the goal of giving users “a more personalized experience.” Adku focuses specifically on e-commerce sites.
Why It Makes Sense for Amazon to Open Its Own Stores (GigaOm)
Ryan Kim: The upside is that Amazon can let people get hands-on with their products, and they can provide a high level of customer service, especially for its Kindle line of tablets and e-readers. That’s been one of the successes behind Apple’s retail store strategy, giving top-notch customer support through its Genius Bars.
Retail Bowl (2011) Final Score: Online $162 Billion, Local $4 Trillion (ScreenWerk)
Greg Sterling: Total online sales for the year were roughly $162 billion ($50 billion in Q4). As large as they are, these numbers are still just a drop in the proverbial bucket for retail however. Offline/traditional/local retail constitutes 95% of consumer retail spending. This is one reason why “local” is much more powerful and important than e-commerce.
Landing Pages: A Solution for Local Mobile (PoMo Blog)
Terry Heaton: Local television stations and newspapers must become “ammunition business” companies in an era when the deer have guns. Everybody is a media company these days, and there’s a market in helping people and businesses get better at the business of media. In so doing, we move from competing with them to making money off their growth, and we think this is smart business.
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