Street Fight Daily: 02.09.12
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.
Groupon Reports Quarterly Loss, But Beats Revenue Expectations (AllThingsD)
Groupon’s revenue surged 194 percent year over year to $506.5 million to beat analysts expectations; however, the company was not able to trim expenses enough to turn a profit. Still, for its first earnings report since going public, Groupon was able to report a number of strong operating financials.
AOL Hires Chief Content Officer for Patch (Reuters)
AOL announced Wednesday that Rachel Fishman Feddersen will be joining Patch in the newly created position of chief content officer, reporting to Jon Brod, head of AOL Local. Feddersen’s appointment comes at a crucial time in Patch’s evolution. While the network of 863 local news sites gained some traction in terms of user and advertising growth to end 2011, critics say that Patch will never return the roughly $145 million AOL has invested in it so far.
‘There Are No Layoffs Planned,’ Says Patch (Romenesko)
Patch spokeswoman Janine Iamunno says in response to yesterday’s post about the sites: “There are no layoffs planned. While we don’t discuss budgets, we’re more confident than ever in our business model and in our editors’ ability to serve their communities with the content they care about most.”
At Walgreens, a Mobile Check-in Acts Like a Circular (Ad Age)
Using a tool from startup LocalResponse, Walgreens finds public check-ins at its stores and sends users reply messages via Twitter. For example, when customers check in to any of the chain’s 8,000 stores through mobile apps such as Foursquare or Yelp and publish “I’m here!” to Twitter, Walgreens messages back: “Check out Halls new cough drops in the cold aisle.”
The Gossip On LivingSocial: The Window Is Closing For An IPO, It Will Be Forced To Sell (Business Insider)
LivingSocial is in a rough spot, said gossipy investors at BI’s Social Commerce Summit. The window for an IPO is about to close. They only have 6-12 months. And when it does file for an S1, the numbers will be so paltry compared to Groupon, it will have a hard time finding excited investors.
Can Facebook Truly Execute Against Its Local Opportunity? (ScreenWerk)
Greg Sterling: I think we’ll soon see considerably more geotargeted ads on Facebook, generating more revenue for the company. I also believe that, as they did with SEM, third party sales channels will buy Facebook ads on behalf of SMBs. But the challenge will be proof of value and “demand stimulation.”
How Groupon Is Trying, And Failing, To Work With Ad Agencies (Business Insider)
Since July 2011, Groupon has had a full-time executive whose job is to persuade Madison Avenue to get on board with daily deals and include them in their clients’ regular branding campaigns. The problem is that no agency has yet signed on, according to Daniella Gorenstein, the director of agency development at Groupon.
Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley on What He’s Learning From Twitter and What’s Next (ReadWriteWeb)
As Twitter realized a few years ago, Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley says his company is seeing a big chunk of its growth from people who want to use parts of Foursquare, but not necessarily broadcast to the world. That means building a service that’s useful to more casual users, and not just early Foursquare diehards.
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