Street Fight Daily: 02.14.12

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.

New Pew Report About Advertising on News Sites Should Open Eyes (PoMo Blog)
Terry Heaton: Yesterday’s new report from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism reveals some unsurprising but damning information about news websites that we can ill afford to ignore. Key findings include: 1. Discount or coupon advertising such as Groupon was fairly limited; 2. Most of the news sites did not feature ads targeted to consumers based on their online behavior; 3. Even though search ads don’t appear on most news sites, Google’s advertising presence is still strong there.

The Secret To Making Money From Great Content (Business Insider)
The line between editorial and commercial content is getting blurrier and that should not be a bad thing, if it’s done right, says Jonty Kelt, CEO of Group Commerce. Here Kelt talks about what companies are doing wrong when they strategize about marketing campaigns, and how they should go about making the most out of their great content.

Hyperlocal Marketing Offers Powerful Returns (Portfolio)
As merchants are feeling a squeeze on their budgets, new hyperlocal platforms offer low or no upfront costs to launch a campaign. And, not surprisingly, because of the low barrier to entry, more of these businesses have begun taking an active role in their marketing activities.

5 Reasons To Stay Skeptical About Groupon (Business Insider)
Jim Edwards: I said in December that Groupon was at a critical point because it could go either way: mature into a profitable company or remain dependent on the cash it raised from selling equity while searching for a business model that works. It turns out that through Q4, Groupon remained poised at that financial fork in the road and has yet to prove itself.

Yell Finds Mixed Digital Fortunes As Google Swoops For Advertisers (PaidContent)
Yellow Pages publisher Yell Group must fight off not only the decline of its traditional print directories business but also now that of its online directories, which lost a quarter of their users last year. All the while, Google is making a new landgrab for Yell’s customer base.

Facebook Tracking Calls from SMB Pages (ScreenWerk)
Greg Sterling: I think Facebook has a number of objectives in their tracking calls from SMBs: 1. To figure out how “valuable” its Pages are to SMB marketers in terms of calls generated; 2. To see, on average, how many calls are in fact generated per month; 3. To determine patterns associated with those calls (time of day, duration, geographic concentration); 4. To determine whether there’s a paid product in there somewhere

New on EveryBlock: Volunteer Opportunities (Everyblock Blog)
Brian Addison: As big fans of giving back, we’re especially proud to have added VolunteerMatch as our newest data source in each of our 16 cities. In their own words, Volunteer Match “strengthens communities by making it easier for good people and good causes to connect.”

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