LBMA Podcast: The ‘SoLoMo Movement’ and the Power of Context
In this week’s episode, Google wins the battle for Waze; Pandora thinks like an upstart and buys a radio station; iOS7 gets into location-based app recommendations; Coca-Cola partners with Spotify for PlaceLists. The resource of the week is “Contagious” by Jonah Berger, plus special guest Paul Mabray, founder of VinTank…
Street Fight Daily: Startups Put Feet On The Street, The End of Local Advertising
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Digital Start-Ups Face Unexpected Gauntlet of Door-to-Door Sales (Medium)… Why Advertising Dollars Are Shifting to Online Promotions (Second Street Lab)… Urban Airship’s Wallet Studio Helps Firms Create and Manage Apple Passbook and Google Wallet Cards(TheNextWeb)…
Case Study: How a National Restaurant Group Uses Hyperlocal Platforms
As the national sales and marketing director for East Coast Saloons, a management company that operates bars and restaurants nationwide including McFadden’s, Calico Jack’s, and Johnny Utah’s in New York City, Gina Groh fields cold calls from hyperlocal startups on a daily basis. When deciding whether a particular platform will be a good fit, Groh is primarily concerned with the return on investment and the time involved in setting up the system…
Authenticity: The Force Behind the Local Snowball Effect
One of the new values that the Web demands is authenticity. For news, it means a commitment to truthfulness by bringing readers or viewers as close as possible to the source of information. In business, it also means being truthful in our behavior, attributions and even our intentions. It’s an underappreciated and underutilized value, and it strikes at the very heart of marketing — especially at the hyperlocal level…
Street Fight Daily: Facebook Reaches 1M Advertisers, Waze Deal May Invite Scrunity
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Facebook Reaches 1 Million Active Advertisers As Small Businesses Adopt (Reuters)… Google’s Effort to Skirt Regulation May Invite More Scrutiny (New York Times)… Groupon Pivots Amid Management Upheaval, Lagging Stock Price (AdAge)…
ReachLocal CEO: Commerce Solutions Becoming Alternatives to Local Search
Whereas most companies have built either a consumer-brand or a back-end for merchants, the company has spun out a SaaS tool, ReachCommerce, from its branded ClubLocal platform. Street Fight recently caught up with Zorik Gordon, ReachLocal’s chief executive, to talk about the origins of the new project, the challenges with bring local services online, and the impact a shift from advertising to commerce might have on local search companies like Yelp…
WPP’s Morrison: Why the Tide Is Turning for Brick-and-Mortar Retail
Gwen Morrison heads up the WPP’s global retail practice, The Store, and works with some of the world’s largest retailers on daily basis to help facilitate the transition to a more connected and empowered local consumer. Street Fight recently caught up with Morrison to talk about the transformation of offline retail, what big retailers are investing in today, and the impact of mobile in emerging markets…
VIDEO: The Pains and Promise of an ‘Amazon’ for Local Services
As investors continue to pour funding into the local services space, the competition over one of the last white spaces of the consumer web is heating up. During a session at Street Fight Summit West earlier this month in San Francisco, Ethan Anderson, founder at booking service MyTime, and Booker CEO Josh McCarter debated the dynamics of building an “Amazon for local services”…
Street Fight Daily: NextDoor Launches NYC Partnership, Plum District Acquires Spotivate
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Neighborhood Social Network Nextdoor Launches NYC Partnership (PandoDaily)… Plum District Has Acquired AngelPad-Backed Spotivate For An Undisclosed Amount (TechCrunch)… Tristan O’Tierney, Square’s Co-Founder And Early iOS Engineer, Leaves For Destinations Unknown (TheNextWeb)…
SMBs Have Some Major Advantages Over Brands in Social Marketing
Social media is merely a digital extension of local conversations. We talk about the weather, the 4th of July parade, the upcoming festival, local news, et cetera. SMBs need to always be thinking about how they can join/start these conversations in order to build fans, follow leads, offer discounts, improve their reputation and, most importantly, compete with national brands…
For Hyperlocal Marketers, Data Sweeps Are Part of Doing Business
Marketers operate under many constraints dictated by good business and societal mores, not to mention various federal and state laws against criminal and civil misconduct. But the explosion of public data needs to be sorted out. It’s up to society, government, business and individuals everywhere to take the discussion to better and new policies and, where necessary, laws…
LBMA Podcast: Chuck Martin on ‘Mobile Influence’
In this week’s episode, eBay turns windows into stores; Shopify turns e-tailers into retailers; The LBMA creates the world’s first human heatmap logo; Wikipedia goes local with content; Rogers partners with FiveStars on Vicinity; Free wifi with Scrabble; Pak ‘n Save makes the shopper the DJ; and local mobile is exploding…
Street Fight Daily: Square Redesigns Wallet, Why Facebook Passed on Waze
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Square Wallet Gets a Major Redesign (CNet)… In Passing on Waze, Did Facebook Make a Big Mistake or the Right Call? (AllThingsD)… Foursquare Tries To Find Revenue By Turning Your Data Into A Samsung Galaxy S4 Ad (TechCrunch)…
In Rush to Local Services, Thumbtack Nabs $12.5M Series B
The investment dollars keep flowing for companies in the local services space. Two months after scheduling firm Booker nabbed 27.5 million from Bain, Thumbtack, a startup that has built a reverse Craigslist for local services, has raised 12.5 million from Sequoia Capital in a series B round, bringing its total funding to a little over $18 million…
Gannett’s Acquisition of Belo’s TV Stations Puts Focus on Hyperlocal Push
Gannett brags that its acquisition of Belo’s TV stations creates a broadcast “super group.” But perhaps the biggest implication about the merger is not its “super”-ness, but what it will mean in the hyperlocal digital space where both companies, especially Gannett, are trying to build a post-broadcast future…