Street Fight Daily: Google Retires Latitude, Life360 Raises $10M
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology….Google Is Retiring Its Latitude Location-Sharing Service (TheNextWeb)… Family App Life360 Raises $10 million Series B Round For Growth, International Expansion (GigaOm)… Belo Is Now Worth More Than Gannett Is Paying (Bloomberg)…
With New Products, Factual Aims to Make ‘Big Data’ Smaller
After five years of ingesting, cleaning and packaging the world’s information, the startup is focusing exclusively on local, improving its geo-fencing product and moving up the data stack to build out a location analytics business. The company announced this morning that it has launched a new line of services aimed at helping mobile developers, publishers, and marketers make sense of the reams of location data collected from consumers…
6 Reasons to Opt for Card-Linked Loyalty Programs
Customer analytics have become an integral part of the local merchant’s marketing toolbox, and digital loyalty providers are increasingly leveraging their own data to help clients make more informed business decisions. Hyperlocal vendors with loyalty programs that are linked to credit cards or debit cards are especially well positioned to take advantage of this trend. Here are six reasons why loyalty providers should consider structuring their programs to connect with customer’s credit or debit cards…
Street Fight Daily: TaskRabbit Confirms Layoffs, Charting A Future for Local News
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… TaskRabbit Confirms Layoffs As It Realigns To Focus On Mobile And Enterprise (TechCrunch)… Charting a Locally Owned, For-Profit Future for Community News (Nieman Journalism Lab)… Why Investors Who Got Burned By Groupon Might Still Snap Up An IPO From RetailMeNot (Quartz)…
Which Hyperlocal Startup Will Be Next to IPO?
“[The markets] are probably as, or in many cases, more open to [hyperlocal companies] today, largely because they’re seeing some early success in other models,” said First Analysis’ Todd Van Fleet. “They know it can be done; it’s just a question of having the right model. Whereas Groupon may have created a disconcerting tone across the space, you have had the success of Angie’s List, Yelp and even mobile payments players like Square prove that a portion of the [local business marketplace] can be won.”
5 Tools to Track Conversions from Social Media to In-Store Traffic
The vast majority of SMBs have no idea whether the “fans” and “likes” they’ve generated via social media are actually translating into real-world sales. A number of hyperlocal vendors are stepping in to help solve this mystery. These companies have created digital platforms with tools that help business owners track the number of online fans they’ve managed to convert into actual customers. Here are five of those platforms…
Street Fight Daily: AT&T Sells Location Data, Square Partners With Apple Retail
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… AT&T Will Start Anonymously Selling Your Location Data To Marketers (Business Insider)…. Apple Retail, Square Partner To Sell iPad-based Square Stand (9To5 Mac)… LSA: 10.5 Billion Print + IYP ‘Refences’ in 2012 (Screenwerk)…
Openings & New Hires at Square, Facebook, LocalVox and More
Every two weeks, Search Influence’s Kelly Benish — who knows practically everyone in hyperlocal — covers some of the latest job changes taking place in this dynamic industry. Moves this edition include a new product engineer at Square, an exiting publisher at DNAinfo, plus openings at Oracle, LinkedIn, WorldNow and more…
LBMA Podcast: The Mobile Payment Journey of the Future
In this week’s episode, Asif’s take on location based marketing in China; Twitter finally develops geo-targeted ads; Facebook helps get you (almost) free wifi; Google plans to launch thing-sharing service Mine, and Pandora quadruples its audience. Plus our resource of the week: The mobile payment journey of the future. And special guest Keller Rinaudo, co-founder of Romotive.
Street Fight Daily: Patch Editors Concerned, Apple Patents Waze Alternative
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Patch Editor:’From What I See On The Ground, We Are On Our Last Legs’ (Romenesko)… Apple Details Waze-like Crowd-sourced Route Ratings For Real-Time Traffic Alerts in Maps (9to5 Mac)… Location Tracking App Glympse Links With Evernote To Let Users Archive Their Trails (TechCrunch)… Location Tracking App Glympse Links With Evernote To Let Users Archive Their Trails (TechCrunch)…
There’s a ‘Metropolitan Revolution,’ but Where’s Hyperlocal?
Community news sites don’t always have to invest in major staffing and other resources to enhance their editorial. In three recent cases, public and nonprofit agencies and other bodies supplied virtually all the information that would generate engagement-producing stories – the kind advertisers are supposed to like. All it would take is labor-efficient curating and copying and pasting…
Case Study: Switching to a Cloud-Based POS For Increased Reliability, Lower Costs
As a seasoned restaurateur, Steven Cook already knew that traditional hardware-based point-of-sale systems could be overly expensive and unreliable when he opened Federal Donuts — a shop that sells cake donuts and Korean style fried chicken — in late 2011. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that there were alternative options for quick-service restaurants…
Street Fight Daily: Patch Launches Native Ads, Foursquare Looks to International Growth
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Leela de Kretser Is Leaving DNAinfo (Observer)… AOL’s Patch Creates Fictional Publication for Disney Movie Planes (AdWeek)… Foursquare Tunes Into International Growth, Inks Live Music Check-In Deal With Deezer To Promote Paid Subs (TechCrunch)…
Why Hyperlocal Is Naturally Suited for Investigative Reporting
A new study by local media research/consulting firm AR&D and Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) reveals that investigative reporting is a big draw for consumers when it comes to media choice. Sixty-two precent said it was reason enough to follow a particular news organization, and it ranked only behind weather (54% preference) in terms of interest — and that interest is growing. Investigative reporting is plain old reporting. Period. And it begins with getting off the lazy and easy commodity news bandwagon and growing a reportorial spine…
7 Strategies for Generating Localized News Stories
Appealing to a hyperlocal audience means going beyond repackaged press releases and community events listings to uncover truly newsworthy stories happening in individual neighborhoods. We consulted with experts from some of the country’s top hyperlocal publications to round up the best strategies for developing localized story ideas on a regular basis. Here are their best tips…
How Bad Location Data Is Poisoning the Mobile Well
Marketers don’t have to be at the mercy of bad data. A number of vendors can help marketers sniff out embellished or inaccurate data using machine-learning algorithms to identify lat-longs commonly derived from a centroid. Advertising networks also have a small advantage over ad exchanges in that they can work directly with a publisher to ensure that only quality data gets passed along….
Street Fight Daily: Massive Layoffs at CityGrid, FTC Expands Regulations On Location Data
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… IAC’s CityGrid, Parent Of CitySearch And Urbanspoon, Lays Off Two-Thirds Of Staff, As Local Ad Push Bites(TechCrunch)… FTC Updates COPPA With New Restrictions On Location Data (AdExchanger)… Is Yelp A Bully Or Just Misunderstood? (BuzzFeed)…
Why SMB Marketing Services Won’t Save Newspapers’ Bottom Line
Most newspapers aren’t building new and innovative tools to provide SMB services. Instead they are white labeling offerings from other providers or are connecting their audiences to an existing service. Over time, SMB tools are going to become a commodity. When someone who is still in high school can offer exactly what you are offering, you’re in trouble. With the high cost structures and overhead that newspapers have, being in a commodity business (where margins get pushed lower and lower) won’t prove lucrative in the end…