Street Fight Daily: 11.01.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Urban Airship’s Partnership With SimpleGeo Turns Into An Acquisition (TechCrunch)
SimpleGeo has been acquired by Urban Airship for approximately $3.5 million. In July, the two companies formed a strategic partnership which was intended to provide better ways for developers to offer location-aware push notifications in their applications…
Groupon’s Product Expansion Masks Decline in Core Local Deals Business (Yipit Blog)
Groupon grew 8% in North American from Q2 to Q3 because of the new products it launched, but its core local deals business actually dropped 3%…
#SFS11 VIDEO: Yipit’s Vacanti on Why Groupon’s Bubble Has Burst
At last week’s Street Fight Summit in New York, Yipit co-founder Vinicius Vacanti said that it was clear that Groupon’s valuation bubble has burst, but the daily deals industry and the big players in it are alive and well. In this full-length video of his keynote, he describes some of the dynamics affecting the deals companies, and suggests where the industry may be headed…
Owens, Tucker Spar Over Indies’ Profitability
Last week, The Batavian’s Howard Owens penned a post on his personal blog about why independent hyperlocal sites were better positioned to be profitable long-term than scaled hyperlocal networks. Main Street Connect’s Carll Tucker, who believes that he has come upon a scalable formula for hyperlocal profitability, responded to Owens’ post last week, setting off a lively debate in the posts’ comments section over whether indies or scaled networks really have the upper hand when it comes to profitability…
Street Fight Daily: 10.31.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Gilt City Picks Up BuyWithMe at a Discount (AllThingsD)
The daily deals site operated by fashion and luxury online retailer Gilt Groupe, has acquired daily deals company BuyWithMe. Gilt will be purchasing BuyWithMe’s assets, including its member and vendor lists, as well as some of its technology…
Cachet, Not Cash Fuels NYT’s Local Team-Ups (NetNewsCheck)
The New York Times’ local partnerships with the Bay Citizen, the Texas Tribune and the Chicago News Cooperative have been a boon to the legitimacy nonprofit sites and their missions to raise the level of local journalism in their markets. But some acknowledge that weighing the Times’ needs against their own can be a challenge…
Street Fight Daily: 10.28.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Google is collaborating with discount luxury network Gilt City as it looks to expand its Google Offers deals service. The partnership comes as the search giant has been adding a number of new coupon features and retailers to its mobile payments product, Google Wallet. (PaidContent)…
The Guardian is testing a new hyperlocal service called “n0tice,” which is an attempt to create a publishing platform based on location — and it uses the metaphor of a community noticeboard to get there. (GigaOm)…
#SFS11 VIDEO: Jeff Jarvis Interviews Foursquare GM Evan Cohen
In a “fireside chat” that closed the first day of Street Fight Summit 2011 this week, BuzzMachine blogger Jeff Jarvis interviewed Evan Cohen, the general manager of Foursquare. Cohen touched on a number of different issues affecting the company, and revealed that Foursquare will soon be adding a “save” button that publishers can embed…
Street Fight Daily: 10.27.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
“Deals don’t mean dollars. That was a point of consensus at the inaugural Street Fight Summit,” writes Jeremy Caplan. “A key question threaded throughout the conference was how best to turn local consumers into reliable revenue streams. The most valuable insights for independent publishers in attendance centered around new opportunities for better serving local businesses.” (Poynter)…
When hyperlocal news sites can’t compete on CPMs, where else can they find revenue? The St. Louis Beacon, a nonprofit online publication for regional news, sought to tie revenue strategies to its mission, business manager Shawn McGinness said. (PaidContent)…
Street Fight Daily: 10.26.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Hyperlocal news sites regard Groupon and other daily deal services with a mixture of love (for flooding their coffers with ad dollars) and dread (for competing with their own deal offerings). Merchants ought to feel the same way, said Gary Cowan, senior vice president of product and marketing for Datasphere. (Forbes)… Foursquare is poised to relaunch Add to Foursquare under the new name Save to Foursquare in the next month. (GigaOm)…
Street Fight Daily: 10.25.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Hyperlocal task/errand site Zaarly has announced that it raised $14.1 million in financing, and that the company is gaining Meg Whitman as a board member. The site works by letting people post requests for an item or service, and then lets other people, businesses and companies bid to fulfill those needs. (New York Times/Bits)…
Stocks columnist Herb Greenberg looks at Groupon’s numbers, determining that the company is “technically insolvent.” (CNBC)…
Street Fight Daily: 10.24.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups…
Groupon Now! generated just $1 million of gross billings in September, despite being available in 25 markets — only $40k per market. In other words, the product that Groupon is telling investors to view as the future of the company, still represents less than 1% of Groupon’s total gross billings in North America. (Yipit Blog)…
Group buying sites in China are reaching 42 million customers according to figures released by The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC). The figure represents an increase of 125% on the previous the year’s business, with the country’s group buying industry now estimated to reach 8.7% of China’s Internet users. (The Next Web)…
Street Fight Daily: 10.20.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Groupon is seeking to sell shares in an offering that would value the company at close to $12 billion. The valuation is a steep comedown from earlier expectations that an I.P.O. of the Internet darling could value the company as much as $25 billion to $30 billion. (New York Times/Dealbook)…
Ownlocal has announcing a new round of investment from a string of investors including the Knight Enterprise Fund, Automattic, the makers of WordPress, and a number of prominent angels. The company creates web services for small businesses through partnerships with local media outlets and other organizations. (GigaOm)…
Street Fight Daily: 10.19.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Daily deals are coming to the radio. Clear Channel, the media giant that owns 850 stations, has made an exclusive deal with LivingSocial to offer its discount offerings on 500 of its stations, the companies announced on Tuesday. (New York Times/Media Decoder)…
Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley expects the company to remain independent for another year, but admits he’s open to an acquisition: “The only thing we want to do is build a product,” Crowley said. “If we do it independently that’s great, if we do it as part of a company that’s another story.” (Business Insider)…
Street Fight Daily: 10.18.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
New York state tax administrators have concluded merchants should collect sales tax on the full face value of items purchased with vouchers from Groupon, LivingSocial and other Internet discount deal sites —if the vouchers are for a specific dollar amount. (Forbes)…
New York City’s Gothamist is thriving with an average 2 million unique visitors each month reading its eclectic brand of voice-forward reporting and aggregation geared to the young and well-heeled. Its success has allowed it to spin off sister sites across the country and around the globe. (NetNewsCheck)…
Street Fight Daily: 10.17.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Huffington Post’s purchase of Localocracy is further evidence of the “neighbor connect” online space heating up. At least two dozen significant startupshave popped up in the past year focused on facilitating conversation among people who live near each other. Some, like Localocracy, aim at niches (local ballot issues and related), while others intend to promote a general sense of community. (MediaShift)…
HopStop, the online service that provides door-to-door subway and bus directions for major cities in the U.S. and abroad, has kicked off “HopStop AdLocal,” a new program that offers businesses up to 12,500 free advertising impressions over a 30-day period, a value of $250, the company says. (Entrepreneur)…
Street Fight Daily: 10.14.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
MapQuest’s new Vibe uses data collected from the past 10 years about cities’ most popular destinations. Vijay Bangaru, MapQuest vice president of product, writes that the concept originated out of a shift in users’ needs from “maps and directions” to “local search.” (Mashable)…
Groupon and LivingSocial succeed because consumers perceive them as great deals. But is that true? Perhaps not. Thumbtack.com called 10 vendors offering daily deals (five from Groupon and five from LivingSocial) and found eight instances where they were quoted a price over the phone that was cheaper than the advertised regular price being offered. (Business Insider)…
Street Fight Daily: 10.13.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
The next update to Foursquare’s iPhone app includes a new feature called Radar, which pulls suggestions from the app’s Explore feature. Depending on your location, it might suggest a nearby restaurant, or remind you that the coffee shop on your to-do list is nearby. It will also tell you when your friends are meeting nearby. (TechCrunch)…
LocalResponse, a local marketing system that pushes targeted ads to users based on their check-ins, has raised $5 million. The money will go toward expanding the sales team and building out an enterprise version of the service for brands and agencies. (GigaOm)…
Street Fight Daily: 10.12.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Gannett’s MomsLikeMe hyperlocal parenting network will cease operating on Friday and its 100-plus town-specific sites will go dark and the content will be deleted. (PaidContent)…
AmazonLocal posted more than 300% revenue growth in September. It has expanded to 40 markets and brought in $4 million of gross revenue in September. (Business Insider)…
Street Fight Daily: 10.11.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Microsoft appears to be readying the formal launch of a Bing-branded daily deals website powered by white-label group buying platform service provider Tippr. This offering is notably different from Microsoft’s earlier launch of Bing Deals, which basically features links to aggregated deals from a number of partners. (TechCrunch)…
The daily deal industry has jolted a formerly sleepy corner of the $30 billion online advertising market: the local part of the paid search marketing business. Local search ads that included references to towns and cities were not in demand until daily deal companies started paying handsomely to track down people interested in neighborhood goods and services. (Reuters)…
Street Fight Daily: 10.10.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
All of the major players in the daily deals industry experienced significant gross revenue growth in September. Total industry gross revenue jumped 12%, from an estimated $238 million in August to $267 million in September. The number of deals offered increased by 6%. (Yipit Blog)…
Reports of the death of Groupon’s IPO plans have apparently been greatly exaggerated. The online daily deals pioneer filed an updated version of its S-1 document with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, as part of its preparation for a planned initial public offering of its stock. (GigaOm)…