#SFS11 Company Profile: JiWire

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Calling itself a “mobile audience media” company, JiWire connects advertisers with laptop, tablet and smartphone users taking advantage of public wifi connections. The company sells off of a comprehensive list of free and fee-based wifi connections across the country. Users who connect to those wifi hotspots see relevant location-based ads from JiWire partners…

Daily Deals Industry Moving Into Consolidation Mode

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With over 600 companies currently in the daily deals space in the U.S., industry consolidation is bound to occur — with larger companies buying up smaller rivals while other competitors go belly up. To find out more about what to expect in the deals space, Street Fight recently spoke with two industry watchers from local media adviser BIA/Kelsey…

#SFS11 Company Profile: goby,

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Weekend warriors, meet goby. This search engine (www.goby.com, as well as Android and iPhone apps) returns “highly categorized and geo-tagged information” personalized based on the user’s desired activity, according to the company’s CEO and co-founder Mark Watkins…

BIA/Kelsey: U.S. Deals Marketplace to Hit $4.2B by 2015

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The daily deals industry in the U.S. is growing so quickly that local media research firm BIA/Kelsey has revised its March 2011 forecast to reflect the expanded market. The revised report — which measures daily deals, flash sales and instant deals in a single metric — finds that consumer spending on deals will grow from last year’s figure of $873 million to $4.2 billion by 2015. This is a bump up from their March estimate of $3.9 billion (for 2015), and now represents a 36.7% compound annual growth rate…

What Motivates Yelp’s Power Users?

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In an effort to dig a little deeper into what motivates Elite Squad-ers and other active Yelp users — beyond the free beer and crudités — Street Fight spoke with three power users who approach the service with differing goals in mind, but all of whom view Yelp as an integral part of their decision-making process.

Taking Social Media Reviews Into the Grocery Aisle

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Consmr allows users to rate and comment on sodas, makeup, canned foods, shampoos and all kinds of other everyday consumer goods. The service also includes a “check-in” element where users can indicate what products they’re currently using and potentially earn badges…

Using Geofence Data to Understand Local Consumers

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With all of the locational data being logged these days, it’s becoming more and more important to have ways to contextualize and understand it all. While this kind of analysis obviously is very important in government, military and non-business environments, it is also highly relevant for merchants and advertisers focusing on hyperlocal targeting and campaign assessment…

Borrell: 20% of Local Marketing Budgets Planned for Mobile

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Borrell Associates, which specializes in research covering local and online advertising, ha issued a report this week called “Main Street Goes Mobile” that examines the role that mobile media is projected to play in local business marketing over the next five years. Pointing to a business and consumer environment ready to embrace mobile advertising, Borrell cites statistics indicating that a full third of website readership already accesses information via mobile devices…

LocalUp: Building Online Ordering Hubs for Restaurateurs

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LocalUp Solutions, a platform provider for online restaurant advertising and food ordering, has licensees and company-supported account managers in 30 markets around the country. The company provides groups of restaurants in small cities with an aggregated online presence and ordering capability that expands their marketing footprint.. .

Hyperlocal Marketing Platform Chalkboard Launches in U.S.

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The location-based advertising network, which already has over 4,300 clients in Southeast Asia, is now launching in the U.S. as well. The company is opening its San Francisco headquarters today, according to CEO Saumil Nanavati, who spoke to Street Fight recently about the move.

Scoop St.’s Ambrose: From Daily Deals to ‘Branded Experiences’

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Dave Ambrose, a co-founder of Scoop St., recently spoke with Street Fight about how branded experiences set his company apart, the coming convergence between loyalty programs and customer acquisition models, and the biggest challenge that companies in the deals space face.

Loopt Experiments With Inverted Daily Deal Structure

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Loopt yesterday announced the debut of Loopt u-Deals, which turns the concept of the daily deal on its head. Instead of passively receiving daily discount offers and deciding whether to buy in, Loopt users will be able to hone their DIY chops by selecting their own “deal” (from among three available choices), requesting that Loopt approve it, and gathering friends for buy-in pending its approval…

HopStop Revamps, Adds Features and New Cities

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HopStop, which was created in 2005 as a point-to-point transit routing website, has given itself a few facelifts over the years as it tries to stay unique and relevant in its increasingly crowded niche. The company announced another one yesterday, partnering up with big names like Yelp!, Hertz, Limos.com and Zvents, to become a “general lifestyle app.”

Patch Partners With Geomentum to Attract Big Brands

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It’s widely known that AOL’s Patch network has been hemorrhaging money at a rapid clip — and that ad sales across its network of over 800 hyperlocal sites aren’t yet where they would need to be to ultimately make the company viable. But a new partnership with the country’s largest hyperlocal ad agency, Geomentum, could potentially turn into a major boost.