Armed With New Funding, LocalBonus Stresses Universality, Convenience
The New York-based company recently closed a $900,000 round of financing, led by Payment Ventures, as well as Actinic Ventures and other angels to compete in the crowded loyalty space. Street Fight caught up with CEO Derek Webster to discuss LocalBonus’s place in the loyalty fray, and to see what the company is planning to do with its new funding…
Study: Positive Daily Deal Experiences Don’t Ensure Repeat Business
A new study of why consumers use daily deals paints a pleasant picture for local merchants looking to get new customers in the door — but it remains to be seen if they can get those customers to keep coming back. The study also concludes that more than one-third of consumers are more eager to buy deals from local, small-to-medium sized business as opposed to big, national brands.
Poll: 50.7% of Consumers Would Trade Location Privacy for Discounts
The survey, which was conducted on behalf of Street Fight by third-party opinions website Toluna, polled 1,000 anonymous U.S. consumers who own handheld devices. 61% of the survey respondents were women. Of the total respondents, those inclined to accommodate ambient location tracking included 61% of individuals aged 18-34…
JReporter Promises Local News Orgs Cheap Content, Revenues
JReporter, an application that works with the Android and iOS interfaces, allows a licensing media company to solicit content, whether it is text, video, audio or stills, from local citizens via geo-targeted messages. The user can then submit content to the news organization through the app, which integrates with the media company’s CMS…
New Tool Helps Publishers Find National Stories to Localize
A new application unveiled by the Knight News Innovation Lab at Northwestern University promises hyperlocal publishers a new, efficient means of story generation. Currently available in beta, Local Angle offers publishers and editors the platform to search for locally relevant news across the national wire…
Digital First’s Buttry: Turning Community Engagement Into Profit
“The engagement is part of building the brand, and the better brand you have, the easier the sale is for your sales staff,” says Buttry. “And the better brand you have, the more you’re going to feed in traffic. The more you become a place to find everything in the community, you’re going to generate more traffic, which generates more revenue.”
Who’s Hiring: New Hyperlocal Jobs Posted at Factual, SCVNGR and More
Street Fight’s job listings board, powered by StartUpHire, has added listings within the past few weeks. The board hosts multiple listings in operations, sales and tech, from companies such as Mashery, Factual, Loopt, OneSpot, Yipit, JiWire, Half-Off Depot, Inc., EveryScape, SCVNGR and Poggled. Below, we examine the newest hirers.
Can Local Publishers Successfully Charge for Online?
The key for small-to-medium-sized legacy publishers online is keeping it local. The New York Times has unmatched quality, The Wall Street Journal has unmatched business insight and analysis, and the Concord Monitors and The Tulsa Worlds of the industry must have unmatched local content. If so, newspaper paywalls, at least in the short term, might be more than just a “Band-Aid on a bullet wound.”
Pandora Partners With Local Media Companies to Expand Mobile Reach
“[Mobile advertising] is definitely a significant part of our strategy, a significant part of our DNA,” John Hilton, director of the company’s sales strategy told Street Fight. “So there’s going to be a lot of emphasis and focus on the mobile advertising dollar for us. In terms of revenue generation, we’ve done a significant job, and that’s just going to go up and to the right.”
Local Businesses Plot Expansion Via Crowdfunding
Even before the passage of the JOBS Act in early April, SMBs across the country were increasingly turning toward crowdfunding websites such as Indiegogo to facilitate expansion. Now, with the law on the books and pressure on the SEC to finalize regulations around it in the next seven months, some foresee crowdfunding, not venture capital, grants or loans, as the next innovative way to stimulate local business and job creation…
Tackable Team Introduces New Hyperlocal App to Crowdsource Events
With Eventster, the developers at Tackable are hedging their bets on the belief that events discovery, not a down economy or general apathy, is the main reason why approximately 40 percent of industry tickets go unsold. To more effectively target users, the application will, over time, recommend events based on past preferences, in addition to location.
Who’s Hiring: Hyperlocal Jobs at Factual, Yipit, Mashery and More
Street Fight’s new hyperlocal job listings board, powered by StartUpHire is Exhibit A in the hyperlocal hiring trend. Several companies have multiple listings in operations, sales and tech, including Mashery, Factual, Loopt, OneSpot, Yipit, JiWire, Half-Off Depot, Inc., and EveryScape. The most aggressive prospective employers are Mashery with nine openings; Factual, eight openings; and Loopt, eight openings. Following is a more detailed look at the notable hirers.
CorFire, Edo Announce Mobile Offers Partnership
CorFire and edo have announced a mobile partnership in which edo’s offers platform will be linked with CorFire’s mobile wallet solution and marketing services. The result, which is currently in beta testing and expected to be made widely available later this year, will allow merchants and financial institutions to build off preference analytics and past spending behavior…
Social Network Swidjit Develops Local Currency/Barter System
CEO Alex Colket hopes the hyperlocal social network will centralize many of the key functions of Facebook, Twitter, Craigslist, Meetup and Yelp, into one. Swidjit allows users to post “have its” or “want its” to facilitate an online bartering system. The website launched on May 1, and items exchanged thus far include baby strollers, mattresses and even rides to Syracuse, N.Y.