Foursquare Brings Explore Update to Mobile
The once geo-social-pioneer-turned-local-juggernaut, has updated its Android and iPhone applications with many of the local search features launched a few weeks ago on Explore for the Web — namely, better filters and in-search photos, as well as improved recommendations through wider access to Foursquare’s dynamic dataset…
Yext CEO: ‘Fairly Intense Consolidation’ En Route for Local Marketers
In July, Yext raised $10 Million to fund its new Power Listings product, and the company has since amassed a massive customer base, onboarding over 40,000 paying subscribers in a little over a year after the launch. Street Fight caught up with the company’s CEO, Howard Lerman, to take a deep dive into the business of local information and to talk about which hyperlocal companies he sees coming out on top…
Foursquare Brings Tips Feature Explore to the Web
What the web version executes most successfully is in making Foursquare’s extensive user-generated content consumable through a single keyword search. Over the past 9 months, Foursquare has created an ecosystem of users, brands, and developers to generate and structure location-based content without the massive costs associated with scaling hyperlocal information…
Verve Wireless CMO: Making Mobile Content Profitable
Verve Wireless serves up one of the largest local mobile ad networks and offers a mobile publishing platform as well. Street Fight caught up with the San Diego-based company’s chief marketing officer Greg Hallinan to discuss how local content can be monetized on mobile and the future of the mobile ad stack…
Local Spend on Social Media to Increase Seven-Fold by 2016
A new report from Borrell Associates indicates that local merchant spending — not simply presence — on social media will explode over the next four years. Total local online social spend is estimated to grow from $1.1 billion in 2011 to $7.8 billion in 2016, with the local’s share of the total spend doubling from 12 percent to 24 percent over the same period…
AT&T Interactive VP: The Future of the Local Ad Stack
With a little over 1 billion in yearly revenues, AT&T Interactive, the offshoot of AT&T Inc. that handles its digital advertising efforts, has grown substantially, leveraging the massive sales network associated with the yellow pages print business to create a handful of digital advertising products with a deep roster of local advertisers…
LocalResponse Doubles Staff, Opens Midwest Office
The advertising platform, which enables brands to engage with users around check-ins, is bulking up on personnel and expanding to Chicago in order to focus on Midwest sales.The company also announced that it will be expanding its platform reach in Q1 of 2012 by adding a display ad product as well as by offering larger brands and agencies a self-serve version of its service as a SaaS tool…
PlaceIQ Announces 4.2 Million in Funding
PlaceIQ, the hyperlocal data company that builds audience profiles for 100-meter tiles across major metropolitan centers, has raised $4.2 million dollars in series A funding. The Boulder-based company will also be relocating to New York, in order to be closer to “customers, partners, and the general ecosystem”…
Opening Up the ‘Walled Garden’: Content APIs and the Location Layer
For small-radius media, in which location plays a far greater role than niche or national media, walling off content will substantially impede industry growth. Ignoring LBS as a viable distribution channel is tantamount to leaving the industry’s most valuable asset grossly under-leveraged.
CONFIRMED: Facebook Acquires Gowalla for Undisclosed Sum
The acquisition marks the end of a long slide for the Austin-based company, which seemingly lost its “check-in” battle with Foursquare despite raising over $10 million in venture capital. In September, Gowalla relaunched as a social travel guide after a ten-month period in which the application was overhauled from the ground up…
Foursquare Partners With Scoutmob to Syndicate Offers
This morning, deals site ScoutMob and location-based social network Foursquare have announced a partnership that will see the Atlanta-based company’s local deals distributed across Foursquare’s platform. 500 deals from Scoutmob’s thirteen markets will join offers from a handful of other sites like Groupon, Living Social, and Gilt City that are already on Foursquare…
Loku CEO: Leveraging Data to Make Sense of Hyperlocal Search
In 2010, private equity manager-turned-entrepreneur Dan Street launched a two-year quest to create a search engine capable of synthesizing and analyzing the vast landscape of hyperlocal information. The result was Loku, a hyperlocal information hub that draws on big data tools to make sense of local search through dynamic analysis and a clean presentation of hyperlocal content…
DNAinfo Expands — As Does NYC’s Rep as Hyperlocal Incubator
With its expansion, DNAinfo joins a new class of hyperlocal companies — led by tech startups like Foursquare — that were spawned in New York City and now are in the process of scaling their products into other markets. New York (and Manhattan in particular) has become a hotbed of hyperlocal activity in recent years…
As Facebook Readies IPO, Local Strategy Is in Focus
Considering that 70% of small businesses already use Facebook as a promotional tool through Pages, the company has a serious leg up on the competition. Transitioning these users into paying customers means cutting into Google’s massive market share of local ad spend, and potentially replacing the search giant as the de facto marketing tool for local businesses online…