Local Quotables: Mutter, Orrick, Rainert, Grubisich, Cocotas and more…
This week in hyperlocal: Positive predictions for Groupon from Barclays Capital; thumbs-down on Yelp from BI Research. Foursquare’s Alex Rainert thinks we should teach code to kids; Alan Mutter foresees a tech buying spree on local in 2012; Street Fight’s Grubisich eyes the Westchester shoot-out; and more:
Local Quotables: Rick Waghorn, DJ Patil, Michael Fives, Emily Chang & More…
It’s not easy being a reporter on the daily Groupon deals beat these days. So says fatigued Emily Chang at Bloomberg West. And why did Foursquare win over Gowalla? Because if you can make it in New York, pretty much no one else stands a chance. Or, in the pith provided by one Gowalla investor on why that service lost: “Austin.”
Don’t Miss Next Week’s Street Fight Summit – Ticket Giveaway
Hundreds of top executives from hyperlocal, location-based and daily deals companies will come together next week in New York City for Street Fight Summit 2011, where they’ll discuss the latest ideas and insights about how digital companies can target the $150 billion local advertising market. Street Fight is giving away a free ticket today to the first person who writes us.
Facebook’s Life After Deals
The best or biggest deal, assertion, investment or other strategy this week. Who: Facebook What: Taking another approach to location-based services Just a week after it said it would abandon its location-based service Places in favor of a new strategy, Facebook announced that it was getting out of the deals business. Facebook Deals was only around […]
Facebook Replaces Places
Just a year after launching its location-based service, Places, which let people use their mobile devices to post their whereabouts to their profiles, Facebook is killing it off. FourSquare and its ilk shouldn’t be too psyched. While Places wasn’t a hit—did you use it?—Facebook is planning to include location features all over the, er, place. Users can add locations to photos and to their profiles, and do it from smartphone, desktop and everything in between. Considering that plenty of people are complaining about social networking overload, that’s smart
Patch and Profitability
Deep-ish into a story about AOL’s growth this week. The Wall Street Journal tucked this tasty nugget of information: AOL is spending about $160 million a year on Patch, which equates to about $150,000 to run each individual Patch site annually, according to an analyst’s estimate.
It begs the obvious question of whether AOL will–or even can–make a profit from this enterprise…
Venue, Topics, Panelists Announced for Street Fight Summit
Street Fight is proud to announce that we will be hosting our 2011 hyperlocal industry summit at 82 Mercer in New York on October 25th and 26th. The venue is in the center of Soho, in the former home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex. We’ve already confirmed a great slate of top tier guests and moderators, and now have posted a preliminary list of many of the panel and discussion topics that the conference will cover…
Bloomspot Leads an Industry Shift
Who: Bloomspot
What: $40 million in funding and a merchant guarantee
With all the chatter about Groupon’s updated IPO filings this week, and news that Patch is offering up daily deals in 800 (not a typo) hyperlocal markets, a couple of announcements from Bloomspot didn’t get as much attention as they otherwise might. The company said that it had scored a whopping $40 million in new funding, and revealed that it is using the data it collects to guarantee that deals they do will be profitable to vendors, or Bloomspot will cover the difference from its cut. There are a couple of important takeaways from all this news…
Foursquare Dominates the Week
The best or biggest deal, assertion, investment or other strategy this week. Who: Foursquare What: A revenue plan, a growth strategy and a (small) design upgrade A slew of developments came out of location-based social network Foursquare this week, just days after the company announced it would partner with Groupon to share the daily deal […]
CheckIn+ Aggregates Check-Ins, Could Be Big
Street Smart Moves: The best or biggest deal, assertion, investment or other strategy this week. Who: SHAPE Services What: Introduced CheckIn+, a location-based aggregator that includes augmented reality Last summer, Business Insider noted the start of a wave of check-in aggregators, following hot on the heels of the wave of location-based services–just like daily deal […]
Yelp: Going Mobile
Yelp is wisely leveraging one of its major strengths–its mobile popularity–to get up in Groupon’s grill. Yelp users regularly use its mobile features to decide where to eat, drink and shop when they’re out and about. Now they get instant info on nearby Yelp Deals as well, which should help boost sales and give the company more leverage with its local vendors…
Police Scanners and Speculation = Necessary Hyperlocal Journalism?
A lively discussion erupted yesterday in the comments section of Street Fight’s interview with B-Town Blog’s Scott Schaefer. At issue: Schaefer’s suggestion that sites did their communities disservice by reporting on rumors and information that comes over the transom via unconfirmed rumors and police scanner reports… Among those taking issue were The Batavian’s Howard Owens, who wrote: “When you don’t do scanner reports, you’re missing a key to audience growth and retention, and I think abandoning your ethical obligation as a real-time news service to keep readers fully informed.”…
Street Fight Launches Hyperlocal Industry Site
Groupon has surprised many in the past couple of years, coming out of nowhere with a simple idea to become first a $6 billion acquisition target and then potential $25 billion IPO (if it ever pulls the trigger). Foursquare was once just a schoolyard game, but now it has a potential $1 billion valuation as a market-leading innovator in “check-in” markets. And the Patch.com network of sites emerged as an itch in need of a good scratch when AOL’s now-CEO Tim Armstrong perceived a dearth of local news in his Connecticut town — it’s now in over 800 towns and neighborhoods around the country…
Ex-‘Rocky’ Editor Weighs in on YourHub
Street Fight Columnist Tom Grubisich’s recent piece about the trials and tribulations of the Denver Post’s YourHub hyperlocal network sparked plenty of debate among readers in our comments and over social media. Among those throwing the topic back and forth on our pages was John Temple, the former editor of the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News, and one of those behind the original incarnation of YourHub…