Google’s Backdoor Shift to a Social Network

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Mike Blumenthal and David Mihm: In the case of Q&A, reviews, and the coming sports commenting feature, Google is looking to gain a better understanding of the entity, and in the case of the sharing buttons and the new ability to follow a business, Google is looking to better understand the individual so that it can improve the search experience now and in the future. That would be a very Googly social network.

LBMA Podcast: Standard Cognition, Amazon’s Holiday Catalogue

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On this week’s edition of the Location-Based Marketing Association show: Standard Cognition, GOAT sneakers, NomadX at Plaza Singapura, Amazon’s Holiday Catalogue, Nike’s futuristic store, H&M testing blockchain.

Veteran Reporter Makes Journalism Bloom in ‘News Desert’ of Luther, Okla.

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In this Q&A, longtime journalist and communications specialist Dawn Shelton talks about how she started the Luther Register News, what she has in mind for news deserts in nearby towns, and how the Pecan Festival may represent an important part of the financial future of her new independent journalistic publishing enterprise.

Seven Hard Truths About Location Data Accuracy

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You need proven industry benchmarks if you want to set realistic goals and expectations for location data-driven marketing. Going forward, these norms can help you form and answer key questions about location data-based tactics, so you can make more informed data decisions.

LBMA Podcast: Reveal Mobile Launches Visit Platform, Foursquare Measures TV

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On this week’s LBMA podcast: RideYellow + LISNR, Bidooh goes to South Korea, Francesco Rinaldi’s “talking jars,” Reveal Mobile launches Visit platform, Foursquare measures TV with Inscape, Kroger finds its voice.

It’s a Whole New Tune for the News Media in Music City

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In this Q & A, Kelly Gilfillan, who co-founded Home Page Media, talks about the significance of her company’s purchase by FWP and her role in the new concern, which has disrupted the publishing landscape in Music City.

Will AR Bring Together the Best of Online and Offline Shopping?

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Mike Boland: We know about the advantages of e-commerce. There’s more supply, transparency, cost efficiency, inventory (a.k.a “endless aisle”), and the ability to dynamically search and filter product attributes. AR can engender a sort of hybrid UX that brings these features to store aisles. The losers in the next era of retail will be those who try to fight this experiential innovation.

LBMA Podcast: Amazon’s Search Re-Targeting, Target’s Use of Runerra

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Listen to This Week in Location Based Marketing, a weekly video podcast from the Location Based Marketing Association with Asif Khan & Aubriana Lopez. On the show: Amazon’s search re-targeting, Target using Runerra, Intraposition raises $1.5M, Buick integrates Yelp, Walmart goes with maps and faster checkout, Macy’s invests in VR roll-out.

From Employee to Publisher: How One Media Veteran Did It

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In this Q&A, media veteran Shereen Siewert talks about the biggest move in her career—an exciting but risky gamble in which she would give up the security of a weekly paycheck to strike out on her own as an entrepreneurial, independent publisher.

How Content Partnerships Have Made Yelp a Data Amplifier

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Damian Rollison: It became clear to me, during Yelp’s presentation at the recent Brandify Summit, that the company has become a data amplifier. Here I’m making use of Gib Olander’s helpful term for companies whose data finds its way into a multitude of consumer-facing channels. In this column, I break down the significance of that state of affairs for hyperlocal marketing.

A Dozen Takeaways and Follow-Ups from the Bright Local Review Study

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David Mihm: BrightLocal’s study of reviews is interactive, digestible by the average small business, and useful for agencies and resellers, too. In this column, I provide some of the highlights and pose questions for further research in the reviews space.

How LEAP Helps Publishers Find and Know Their Audiences, Person by Person

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In this Q&A, LEAP co-founder and Managing Director Daniel Williams talks about what his company is doing to help local news publishers comb their markets to find customers, sometimes in surprising ways, and build profitable relationships with them.

Don’t Panic: Location-Powered Mobile Marketing is (Still) the Future of Advertising

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Why all the recent talk of going data-only when data shows that customers are amenable to providing location data if it leads to relevant advertising? Let’s take a closer look at what a long-term commitment to our media partners really requires when it comes to location, minus all the triopoly panic.

How the Ad Industry Encourages Poor Data Quality

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Digital advertising is an incredibly sophisticated industry, yet when it comes to selling in the data store, vendors lack incentive and opportunity to focus on quality. Instead, they’re restricted to sales tactics—none of which are good for buyers, brands, or the industry.

Untangling the Location Data Ecosystem

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As the location data industry progresses as a community, companies in our ecosystem naturally form into a kind of pyramid—NOT a hierarchical one but one that reflects how the different location companies fit into the ecosystem, who does what, their limitations, and their areas of focus.

Why Local News Sponsorships Are More Relevant than Ever

LION Loses Director DeRienzo to Hearst, but ‘Indie’ Summit Doesn’t Miss a Beat

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To find out what the Summit of Local Independent Online News Publishers accomplished, I went to longtime journalist Steve Beatty, who was editor and CEO of the award-winning, investigative website The Lens in New Orleans for eight years before joining LION as a consultant last January and who, with DeRienzo’s departure, has been named interim director.

Google and the On-SERP Experience: We’re Just Gettin’ Warmed Up

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The introduction of a new Knowledge Graph layer in the form of “Topics” indicates to me that Google’s latest efforts in this arena will extend in two directions beyond Local entities. I see these linkages extending all the way up the search journey to initial consideration and even further down the funnel beyond Local entities.

Biggest Tech Trend for eCommerce in 2019: People-Based Identity

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If people-based identity is the new lifeblood of eCommerce, then the identity graph is its beating heart. First- and second-party data keep the heart healthy and strong, while third-party data is anemic and can ultimately lead to system failure.

Local News Gets New Resource Center With Special Focus on Social Media

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A Local News Resource Center to give publishers direct expertise on the “challenges and opportunities” of social media and other issues that confront the embattled industry has been set up at the Local Media Association.

How AI Can Help CPGs Meet Millennial and Gen-Z Expectations

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Last year, almost half of Amazon’s private-label sales were in consumer-packaged goods. Pre-Amazon, legacy CPGs once would’ve been the beneficiary of that demand. CPGs have struggled to evolve with younger consumer preferences. Here’s what I mean, along with ways AI can help them improve.