ReachLocal CEO: Commerce Solutions Becoming Alternatives to Local Search
Whereas most companies have built either a consumer-brand or a back-end for merchants, the company has spun out a SaaS tool, ReachCommerce, from its branded ClubLocal platform. Street Fight recently caught up with Zorik Gordon, ReachLocal’s chief executive, to talk about the origins of the new project, the challenges with bring local services online, and the impact a shift from advertising to commerce might have on local search companies like Yelp…
WPP’s Morrison: Why the Tide Is Turning for Brick-and-Mortar Retail
Gwen Morrison heads up the WPP’s global retail practice, The Store, and works with some of the world’s largest retailers on daily basis to help facilitate the transition to a more connected and empowered local consumer. Street Fight recently caught up with Morrison to talk about the transformation of offline retail, what big retailers are investing in today, and the impact of mobile in emerging markets…
VIDEO: The Pains and Promise of an ‘Amazon’ for Local Services
As investors continue to pour funding into the local services space, the competition over one of the last white spaces of the consumer web is heating up. During a session at Street Fight Summit West earlier this month in San Francisco, Ethan Anderson, founder at booking service MyTime, and Booker CEO Josh McCarter debated the dynamics of building an “Amazon for local services”…
Street Fight Daily: NextDoor Launches NYC Partnership, Plum District Acquires Spotivate
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Neighborhood Social Network Nextdoor Launches NYC Partnership (PandoDaily)… Plum District Has Acquired AngelPad-Backed Spotivate For An Undisclosed Amount (TechCrunch)… Tristan O’Tierney, Square’s Co-Founder And Early iOS Engineer, Leaves For Destinations Unknown (TheNextWeb)…
LBMA Podcast: Chuck Martin on ‘Mobile Influence’
In this week’s episode, eBay turns windows into stores; Shopify turns e-tailers into retailers; The LBMA creates the world’s first human heatmap logo; Wikipedia goes local with content; Rogers partners with FiveStars on Vicinity; Free wifi with Scrabble; Pak ‘n Save makes the shopper the DJ; and local mobile is exploding…
Street Fight Daily: Square Redesigns Wallet, Why Facebook Passed on Waze
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Square Wallet Gets a Major Redesign (CNet)… In Passing on Waze, Did Facebook Make a Big Mistake or the Right Call? (AllThingsD)… Foursquare Tries To Find Revenue By Turning Your Data Into A Samsung Galaxy S4 Ad (TechCrunch)…
In Rush to Local Services, Thumbtack Nabs $12.5M Series B
The investment dollars keep flowing for companies in the local services space. Two months after scheduling firm Booker nabbed 27.5 million from Bain, Thumbtack, a startup that has built a reverse Craigslist for local services, has raised 12.5 million from Sequoia Capital in a series B round, bringing its total funding to a little over $18 million…
‘Indies’ and Sustainability: One Destination, Different Paths
In this final column on the subject of sustainability in independent news sites, two editor entrepreneurs, David Askins, of the Ann Arbor (Mich.) Chronicle, and Denise Civiletti, of the RiverheadLocal on Long Island, talk about what they’re doing to keep their sites healthy long-term. A third entrepreneur, Ben Ilfeld, the CEO of AdGlue, talks about why innovation is so important to success…
5 Tools for Point of Interest Geo-Targeting
As the technology behind the most popular geo-targeting platforms continues to improve, marketers have begun to refine their tactics to improve the ROI of their campaigns. One of the latest trends in the world of geo-targeting is known as point-of-interest (POI) targeting, or geo-conquesting…
Street Fight Daily: Gannett Buys Belo, Patch Traffic Flat
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Patch has Proved To Be a $200 Million Money-Suck for AOL and Its Traffic Hasn’t Grown In a Year.(Business Insider)… Why Google Bought Waze (Prioleau Advisor)… ComScore: 4 Billion Local Searches in May (Screenwerk)…
With New Products and Integrations, Belly Looks Beyond Loyalty
A year and a half after launch, and Logan LaHive, chief executive of Belly, has a clear message for the competition: we’re winning. The Chicago-based company has rolled out new integrations with Yelp and Facebook this morning, marking the beginning of the company’s push to move beyond loyalty toward an open, social CRM…
Street Fight Daily: Google Buys Waze, UBL Snaps Up Local Incite
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Why Google Wanted Waze: The Local Ad Market Is Going Mobile (AdAge)… UBL Acquires Local Incite – Adds Chicago Presence (UBL)… HP and Google Team Up to Offer Small Businesses “IT in a Box” (AllThingsD)…
A Year After Big Scores by SinglePlatform and Yext, Locu Makes a Quiet Push
It’s been nearly a year since Yext announced a massive round of funding and SinglePlatform sold to Constant Contact within a week each other, and the value proposition for a real-time data and content network continues gain steam. As both firms put that capital to use, a third company, Locu, is trying to carve out its own share of the market with a similar model and sizable — albeit smaller — stack of cash…
It’s 2004 All Over Again: Mobile Spending to Double in 2013
According to a Borrell Associates client memo made available to Street Fight, local mobile advertising will increase 100% this year. That’s right; double. In some markets that number may translate into tens of thousands of dollars; in the largest, it’s $100 million or more. Gordon Borrell told us that what’s happening with advertising at the local level is “nothing short of phenomenal.”
Street Fight Daily: Apple Moves iOS Into Car, Yelp Revamps Nearby
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Apple Announces ‘iOS in the Car,’ Offers Access to Maps, Messages, and More (Verge)… Just like Foursquare, Yelp Now Recommending Nearby Places (CNet)… Mobile Companies Crave Maps That Live and Breath With Data (New York Times)…
The Uber-ization of Local Commerce
Last week, ReachLocal took its new commerce platform for home services, ClubLocal, off of its training wheels, expanding the program into the Bay Area. Pitched as an Uber for home services, the company aims to create a self-service platform to facilitate the booking of home repairs and plumbers — but its execution overlooks some of the dynamics that make some industries, like taxicabs, more fitting to the model than others…
For Hyperlocal Marketers, Data Sweeps Are Part of Doing Business
Marketers operate under many constraints dictated by good business and societal mores, not to mention various federal and state laws against criminal and civil misconduct. But the explosion of public data needs to be sorted out. It’s up to society, government, business and individuals everywhere to take the discussion to better and new policies and, where necessary, laws…