Street Fight Daily: 03.30.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.…
Are expiration dates on Groupon deals illegal? Groupon was sued eight times in all of 2010 — but in 2011, that pace has increased. It’s been sued in federal court 12 times this year. (PaidContent)…
CBS Local Digital Media and CityGrid Media have partnered on an advertising/listings initiative targeting local businesses that want to get broad exposure to online and mobile consumers across the country. (Broadcasting & Cable)…
How to start your own local news site. Tips from a Berkeleyside co-founder. (10,000 Words)…
Street Fight Daily: 03.29.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.… Ex-TBD chief Jim Brady joins Journal Register “to lead the Digital Transformation of all of its newsroom on all platforms.” (Journal Register Company Press Release)… A new study from Borrell Associates has found that national Internet pure-plays Autotrader.com and Groupon have taken the lead in generating advertising dollars in many local markets. (NetNewsCheck)… Human participation — and thus social media — is central to successful hyperlocal platforms. It’s all about community empowerment. Here are 4 interesting hyperlocal social media ideas. (eMedia Vitals/Ron Mwangaguhunga)…
EveryBlock’s Community Shift
Who: EveryBlock
Why: Because the company realized that simply shoving aggregated content at people isn’t doing anyone a service.
There’s a solid and growing audience for this, but we’ve realized there’s a much bigger potential here. Simply put, there’s no great way to communicate with your neighbors online. —Adrian Holovaty, March 21, 2011
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Surprise! SoLoMo is Hot!
The Wall Street Journal reports today that the floodgates held back by VC stinginess, myopia and ignorance have been loosed following excitement over – yep – mobile social … or social mobile + local … or social local mobile if you like.
At least in the Valley, where these things tend to happen, pushing and shoving is going on to get a piece of several startups in the space (if SoLoMo can be considered one space, and we think it can).
“We would have people show up at our offices every other day wanting to meet while we were trying to get work done,” said Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom. Since launching in October, the service has nearly three million users, he said.
In addition, Yobongo Inc., a three-week-old iPhone app that lets users chat with people located in their geographic area, said Wednesday it raised $1.35 million. In January a group-texting service called GroupMe said it raised $10.6 million.
For the whole story check it here. And see their nifty chart below:…
5 Questions for Grant Ritchie of Locationary
This is the tenth in a series of Q&As with leaders / up-and-comers in the local space.
Who he is: Grant Ritchie, CEO of Locationary
What he does: A serial entrepreneur, Ritchie is a lawyer and technologist whose day-to-day includes providing Locationary oversight, guidance and direction over operations and technology systems. Prior to Locationary, Grant was a commercial and technology lawyer at a large Toronto firm and was part of the founding team that built and launched several online businesses including Moola.com (a game network with over 430,000 registered members) and CanadianHotelGuide.com…
Examiner.com Bets on Real IDs with Facebook Comments
Examiner.com continues to roll. Along with several others including TechCrunch it has implemented the next phase of Facebook’s Comments plugin. The somewhat controversial updated system integrates relevant, high‐quality, and authentic comments to publishers and sites that will be reciprocated on Facebook. Ah, the virtuous recirculation; the circle of SEO wonderfulness…
Geolocated Insta-Deals Demand You Buy Nearby NOW!
So you want to be on the receiving end of the latest revolution in capitalism: I’m speaking of daily deals of course. You’ve got lots of options, some of which are critiqued on this site, and some not yet. And one that doesn’t actually exist so I made it up – NeMeNo.
And now LivingSocial has done something very expected, as mentioned before, called Instant Deals…
5 Questions for Jack Eisenberg of MapDing
This is the ninth in a series of Q&As with leaders / up-and-comers in the local space.
Who is he: Jack Eisenberg
What does he do: One of two founders of MapDing (formed last September and self-funded) Jack calls himself a serial entrepreneur who wants to make life easier through mobile technology. “In a previous life, I published a year’s worth of research across Japan and the Netherlands on immigration. I also worked in city government, political consulting, and as an ESL teacher at a non-profit,” he said. The Chicagoan also notes “I will always be an autodidact.” OK!…
Shop Savvier with Groupon Integration
ShopSavvy just got savvier… or at least dealier.
Continuing the trend of deal-0-day sites integrating with other destinations and apps, ShopSavvy is partnering with couponing giant Groupon to deliver offfers direct to ShopSavvy smartyphone users…
WHERE Helps You Bump Into a Perfect Place
Ever debated about where to go and what to do? Sure you have. Where once you had to leave it to your brain and powers of persuasion you can now, finally, leave it to a machine. (And maybe a “bump”.)
That machine, evolved today by WHERE, Inc., is known as Perfect Places (seems every startup’s got “Place” in their name somewhere these days) which aims to help you and friends peacefully find cool things to do together by recommending nearby venues based on shared interests or tastes. This is a further improvement of WHERE’s proprietary recommendation engine, in use by four million people…
Crowdsourced Mapping Leads Your Cell to the Signal
Classic modern quandary: Travel to the lake for a little R&R even though there might not be a cell signal connecting your to precisely what you’re trying to briefly escape?
Sure, you could count on the carrier’s coverage map and take your chances. Orrrrr you could get hip and look to a crowd-data-sourcing-experiment being conducted by Staircase 3, Inc. ..
Deal of the Day: LivingSocial to Distribute Local Bargains on Examiner.com
Yahoo Local doesn’t have it. CitySearch doesn’t. Patch.com? Nope. Seems Examiner.com is the first “local service” striking a deal to distribute LivingSocial’s popular group-buying deals.
Announced today, LivingSocial will distribute it’s up to 90%-discounted deals to 130 of Examiner.com’s network of 240 local markets…
5 Questions for Lenny Rachitsky of Localmind
This is the seventh in a series of Q&As with leaders/up-n-comers in the local space.
Who is he: Lenny Rachitsky, 29
What does he do: C-Everything of Localmind, as-yet-launched startup funded by Year One Labs, an incubator out of Montreal
Describe Localmind as if a friend’s mother asked, “So what is this Localmind?
I’m glad you asked, Mrs. Mom…
Location-Based Firewall Blocks Content Here, Not There
Need to control what content gets through that iPhone based on where the user is standing? Welcome the very government-y sounding “Mobile Active Defense” from M.A.D. Partners, LLC.
This mobile firewall with “contents filtering mechanisms” enforces controls based upon the physical location of the mobile device using the company’s Mobile Enterprise Compliance and Security Server (MECS) for controlled access, security and compliance enforcement mechanism echoing “fixed” policies.
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Chat Up Nearby Drivers: It’s Mobile Social Traffic!
Ever heard of “remote viewing”? Wiki defines it as the ability to see “an unseen target using paranormal means.” In the rational world one might apply a definition closer to what newcomer TrafficTalk does.
Almost as cool as seeing around corners with a third eye is doing it with the help of scores of people you’ve never met. And Traffic Talk might have ultimate confluence of realtime, crowdsourcing, social engagement utilities mated to make it happen.
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Profile Valet Shields Embarrassment, Improves Your Battery Life
Let’s start there, because as with most good software this is merely icing on the cupcake — if it’s that good you don’t care about shelling out a micropayment in an app store.
And some of you might already have done so, buying a similar Android app that takes a circuitous route to optimizing your device experience. Might want to rethink that purchase: Enter freebie Profile Valet from the guys at Pushpin Labs and say goodbye to the randomness associated with the feature functions happening under the covers of your favorite handset. What’s that mean exactly? It means your phone’s IQ just leaped 50 points.
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5 Questions for John Kim of Whrrl (Pelago)
This is the sixth in a series of brief Q&As with leaders and up-and-comers in the local space… 
Describe Whrrl as if a friend’s mother asked, “So what is this Whrrl?
I bet if we asked, you could name off the top of your head three favorite places to go and the things you do at those places. Finding new places that are perfect for you is hard because people are content to stick to what they know.
Whrrl increases the possibility of discovering something new — rather than you finding ideas, we believe the right ideas should find you…
Did WHERE Patent Just Fence In Competition?
Yeah, I have a patent. But mine’s not even close to being as cool as this one from WHERE Inc. – assuming it holds up under claims of prior art and all that.
Patent number 7,848,765 is all about geofencing — a virtual geographic radius that, when breached by a person with a device (or even without the person I suppose) some predetermined action occurs on the device, such as an advertisement being fired off…
5 Questions for Pia Arthur of Gowalla
This is the fifth in a series of brief Q&As with leaders and up-and-comers in the local space…
Describe Gowalla as if a friend’s mother asked, “So what is this Gowalla?
Gowalla is a social network that inspires people to keep up with friends, share the places they go and discover the extraordinary in the world around them. Like a passport on your phone, Gowalla was born out of a desire to share remarkable places and life journeys in a fun, easy and social way. Since launch, people have visited, commented on and photographed 2 million places in 170 countries with Gowalla…