#SFSNYC Recap: 5 Key Takeaways from This Year’s Summit
The annual Street Fight Summit assembled more than 350 marketers, solutions providers, technologists, and media executives to discuss pressing issues and developments in the connected local economy. Here are five key takeaways from the day’s keynotes, panel discussions, and fireside chats.
#SFSNYC: Beyond the Check-In: Big Data Analytics and the Evolution of Foursquare
Dennis Crowley started Foursquare in 2009 from his kitchen in Manhattan with a lofty vision: Amass enough data to map out specific areas, build a location-based recommendation engine, and create navigation software. But when the company introduced gaming dynamics to encourage check-ins, that’s what it became known for. Today, Foursquare’s ambitions and vision lie well beyond the check-in.
#SFSNYC: Button, Urgent.ly, and Pager on Whether or Not On-Demand is Really Necessary in Local Commerce
Of all the changes mobile has wrought, on-demand arguably has made the biggest splash. The emergence of companies offering products and services immediately, with only a tap or two of a phone or tablet screen, is pushing incumbents to change their business models to stay on top of their industries. Three of these young-gun threats — Button, Urgent.ly, and Pager — made an appearance at the Street Fight Summit, speaking on a panel about on-demand in local commerce.
#SFSNYC: Investor Ted Leonsis and BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith on Media and the Local Economy
The Street Fight Summit played host to a wide-ranging conversation between BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith and investor Ted Leonsis. The fireside chat touched on Leonsis’s decades of local economy expertise, stemming from his many investments in and experiences with media ventures, professional sports teams, and ecommerce ventures, including Groupon.
#SFSNYC: Google, Yelp, and ironSource on How the New Generation of Mobile Search Is Changing Everything
Mobile has become an automatic, subconscious extension of our digital lives, and technologies that leverage the versatility of smartphones are maturing rapidly. But the apps vs. web debate continues to rage. And where does search, which has existed since the early days of the internet, fit into the picture?
#SFSNYC: ReachLocal, ShopKeep, and Swipely on Whether or Not Vertical Approaches to Local Inevitably Become Horizontal
Small businesses have a lot of options when it comes to choosing tools that keep things running smoothly. In fact, they have a lot of options even when partnering with a single vendor because companies within the connected local economy are transforming into marketing one-stop shops for advertising, point-of-sale (POS), and other solutions critical to the daily operations of SMBs.
#SFSNYC VIDEO: The Next Billion-Dollar Exit in Hyperlocal
With Google’s acquisition of Waze earlier this year, local tech is back in the limelight. During a panel at Street Fight Summit in New York last month, Matt Turck of First Mark Capital, Ben Siscovick of IA Ventures, and Jason Klein from OnGrid Ventures discussed where the best investing opportunities are these days in the local…
#SFSNYC VIDEO: How Big Data Is Revolutionizing Retail
In a panel at Street Fight Summit in New York last month, experts from the retail analytics space explored the ways big data is transforming the retail industry. Wesley Barrow, CRO at Nomi and Alexei Agratchev, CEO at RetailNext talked about how retailers can maximize profit from the moment a shopper walks into their store. Meanwhile, Larry Promisel, SVP Digital Commerce at Camuto Group, offered the retailer’s perspective, saying that while privacy is concerning for retailers, the overall benefit of creating the better experience a customer wants outweighs those concerns…
#SFSNYC VIDEO: Scale Still Elusive for Hyperlocals, But Hope Springs Eternal
According to BuzzMachine blogger and author Jeff Jarvis, AOL’s Patch did hyperlocal scale all wrong: “What they should have been was a sales network for local sites,” he said during a conversation with CBS Local Digital Media President Ezra Kucharz at Street Fight Summit last month. “If that existed, other local sites would have been able to start. It would have led to mass opportunity…”
#SFSNYC VIDEOS: Panels and Presentations From Our Recent NYC Summit
It’s been a couple of weeks since we gathered hundreds of hyperlocal industry execs in New York at the Street Fight Summit, but we’re still sifting through a lot of the ideas and inspiration that emerged from those few days. We’ve uploaded video clips of nearly all the onstage presentations and panels and are happy to share them with you…
#SFSNYC Recap: The Next Generation in Hyperlocal
We’re just winding down from an excellent week of conversations about hyperlocal at the Street Fight Summit in New York. Many thanks to our speakers and sponsors and everyone who joined us. Our next major conference will take place in San Francisco in early June; stay tuned for more information in coming weeks. In case you missed it, here are links to Street Fight’s coverage of the event…
#SFSNYC: Making Data Work for Hyperlocal Media
In the wake of the Journatic scandal, the role of automation in hyperlocal publishing remains uncertain. Leaders from top hyperlocal media companies addressed the issue during a panel at Street Fight Summit on Wednesday. They discussed how use of data is affecting media today and the way it can make scale possible tomorrow…
#SFSNYC: Think Context Not Platforms, Says Google’s Tim Reis
While 2012 was mobile’s breakout year, Tim Reis, head of mobile and social solutions at Google, urged marketers to move this year beyond platforms and instead focus on context during a morning keynote at the Street Fight Summit on Wednesday. “Consumers are very comfortable across [multiple] platforms; they don’t silo these activities,” said Reis…
#SFSNYC: Making Hyperlocal Media Work
Amid a body-strewn battlefield on which even the smartest media companies have fallen, some founders of post-2009 start-ups, Leela de Kretser, publisher of DNAinfo (New York and Chicago); Zohar Yardeni, CEO of Daily Voice (suburban and rural New York state and Massachusetts); and Josh Fenton, cofounder of GoLocal24 (throughout New England); discussed ways to beat the curse during a panel discussion at the Street Fight Summit in New York City…