News and Analysis

Pared Expands to DC, Connecting Gig Economy Workers with Restaurants

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Pared, the platform matching restaurant and hospitality workers with businesses in need of staff to cover shifts, is expanding to DC. Pared is already live in New York and San Francisco, and it plans to expand to Philadelphia, Boston, and other locations in 2020.

 The San Francisco-headquartered startup claims its service offers a prime deal for workers and businesses alike. It says it offers hospitality and food service workers higher wages and flexibility while offering businesses a ready workforce amid perennially high turnover in the industry.

Google Revises Policy Asking Users for Permission to Listen to Their Assistant Recordings

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The fact that this was an open practice that at least some consumers simply did not understand they were either opting into or automatically participating in points to calls for greater transparency and regulation. Google says it “fell short” of its “high standards” on the issue, but legislation like Europe’s GDPR, CCPA, and legislation in some 10 other US states indicates those standards may be imposed on tech companies by government agencies going forward.

5 Privacy-Focused Mapping Solutions

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Mainstream navigation apps like Google Maps and Waze seem to dominate the marketplace, but consumers who are interested in maintaining as much online privacy as possible have options to choose from, too.

Innovative mapping and navigation companies are launching new platforms with user privacy in mind. Framing themselves as the “private” alternative to general use navigation apps, these platforms collect minimal personal data from users and often work without tracking user locations.

Here are five examples of privacy-focused mapping platforms.

Commentary

Podcasting Won’t Replace Local Radio Soon

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As a local advertising medium, podcasting shows promise, but it has a very long way to go. The medium is fresh and growing, and ad inventory is far less cluttered than radio, although a little pricey at $18 to $25 CPM.

Google’s Product Bid for DIY Wallet Share

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“Google has been on a tear this past month in the DIY realm,” notes Mike Blumenthal in his bi-monthly conversation with David Mihm. “Three major product rollouts in a 30-day span; Websites, Posts and now SMS messaging. And Google only needs uptake on one of them to get a chance to sell Adwords Express.”

Three Lessons from the Dex Media/YP Merger

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For Dex Media and YP to become DexYP, they had to teach one another three lessons that every business in the local space should know: the primacy of distribution, the fallacy of stagnation, and the inevitability of market consolidation.

Latest Posts

Street Fight Daily: Gannett Buys ReachLocal, Facebook Debuts Staff-Curated Event Recommendations

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Gannett to Buy Digital Services Company ReachLocal… How Businesses Can Take Advantage of the Massive Opportunity in Local Data… Facebook Debuts Event Recommendation Based On Staff Opinions, Not Algorithms…

Online-to-Offline: Is Local’s Holy Grail Within Reach?

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The outcome could be the biggest step towards local ad attribution we’ve seen yet. And Facebook’s sheer scale will force more advertisers’ hands — especially those still not doing more to measure activity where $7 trillion in U.S. consumer spending happens.

6 Tools SMBs Can Use to Identify Dissatisfied Customers

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Customer opinions have never mattered more, when just a few dissatisfied customers have the ability to tank a small business’s reputation on social media and review websites like Yelp. Here’s how vendors are giving SMBs a way to make all of their customers feel heard.

Street Fight Daily: Twitter Launches Location Feeds, Are Ride-Share Drivers Independent Contractors?

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Twitter Launches Tags to Location Feeds with Foursquare… Lyft’s $27 Million Deal to Make Drivers Independent Contractors Gets Closer To Approval… 6 Tools SMBs Can Use to Identify Dissatisfied Customers …

Street Culture: G/O Digital Building Community via Nerf Wars

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The right way to build a company culture: it’s different for every company, every leadership team, and every squad of employees. CEO Tim Fagan says that when G/O spun off from TEGNA, the strategy to build culture was intentionally developed with just three short, simple values: accountability, quality, and urgency.

#SFSW16 VIDEO: At the Intersection of Travel and Local

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The kinds of connections being made between travelers exploring a new city and local businesses are similar to those that people make when they are looking for goods and services at home. And Airbnb has made it clear over the past couple of years that the company wants to help travelers “live like a local.”

Street Fight Daily: Uber Phasing Out Surge in Favor of Upfront Pricing, Apple’s Reply to Echo

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Uber Switches Out Surge for Price Transparency… Why We Might Not See An Echo-Like Device From Apple… Google Takes Steps to ‘Democratize Programmatic’ for Buyers…

How Community News Can Win Respect — And Bring in Revenue

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“You can’t always focus on monetization,” says 30A’s Mike Ragsdale. “You have to focus on what’s good for the community and for your audience. In my experience, if you do that, the money will eventually follow. Put others first, and they’ll inevitably support you.”

#SFSW16 VIDEO: The Virtual Reality Revolution and Its Implications for Local

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With the rise of Oculus and a host of other new companies, there has been lots of talk this year about the potential local and retail implications for virtual reality and augmented reality. At Street Fight Summit West in San Francisco earlier this month, a panel examined how brands and retailers see the VR/AR opportunity.

Street Fight Daily: Ads Coming to Google’s Local Pack, xAd Partners with ComScore for Attribution

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Confirms Ads Are Coming to Local Pack… ComScore is Working with xAd to Measure Foot Traffic From Online Ads… How a Publisher’s New Trend-Predicting Platform Will Benefit Advertisers…