News and Analysis
How Retailers Are Reaching Back-to-School Shoppers
It’s that time of the year. As summertime comes to an end, parents around the country have started filling up shopping carts with pencils, notebooks, and binders. Families in the U.S. are expected to spend an average of $696 on back-to-school supplies this year, the highest amount ever recorded by the National Retail Federation.
Back-to-school shopping has become an important event for retailers like Target, Walmart, and Office Depot. While ecommerce is king at other times of the year, parents shopping for their kids’ back-to-school supplies are just as likely to shop in-store as they are online.
How FlashParking Is Turning Isolated Lots Into Connected Hubs
The parking technology company FlashParking wants to reimagine the way parking lots are managed. But rather than pushing “smart” technology on individual operators, the company is taking a decidedly different approach to decreasing traffic congestion in cities.
Operating under the belief that most technology solutions to urban challenges are unnecessarily complicated, the team at FlashParking is working toward solutions that redirect energy away from smart-city technology. Instead, FlashParking is pushing a system that embraces so-called “dumb cities” — cities planned and built with durable approaches to infrastructure.
German Tech Provider Bosch Developing 3D Displays for Cars
In the long run, this technology could pave the way toward an even more connected car. That means local advertising that could collect more data on user habits and lead drivers toward local businesses when they are on the go. As autonomous vehicles grow more common and sophisticated, the 3D displays could also be used for entertainment or other yet unseen purposes to enhance the auto experience of the future.
Commentary
Get Ready for The New SMB Software Market
The SMB market is less homogenous than the consumer market, which makes it difficult to reach and serve the majority of customers with a single software product. Luckily for SMB, that won’t always be the case. Now is the time to get ready for a new SMB software market that will experience more growth than enterprise or consumer.
Charting Google’s Shifting Priorities in the New Local Search Survey
For many years, Physical Address in City of Search was the most important ranking factor, but it has now been overtaken by Proximity of Address to the Point of Search (Searcher-Business Distance). As such, the canonical local search use case has become a mobile user searching for a business nearby his or her current location.
The Current State of Google Maps — Fake News, Fake Reviews
“It’s incredible to me that given all of Google’s focus on new local products that they are still getting some of the basics wrong,” Mike Blumenthal tells David Mihm. “People who rely on Google more and more to find local businesses need to know that the fundamental metric of the business quality, reviews, is fair and well policed.”
Latest Posts
VCs Share 7 Strategies for Hyperlocal Startups Looking to Raise Money
As access to venture capital funding softens within the startup community, it’s becoming even more important for hyperlocal firms to think more strategically about how they’ll fund their great ideas. Here, several top VCs talk about the groundwork that founders need to do to make their funding goals a reality in 2016.
Street Fight Daily: Microsoft Building Its Own Bot, UberMedia Expanding Attribution Business
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Walmart Outperforms Estimates, but Online Retail Lags… Looking for a Sustainable Business Model for a Regional Newspaper? Start at the Star Tribune… Microsoft is Building Its Own Bot to Rival Google Assistant and Viv…
Swirl Looks to Close the Digital Divide Between E-Commerce and Physical Stores
Pushing back against a shifting tide and changing consumer behavior won’t be easy, but executives at in-store digital marketing technology provider Swirl believe they can change the way consumers shop. Hilmi Ozguc, Swirl’s CEO, says the key will be arming physical retailers with the same datasets as e-commerce giants.
ClipCall Uses Mobile and Video to Help Consumers Connect With Home Service Providers
Lots of companies have taken a whack at the local home services space — from Angie’s List to a raft of startups. ClipCall, which came out of beta in January and will present t Street Fight summit West on June 7th, relies on customers using the company’s app to record video of a job they need doing and then sends that video out to nearby experts.
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