News and Analysis
Pared Expands to DC, Connecting Gig Economy Workers with Restaurants
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
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
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
Optimizing for Mobile Search: New Tips and Old Tricks
It used to be that you wanted to be situated as close as possible to the city centroid, or clustered with similar businesses. Now you might literally have to be the closest shop to the place your potential customer happens to be standing. How in the world do you optimize for that?
Why the Creative Director of the Future Stands at the Crossroads of Marketing, Tech, Product, and Ads
Think of the evolving creative director as a technological and marketing pentathlete, a dynamic force who’ll need to satisfy more than just the traditional advertising imperative. Envision a product-strategy role; that is the model to come.
Tried and True Marketing Tactics SMBs Can Borrow From Premium Brands
Many small-but-growing businesses have a multi-store operation and a dynamic online presence, but simply can’t afford the custom-built, integrated retail and ecommerce systems that keep a premium brand’s customer experience tight and consistent. Here are some tactics they can employ to hack that problem.
Latest Posts
The Context for Contextual Marketing Is Changing
The idea behind contextual marketing makes a lot of sense. But in practice, contextual marketing is getting pretty hairy, especially for location-based marketing. That’s because context is getting more complicated
Street Fight Daily: HERE Wants to Compete with Google Maps, Yahoo’s Grim Financials
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Seeking Investments from Microsoft and Amazon, HERE Signals Intent to Compete Aggressively with Google Maps (Search Engine Land)… Yahoo Paints Grim Financial Picture as Deadline for Bids Nears (New York Times)… Why Pinterest Forces You Off Its Mobile Site and Into Its App (VentureBeat)…
On-Demand Is Tricky to Build, but ‘Very Much a Net Positive for Everybody’
“On-demand is much harder than people think. It’s supply and demand — you have to make sure companies can grow, and that this growth can be matched,” says interim.team’s Rorie Devine. Growth in supply and growth in demand need to be in sync, which makes it “twice as hard.”
Street Fight Daily: HomeAdvisor Growing Fast, Mcommerce’s Customer Service Impact
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Diller’s Home Services Bet Could Hit $1 Billion in a Few Years (Bloomberg)… How Mobile Commerce Is Changing Customer Service (VentureBeat)… Second Measure Is the New Secret Weapon Investors Are Using to Outsmart Each Other (Business Insider)…
5 Platforms for Cross-Promotions Between Local Businesses
In communities around the country, small business owners are considered local influencers. And rather than go it alone with their local marketing campaigns, some of these merchants are finding success by partnering with peers and implementing new cross-promotional marketing strategies.
Google Finally Reveals How to Improve Your Local Ranking
Google has significantly updated its help page on the topic of local ranking to include, for the first time, specific common-sense guidelines showing businesses how they can increase the likelihood that online searchers will find them in Google Maps on desktop and mobile.
7 Smart Ways to Deliver Loyalty Rewards Based on Buying Patterns
Hyperlocal vendors are increasingly marketing their high-tech loyalty programs at small and mid-size businesses, with easier ways for business owners to deliver loyalty rewards based on data captured through the point-of-sale. Here are seven ways merchants can use purchasing behaviors to offer more relevant rewards.
Street Fight Daily: Comcast-backed Firm Bets $250M on Groupon, OOH Advertising’s ‘Renaissance’
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Comcast-Backed Firm Makes $250 Million Investment in Groupon (Bloomberg)… Technology Fuels Renaissance in Out-of-Home Advertising (AdAge)… Does Google Stand a Chance Against Facebook in Mobile Display? (Marketing Land)…
Automating Local Commerce: Rise of the Chatbots
Bots could displace apps just as apps displaced search. “Search started with consumers typing into a box,” Pingup’s Ron Braunfeld said recently. “[AI] is all about knowing where you are, time of day, what’s in your refrigerator; and giving you the right information without having to search.”
Case Study: How a New York Car Dealership Generates Online Leads
At his family-owned used car dealership, Anthony Curran works as a salesman and also handles marketing. He says a recent campaign with Facebook had a lot of success: “In the first week we had over 80,000 people reached. Since then, everyone has been mentioning seeing us on Facebook.”
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