News and Analysis
Urban Airship Acquires Accengage, Becomes World’s Largest Mobile Customer Engagement Company
Urban Airship, which serves Fortune 25 brands such as Adidas, BBC, and Vodafone, indicated that it would use the combined resources now at its disposal to expand the technical capabilities of its slate of mobile solutions. It will also take advantage of Accengage’s native expertise in the European market, particularly at a time when increased regulation on both sides of the Atlantic is underscoring the importance of strong policy and PR teams.
Google and Amazon Escalate Voice ‘Platform Wars’
Mike Boland: Any entity competing for local commerce—publishers, brands, ad-tech players—has a looming platform choice for voice. Like the platform wars between iOS and Android, it’s a matter of deciding where to apply finite resources and development muscle. Maybe the answer is “both” Google and Amazon. But for now, Google appears to have the lead.
Doddle Launches in US, Pushing Click-and-Collect Forward for American Retail
Touting the fact that 70% of U.S. shoppers have leveraged click-and-collect options at their disposal in the last six months, Doddle, which has been active in the UK, will be helping major retail partners such as Amazon create smoother buying experiences for customers who want to take advantage of one-click online ordering while avoiding the process of delivery.
Commentary
In Google/Facebook Duel, SMBs Are the Real Winners
With Google’s recent changes, Facebook may now offer small business advertisers a better way to reach low-funnel shoppers — those currently in-market for a product or service, not just those vaguely searching for the category. Google’s move could drive many businesses into Facebook’s arms.
Latest Posts
Sponsored Content: Hyperlocal Strategy Updates Needed for Two National Drug Store Chains
This month’s Brand Battle, in conjunction with Brandify, compares the local digital marketing footprint of two of the country’s largest pharmacy chains: CVS and Walgreens. The contest was close on several counts, but Walgreens emerged as the winner, edging CVS in five of the six categories evaluated.
The Price of Free Listings
When the Yellow Pages directory came out once a year, if your business’ phone number was printed incorrectly, you were in trouble. It was the same with local business listings on the internet, except that instead of one or two books, there were thousands of websites carrying your bad data. This added up to a serious headache for multi-location brands and a serious opportunity for solutions providers that could bring order to the free business listings chaos. Here’s a look at how listings management has evolved.
5 Programmatic Ad Buying Platforms for SMBs
Programmatic buying has a reputation for being geared toward large-scale advertisers buying high volumes of impressions. But more vendors are developing programmatic solutions aimed directly at the SMB market. Here are five platforms that give smaller advertisers the ability to plan, buy, and target digital ads in real-time.
Street Fight Daily: Amazon Gets Creative with Delivery, Dissecting Starbucks’ Mobile Success
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon Tested Package Delivery by Newspaper Trucks (Wall Street Journal)… Why Starbucks’ Order and Pay Is More Than Milk Froth (TechCrunch)… IAB: First Half 2015 Ad Revenues $27.5 Billion, Search Captures 50 Percent (Search Engine Land)…
Street Fight Daily: Yahoo Signs a Search Deal with Google, MapQuest Launches Brand Refresh
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Yahoo Has Signed a Deal with Google to Provide Search Ads (Business Insider)… MapQuest Wants You to Love It Again (The Next Web)… Google Discloses More Search Data to Woo Retailers (Wall Street Journal)…
Local Visionary Award Winners Announced
The 2015 Street Fight Summit in New York saw the presentation of the first annual Local Visionary Awards, an eight-category competition designed to honor the very best campaigns, companies, ideas, and individuals in local marketing and commerce. The Innovator of the Year award went to Yext CEO Howard Lerman.
#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.
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