News and Analysis
Voice’s Impact on Local: The Knowledge Graph, SEO, Paid Search
We know voice will play a major role in Local in 2019, as voice recognition software gets more sophisticated, “near me” searches skyrocket, and marketers wise up to where the voice-local opportunity really lies in the near future: smartphones. In this article, let’s get more specific. Voice will affect the fundamentals of local search: the Knowledge Graph, SEO, and paid search, for example. Drawing from Street Fight lead analyst Mike Boland’s 2018 white paper on voice, I break down those changes below.
These 5 AR Providers Are Changing the Beauty Space
Augmented reality isn’t just for dog filters and Pokémon catching. A growing number of beauty brands are hopping on the AR bandwagon, hoping that virtual makeup try-ons with facial recognition will help spur e-commerce sales. Here’s a peek at how five AR technology providers are making their mark on the beauty and fashion industries.
5 Brands Innovating with Augmented Reality
While just 12% of brands say they’re interested in exploring AR in the near-term, according to a recent Street Fight survey, that figure is expected to increase exponentially in the coming years. Part of that anticipated explosion in the AR market is thanks to companies like Facebook and Snapchat, which are aggressively building out their AR offerings. It’s also thanks to innovative thinkers at major brand retailers, who are reimagining AR technology and making it all their own. Let’s take a closer look at how five brands are innovating in the AR space.
Commentary
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.”
Latest Posts
Urgent.ly’s Spanos: On-Demand Is How Everybody’s Going to Get Service for Everything
“I’ve long been a believer that on-demand is going to revolutionize every service sector in the economy. There will be different flavors of it, based on the characteristics of particular verticals. Five years from now, this is how everybody’s going to get service for everything,” said Urgent.ly CEO Chris Spanos.
Editor’s Take: The Perils of Uberization for the Local Economy
On-demand is a convenient rubric for speaking about a certain type of currently faddish platform, but not every underlying service or product is the same. Transportation is not the same as home services or restaurants. By extension, not everything Uber does will work equally well outside of its particular niche. Demand-based pricing is a prime example.
Case Study: Hotel Attracts Luxury Travelers with Guest-Facing Mobile Tech
As London’s boutique Lanesborough Hotel began what would become a 19-month, multi-million dollar refurbishment in 2014, executives started looking for strategic ways to appeal to guests with luxury tastes. To go along with the newly renovated rooms, which reopened in July, the team decided to add a technology component that would be unlike anything travelers had ever experienced.
Street Fight Daily: What Dorsey’s Twitter Gig Means For Square, Google to Roll Out ‘Now on Tap’
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Jack Dorsey’s Dual CEO Role Raises Questions for Square (New York Times)… Now on Tap, Google’s Mobile Search Trojan Horse, Is Out of the Gate (Recode)… Pinterest Expands Buyable Pins to More Ecommerce Platforms, Reaching Thousands of Merchants (TechCrunch)…
Connecting the Local-Mobile Economy, One Step at a Time
Hyperlocal, mobile, on-demand contextual commerce enabled by buy buttons within mobile apps — that’s the new string of buzzwords making the rounds at industry conferences. The market reality: It’s going to take a while for this string to play out in the connected local economy. A key reason is that even as mobile disrupts search, most marketers and merchants can’t expect to get their own app on a majority of users’ home screens.
The Struggle to Save Local News Is Not Doomed
The current state of local news in the technology-driven information age continues to be a hotly debated topic in industry circles. There’s more consensus around the grim prospects for local print media, and more debate about the outlook for independent local news sites. Understanding where the future lies for local news requires a thorough parsing of both positions.
Street Fight Daily: How Surge Pricing Could Affect Retail, Walgreens’ Mobile Approach
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Uber-Style Surge Pricing May Catch on with Retailers (Forbes)… Why Walgreens Is Partnering with Postmates and Betting Big on Mobile (LinkedIn Pulse)… Kroger Tests ‘Smart Shelf’ Technology (Indianapolis Star)…
NinthDecimal’s Staas: Programmatic Will Become a Strong Opportunity for Small Business Owners
“One of the challenges is a lot of the tools around the ecosystem have not really been built to scale for the small business owner, and they still require a lot of sophistication in understanding how to buy and sell media. The opportunity is in looking at how some of these platforms are evolving. I think programmatic will become a very strong opportunity for the small business owner,” said NinthDecimal president David Staas about shifting trends in location-based marketing and audience targeting.
LBMA Podcast: Eatsa Removes Waiters from the Restaurant, Coke-moji Happiness Experiment, Oscar Mayer…Matchmaker?
On the show: Eatsa removes waiters from the restaurant; Coke-moji Happiness Experiment; Oscar Mayer is your new…matchmaker?; Fujitsu partners with iProximity; Panama does location-based video sharing; Goodwill’s goBIN. Plus, news from Thinknear, Starbucks, Canadian Tire, and Mobiquity and Mobeam, and Rob’s new gig as VP of marketing at Foko.
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The Road Ahead: What Autonomous Cars Teach Us About Marketing Automation