News and Analysis

The Location Angle on Another Bombshell Privacy Exposé from the New York Times

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What exactly did Facebook do wrong, and what do its supposed wrongs portend for the future of data-driven, and especially location data-driven, marketing? Here are some major takeaways pertaining to future legislation, likely consumer reactions, and the distinction between data selling and sharing.

Google Testing Restaurant Booking, Foreshadowing Ever Tighter Grip on Local Commerce

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The news is an important signal that local-commerce options like Reserve with Google will get sleeker and more dominant in the years to come. And it calls to mind a crucial local-search debate: Will Google SERPs and the many options for engagement with local brick-and-mortars on them effectively supplant the local business website as the crucial interface for interacting with customers?

Cannabis Retailer Uses Tech to Boost Employee Morale

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Old-school companies hosted picnics and holiday parties to keep their employees happy, but tech-focused startups in the cannabis industry are taking a decidedly more sophisticated approach.

Commentary

The Physical Web: How a New Type of Beacon Is Disrupting Proximity Marketing

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The newer Eddystone-URL is truly disruptive. This web approach, also called the Physical Web, follows the unstoppable trend toward lessening friction, and will ultimately be the dominant beacon technology. Marketers should be aware of this trend.

Is Apple Quietly Assembling an SMB Trojan Horse?

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Apple is co-promoting Square’s NFC reader for SMBs. and selling the readers in Apple Stores. The $49 reader accepts Apple Pay, which significantly lowers the barrier for SMBs to get in the game. The move should boost Apple Pay, but there also may be much bigger ambitions to lock in market share in new areas.

How the SMB/Local Advertising Community Can Avoid ‘Bad Ads’

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Google’s recent “Better Ads” report demonstrates that while digital is a great channel for reaching consumers, a positive experience is perhaps the most crucial component of a successful ad campaign, especially for advertisers using programmatic to buy and serve their ads.

Latest Posts

Is Local a Specialist or a Full-Service Game?

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Local startups have reached a tipping point — go big, or go home. The fifth annual Street Fight Summit on Oct. 20th in NYC will explore the shifting local landscape. Conversations will look at the future of beacons, retail marketing, the changing programmatic landscape, and the nascent battle in mobile.

The Same, Only More So: Apple Introduces Comprehensive Refresh of Mobile, Wearables and TV

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If there is a specifically local business implication to the new products and services, it lies in this deeper level of integration with a more mobile world, where the nimbleness of apps (think computing lite) gives everyone the ability to customize and communicate on the fly.

Street Fight Daily: Analyzing Yesterday’s Apple Event, Square Plans Q4 IPO

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… The Same, Only More So: Apple Introduces Comprehensive Refresh of Mobile, Wearables, and TV (Street Fight)… Square Said to Seek Fourth-Quarter IPO as Twitter Decision Looms (Bloomberg)… It’s Not ‘Winner-Take-All’ for Uber or Lyft, Says the Only Investor in Both (Business Insider)…

Swipely CEO: We Want to Provide the Operating Platform That Restaurants Run On

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“If you’re not going to fundamentally improve the guest experience, then there’s really no motivation for either the consumer to change the way that they’re buying in the restaurant or for the merchant to replace the operating practices they have,” said Swipely CEO Angus Davis about mobile payments.

Street Culture: YP Hits ‘Refresh’ Button on Employee Connections

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Changing a deep-seated corporate culture takes time. Just ask YP, where renewed internal communications, education and community-building efforts have paid off in a big way.

Street Fight Daily: Google Will Test Grocery Delivery, How Facebook’s Pages Update Affects SMBs

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Becomes a Rival to Amazon to Deliver Your Fresh Fruits and Veggies (Mashable)… Facebook Update Means More Shopping Pages Are on the Way (Recode)… Amazon Launches a Food Delivery Service Via Prime Now, Starting in Seattle (TechCrunch)…

The Not-So-Low-Hanging Fruit: Why the Local Market Remains Elusive

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“The great challenge of winning the local market boils down to balancing sufficient reach and scale with specificity,” writes Noah Elkin, who is joining Street Fight today as managing editor. “It turns out thinking globally and acting locally isn’t always easy — as a consumer or a marketer.”

M&A Report: A Long, Hard Look at Loyalty Programs

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Loyalty encompasses more than just promotions and punchcards. Tech companies that connect the data dots and create meaningful, accurate consumer personas that explain why we as consumers are loyal to a brand (not a promotion) should be able to parlay that information into new revenue per customer.

Case Study: Bay Area Café Opts for Full-Service Social Management

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Keeping on top of the endless stream of reviews posted on Yelp, Facebook, Twitter, and TripAdvisor each day can be time-consuming for a busy small business owner. Responding to negative reviews can be emotionally draining, as well, so Brian Wilson decided to take another route.

Street Fight Daily: Uber’s Big E-commerce Push, Amazon’s Restaurants Division Hires Staff

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Report: Uber to Begin E-commerce Deliveries Soon (The Next Web)… Amazon Hiring Staff for New Restaurant Division in Seattle, New York (Recode)… Once-Troubled Hyperlocal News Brand Patch Expands to Austin; Here’s the How and Why (Austin Business Journal)…