News and Analysis
Williams-Sonoma Sues Amazon, Underscoring War Over E-Commerce Monopolization
Foreshadowing a battle over Amazon’s overwhelming control of e-commerce, Williams-Sonoma filed a lawsuit against Amazon in the final days of 2018, charging that the retail juggernaut used its market power to copy the furniture maker’s products and squeeze it out of the market.
Facebook to Integrate Technical Infrastructure of WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger
While the move indeed indicates that Facebook’s chief executives are looking to centralize acquired properties that once operated with relative autonomy, the integration also marks a response to growing concerns over user privacy. Under this new technical configuration, all the messaging platforms will be endowed with end-to-end encryption, warding off the possibility that people other than those taking part in conversations will ever read messages sent on the platforms.
How 6 Brands Are Using AR to Drive Experience Marketing
Worldwide spending on AR is expected to reach $215 billion by 2021, as new hardware ships and AR moves further into the mainstream. Acceleration in the AR market is also being boosted by brands’ growing frustration over the limitations in display advertising. With AR, brands can bypass ad blockers and unleash their creativity in a bid to capture the attention of consumers. Let’s take a look at how six top brands are using AR for experience marketing right now.
Commentary
Facebook Continues to Experiment in Local — But Its Focus Is Long-Term
The company isn’t trying to build a unified local search portal at all. Instead, they’re launching trial balloons, turning developers loose to experiment with the company’s local data in order to surface features and nuances that might eventually be useful as subtle additions to the Newsfeed…
How the Rise of ‘Mobility as a Service’ Will Impact Local Marketing
Autonomous vehicles will put pressure on all kinds of players. The pressure will be felt not only by car manufacturers but all kinds of other industries including auto dealers, insurance companies and transit systems…
How Top Marketers Are Curating the In-Store Mobile Experience
With consumer behavior in place, and solutions making technology like beacons as simple as a media buy, mobile proximity is poised to become the fasting growing piece of mobile advertising in 2016. The brands that have tested and learned early on are in great position to scale up and reach their audiences this year.
Latest Posts
Street Fight Daily: Uber Launches Food Delivery, Facebook’s Ad Tech Strategy
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… UberEats Comes to San Francisco, Where Food Delivery Is Hot (Recode)… With Retooled Atlas Under the Hood, Facebook Closes in on Linking Ads to Sales Across Devices (AdAge)… Retail Tech Meets Consumer Reality: Cracking the Consumer Path to Purchase Code (PYMNTS.com)…
What Local Marketers Can Learn From the Trials of Google Plus
With Google’s recent announcement that Google Plus will be decoupled from YouTube and other services, industry watchers are predicting that this may be the beginning of the end for the social network. Here are a few lessons a local marketer might learn from the social network’s challenges.
Case Study: Restaurant Group Integrates Data for Targeted Customer Marketing
Fig & Olive’s guest management system has been set up to match reservations to POS data, which allows marketer Matthew Joseph to track the dining habits and visit frequency of guests. This information is then used to run automated marketing campaigns.
Street Fight Daily: An Inside Look at Amazon, Can Facebook Finally Conquer E-Commerce?
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace (New York Times)… Facebook’s Last Push Into E-Commerce was a Disaster, but It’s Gearing Up to Try Again (Business Insider)… Location Inaccuracy is a Bigger Problem Than Fraud (AdExchanger)…
Openings and New Hires at 4Info, Matchcraft, Foursquare and Yieldbot
Every two weeks, Geoff Michener covers some of the latest job changes taking place in this dynamic industry. In this week’s column, Triangle Business Journal gets a new president, Verve Mobile staffs up, and the Daily Voice hires a new publisher.
LBMA Podcast: Forbes Partners With Tinder, Proxbook’s Thomas Walle Jensen
On the show: Peaceful walking by Walkonomics; Blind French hikers trek 80km without a guide; AwareCar helps you avoid parking tickets; Embarcadero Technologies launches BeaconFence.
Street Fight Daily: Uber Will Return Your Online Purchases, Samsung Preps for Mobile Payment Launch
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… How Uber Is Fixing Online Shopping’s Most Annoying Problem (Refinery29)… Samsung Pay to Launch September 28 in U.S. But Will Businesses Accept It? (Recode)… Stores Suffer From a Shift of Behavior in Buyers (New York Times)…
Study: Local Advertisers Are Leaving Behind $14 Billion in Co-op Marketing Every Year
According to the report from Netsertive and Borrell Associates, 38 percent of local businesses cited “too much paperwork” as the greatest barrier to co-op marketing, and another 38 percent cited “too many rules.”
How the Local Media Consortium Is Leveraging Its Relationship With Google for Higher CPMs
The Local Media Consortium is working to turn “digital dimes” back into the dollars. To see how the group is progressing, we recently spoke with Tobias Bennett, LMC’s “programmatic advertising champion.”


















































Why AI Describes Locations Differently