News and Analysis

Firefly, Mounting Ad Displays to Ubers, Comes Out of Stealth with $21.5M

Firefly, a new digital ad company, hopes to provide Uber drivers with another way to make money as they drive. The startup has quietly assembled a fleet of close to 1,000 Uber drivers in San Francisco and Los Angeles who have been mounting ad displays to the top of their vehicles.

RhythmOne Introduces Linear TV Attribution Partnership with Placed

Marketing technology end-to-end platform RhythmOne announced an expansion of its relationship with attribution solution Placed this week, incorporating linear tv measurements into their already existing partnership.

Google Local Services Reportedly Expand to Canada, Signaling Rapid Growth

Launch in 2015 in Silicon Valley’s home court, Local Service Ads have since expanded to a whopping 90 markets in the U.S. and are now making their way abroad, where searches for local services are abundant.

Commentary

Will Mobile Search Dethrone Google?

Why would Google’s market leadership be vulnerable to mobile search incursion? Innovation in search can occur at the user experience level, the core indexing and ranking algorithms, and the business model and ecosystem that supports search. Each of these faces potential mobile disruption.

Where Do My Friends Fit Into My Local Search?

The social graph alone won’t be a silver bullet for local. It’s just not big enough. And its value to local is overstated. My friends are great for party pics and snappy news feed dialogue — they don’t yet excel at plumber reviews.

Why Mobile Could Make or Break Your Back-to-School Campaign

The school year is right around the corner, which means that back-to-school shopping is already in full swing. Aside from the holidays, back-to-school is the second-largest selling season, so if retailers are not participating, they’re missing out. To be successful this school year, you need to know what trends are affecting how consumers are finding […]

Latest Posts

Is Yelp’s Slowing Growth a Function of Mobile’s Adolescence?

The apparent slowdown in Yelp’s growth does not necessarily reflect the value of the company to consumers or advertisers. Instead, it exposes the growing pains of the mobile ecosystem.

Report: Local Merchants Embrace Digital, but Need Plenty of Help

In the connected local economy, digital techniques will be the primary means of navigation for the customer journey everyone talks about. At the same time, physical-world commerce infrastructure is about to be seriously outdated. The 2015 Local Merchant Report, a survey of 500+ SMBs and VSBs, helps suppliers better understand merchants’ usage of and attitudes toward digital marketing and e-commerce…

Washington Post’s Gazette Community Sites Were Stuck in a Print Past

I was shocked to hear last week that Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post was closing its Gazette community news sites in suburban Maryland. But if I had been paying closer attention to the fast demographic and lifestyle changes in those suburbs, it might have seemed a little more obvious.

Street Fight Daily: Court Deals a Blow to Uber’s Biz Model, Airbnb Seeks $1 Billion

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… So, About that Uber Ruling (TechCrunch)… Airbnb Is Said to Seek $1 Billion More in Financing (New York Times)… Square’s Restaurant Delivery App Caviar Rolls Out Fastbite Service in New York (Venture Beat)…

Small Biz and Big Tech: How to Connect Local Merchants With Today’s Ad Technology

You can’t love what you don’t understand and the same holds true at every level of strategy – from local to global. We already know geo-targeted advertising campaigns equal success; it’s only a matter of jumping the hurdle of understanding before local businesses know it too…

MULO & Meta & An Amazing Speaker Line-up! StreetFight

#SFSW15 VIDEO: 3 Companies That Are Rethinking Brick-and-Mortar Business

The web is not a just a place for offline business to wrangle consumers anymore. Increasingly, technology is changing the way we actually build businesses in the real world. Representatives from a trio of companies that are revolutionizing the way their industries do business in the physical marketplace came together at Street Fight Summit West earlier this month to share their success stories.

Street Fight Daily: Snapchat Capitalizes on Local, Uber Nabs Ex-Google Maps Chief

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Snapchat Turns Geofilter Digital Stickers Into Revenue Source (LA Times)… Uber’s Ambitions Grow as It Hires Google’s Former Mapping Boss (Skift)… Starbucks Mobile Ordering Expands To 21 More States, Now Live In Over 4,000 Stores (TechCrunch)…

5 Ad Tools for Targeting Consumers Based on Offline Behavior

Offline behavioral data is becoming easier for businesses to track and manage thanks to a growing number of advertising marketplaces. Here are five examples of tools that brands can use to target consumers based on their offline behaviors or activities…

#SFSW15 VIDEO: Here’s What Google Looks for in a Small Business Channel Partner

At Street Fight Summit West earlier this month, Google business development executive Jon Sofield broke down the search giant’s strategy for identifying small business technology partners and maximizing the impact of co-op market development funds…

Street Fight Daily: Uber’s $50B Question, Ford Tests Showroom Beacons

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Gannett shuts down Atlanta’s BLiNQ Media (Atlanta Business Chronicle)… Ford to Use Beacons to Beckon Buyers (Wards Auto)… The $50 Billion Question: Can Uber Deliver? (Wall Street Journal)…