News and Analysis
Crack-of-Dawn Black Friday Lines Are Already a Thing of the Past, Data Shows
How is the increasing appeal of e-commerce and other digital options such as BOPIS—buy online, pick up in-store—affecting retail’s biggest day of the year? One consequence, data from Reveal Mobile indicates, is the end of the notoriously colossal lines that used to mark the beginning of Black Friday.
What Will AR Mean for Consumer Brands?
What’s driving AR today? And what does it mean for big consumer brands? Our lead analyst Mike Boland tackles these questions in this week’s Road Map column, which delves into the tech giants’ investments in AR and what they mean for the future of XR-driven brand advertising.
5 Big Takeaways from Black Friday 2018
As Cyber Monday gets underway, another Black Friday looms behind us. Below are the highlights of brick-and-mortar retail’s big day as we prepare for the windfall expected from its digital counterpart.
Commentary
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.
How SMBs Can Respond to the ‘Uber Effect’
If the past 15 years have taught us anything, it’s the resilience of brick-and-mortar businesses. Effective enterprises sense and respond to change by incorporating new technology and business models while relying on their distinct advantages, such as face-to-face service and distinctive ambience.
INFOGRAPHIC: A Quick, Deep Dive Into Local Optometrists
Local optometrists in the U.S. number some 33,000 businesses and generate an estimated $15B in annual sales at an average of $450k per year. The industry is growing at 5% annually, but it’s under considerable pressure from the likes of Amazon and Warby Parker.
Latest Posts
Tomorrowland: How AOL’s Digital City Foreshadowed More Than the Future of Local
Creating and operating city guides for all major U.S. markets turned out to be something of a cover. What we were really doing was running a skunkworks project with few boundaries on creativity — where success or “failing-fast” were not the goals…
Openings and New Hires at Gannett, Vendasta, Instacart, Microsoft & HTC
Every two weeks, Kelly Benish — who knows practically everyone in hyperlocal — covers some of the latest job changes taking place in this dynamic industry. In this week’s edition, new jobs and hires at SocialCentiv, PageLaunch, Comporium and Thrive Analytics.
Street Fight Daily: Facebook Rethinks Location, Yahoo Kills Maps
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook Messenger Updates Location Sharing. Is Uber Integration Next? (Recode)… Yahoo Maps Hits A Dead End, Shutting Down End Of This Month (Search Engine Land)… Google Says It May Unverify Inactive Local Business Listings (Search Engine Land)…
Where Does Local Search Fit in a World of Apps?
Where is Google’s place in a world where the browser is no longer the front door? On the desktop, trillions of web pages compel an index and a friendly entry point. But an app-heavy mobile environment — already siloed into neat little buckets — doesn’t beg for a core search engine…
#SFSW15: At McDonald’s, Digital is about ‘Fun and Convenience’ — Not Branding
At Street Fight Summit West in San Francisco Tuesday, Julia Vander Ploeg, US VP Digital at McDonald’s, sat down with Street Fight’s COO David Hirschman to talk about how her digital team is weaving technology into the fabric of one of the world’s largest franchise brands…
7 Ways Local News Sites Can Grow Their Digital Audiences
“Creating a ‘sticky’ hyperlocal news site is certainly something that publishers need to work toward,” says Bryan Marovich, publisher of the Newport Dispatch. Here are seven strategies that hyperlocal publications are using to make their websites sticker, in the hopes of attracting and retaining a larger base of readers…
Street Fight Daily: Mondelez Warms to Retail Tech, SMBs Embrace the Cloud
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Mondelez Makes New Call to Startups for Retail Tech (AdAge)… Small Firms Shift Toward Cloud-Based Software (Wall Street Journal)… Uber CEO: “I’m Not Perfect and Neither is This Company.” (Mashable)…
Street Fight Daily: New Google Search Ads, Pinterest Adds Buy Button
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Search Ads Get A Lot Sexier With Sharp, Gorgeous Photos (Mashable)… Pinterest Launches the Buy Button (Recode)… Instagram to Open Its Photo Feed to Ads (New York Times)…
#SFSW15: How Partnerships are Driving the Next Generation of Delivery
During a session at Street Fight Summit West in San Francisco Tuesday, executives from grocery ordering firm Instacart, food delivery startup DoorDash, and local logistics play Postmates came together to discuss the future of delivery.
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AI Won’t Fix Advertising – It May Scale Its Chaotic Nature