News and Analysis

Anne Marie Stephen Joins Street Fight as President

Anne Marie Stephen, a veteran of tech and retail, is taking the helm at Street Fight, the premier media, research, and events company covering local marketing and technology. As president, Stephen will oversee Street Fight’s overall strategy, events, and budget as it pursues aggressive growth in 2019.

The Future of Advertising in an Autonomous Vehicle Landscape

When autonomous vehicles begin to replace traditional cars, the local business advertising market will shift alongside. But SMB advertising might not actually look dramatically different than it does today; instead, today’s location-based, personalized marketing will reach new customizable extremes.

As Boomers Warm to Mobile, Brands Look to Capitalize

Millennials have been shopping on their smartphones for years, but a shift toward mobile-direct shopping among consumers in the boomer generation is creating excitement for retailers and brand marketers this holiday season.

Commentary

So How Do We Define a ‘Small Business’ Anyway?

Small businesses pack a big punch when it comes to the economy. A working definition that most people and corporations can agree on would aid market interpretations, statistical analyses, and, of course, make it simpler for advertisers to reach the right audience.

Study Finds Consumer Search Preferences Depend Heavily on Type of Business

A few categories like restaurants, physicians, and beauty salons consistently capture the greatest volume of searches, stretching out into a long tail of lower-volume searches for occasional needs like roofing, chiropractors, and house cleaning.

On-Demand Services: Lessons Learned From the Rise and Fall of Homejoy

The news that on-demand home cleaning service Homejoy is shutting down at the end of the month wasn’t a big surprise. Here are a few key lessons that stick out in thinking about the company’s trajectory.

Latest Posts

LBMA Podcast: Next-Gen QR Codes, O2 Acquires Weve

On the show: Girl detection billboards; KFC’s tray tapper; Project Lynx; CHOZ app; drink-activated coasters against domestic abuse; Apple buys Coherent Navigation; Humagrams power Ticketmaster Canada…

Street Fight Daily: Google Unveils New Ad Targeting Tools and Mobile Upgrades

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Debuts New AdMob Tools For Ad Targeting, Native Ads, Scaling Apps And More (TechCrunch)… Here’s What Marketers Need to Know About Google’s Mobile Upgrades (AdWeek)… Are Wearables the Next In-Store Shopping Buddies? (eMarketer)…

Why We Still Search for ‘Starbucks’ on Google Maps

With calendar integration, a generalized understanding of me generated from analyzing my geographic movements over time, and (perhaps) biosensor feedback from wearables, a mobile app may be able to predict my actual need, and suggest places that may be closer, higher rated, or otherwise more convenient than the Starbucks I now search for.

Juice Mobile CEO: Beacons Will Make Location ‘Honest’

Neil Sweeney, chief executive of both Juice Mobile and the spin off, Freckle IOT, talks with us about how wearables will impact the mobile ad industry and why beacons will finally make mobile location data “honest.”

Street Fight Daily: Mary Meeker’s 2015 Internet Trends, Google and Apple Adjust Mobile Payments Strategies

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… KPCB’s Mary Meeker Points to Slowing Growth in Internet Trends Preso (Re/code)…
Google and Apple Adjust Strategies on Mobile Payments (New York Times)… Google Confirms That a ‘Buy’ Button Is Coming to Search Results (Business Insider)…

Exploits and Vulnerabilities Challenge the Integrity of Google Maps

The recent run of bad luck for Google doesn’t lend itself to a simple comprehensive explanation, but each of the company’s recent issues in its own way highlights a key problem for Google: how to build and maintain an accurate local dataset on a global scale…

7 On-Demand Liquor Delivery Services

As the on-demand economy matures, vendors are narrowing their focus with more niche products and services. One of the hottest subgroups of on-demand services right now involves liquor delivery…

Street Fight Daily: Mobile Web Market to Triple, Facebook Adds Critics’ Restaurant Reviews

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Mobile Web Market Will Triple in Size to $850B by 2018 (VentureBeat) Mobile phones and mobile networks will be growing just 10 percent and five percent per year, respectively, by 2018, but mobile web services will continue growing like crazy. Mobile commerce […]

Why Local Search Is the Key to Groupon’s Turnaround

As Groupon look to wean the company off an increasingly challenging email marketing strategy and reposition it as a go-to marketplace, the Chicago-based company has invested considerably in building the infrastructure to compete for the hundreds of millions of local shoppers who pass through Google each day…

Local Media Consortium’s ‘Legacy’ Members Make Big Moves in Content and Revenue

The LMC recently agreed to two deals that will give the 1,600 digital operations of its 61 members more tools and better opportunities to assemble audiences that are bigger and more engaged and can be served up to advertisers in a variety of pick-and-choose consumer profiles…