News and Analysis

Street Fight Daily: Uber Cash Burn Narrowing En Route to IPO, CallRail Engages User Base to Drive Product Dev

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TODAY IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING… Uber’s Losses Continue, But Narrow, In Its March Toward an IPO… At CallRail, Community Forums Prove Valuable for Product Development… How Yelp’s Revamped Ad Biz Powered a Great Quarter…

Uberall Partners With TripAdvisor for Multilocation Reputation Management

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While it has become commonplace for hotels and restaurants to check their TripAdvisor ratings on a regular basis, the process breaks down as the size of the business grows, causing brands with hundreds of locations to struggle. The digital location marketing platform Uberall is trying to change that.

Bridg Positions Itself as Marketing Arm for Offline Businesses

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Many brick-and-mortar businesses struggle to track and market to their customers in a way that generates additional sales. A startup called Bridg is looking to change that by launching a platform designed to help restaurants and retailers connect with “previously invisible” customers.

Commentary

A ‘Radical Transformation’ Is Brewing in SMB Phones

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For local businesses that rely on the phone for inbound leads (which is nearly all of them), the functionality of copper lines pales in comparison to what call-tracking-enabled lines have done for years. Unfortunately for business owners, the VoIP packages being sold to them also fall far short of the level of functionality that call tracking provides…

How Personalization And Security Will Coexist in Local Commerce

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The evolution of mobile technology has been very exciting to observe, especially in the local commerce space. As I covered in my last piece we are finally starting to see things come to life with the ability to pay for everyday products and services using mobile devices. But overall one has to ask if this […]

Did Apple Just Transform Pay-Per-Call (Without Anyone Noticing)?

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OSX Yosemite’s “Continuity” feature has received surprisingly little media attention in general and zero coverage for its implications for call monetization. But it could be a glimpse into the sector’s future.

Latest Posts

Factual CEO: Machine Learning Could Upend Local Search

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We sat down with Gil Elbaz, the chief executive at Factual who made his name building the technology behind AdSense, to talk about the future of search, what role Yelp may play in it, and why he thinks we machine learning will create a game changing product in the next 18 months…

Why a Former Gawker Editor Is Pushing Local News to National Audiences

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We recently caught up with Ratter founder A.J. Daulerio to talk about making local stories into national news, “building a tabloid about city while acknowledging the internet as the neighborhood,” and how he plans to avoid Patch’s missteps…

Street Fight Daily: Google Eyes Hotel Search, China’s New Ridesharing Monopoly

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…Google’s Quiet Moves to Dominate Hotel Metasearch (Skift)… China Has A New Taxi App Monopolist – And It Isn’t Uber (Fortune)… How Do We Think about Location Once Location Is Everywhere? (Screenwerk)…

5 Steps for SMBs Looking to Dominate the Local Competition

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SMBs’ natural advantages are being eroded by the techniques that social and mobile technologies make available to larger businesses. But they can gain back the advantages they’ve always had by operating differently. Here are five steps that can serve as the starting point for competing more effectively in the new social economy…

Street Fight Daily: Snapchat Tests Local, Yelp Sues Reputation Firm

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…… Snapchat Tries Our Stories For Locals Only (TechCrunch)… Yelp Sues Positive Review Provider Revleap (IT World)… Same-Day Delivery: Delivering Profits Or Just Parcels? (Forrester)..

Openings and New Hires at Goodzer, Foursquare and Street Fight

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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 Amazon, Google, Where2GetIt and Street Fight…

LBMA Podcast: Factual Partners With Metadata, Thinknear Discusses Location Score Index

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On the show: Indoo.rs partners with KLM; Capital Radio + Outdoor Plus bring music to billboards in real time; Alibaba tests drone delivery; Wheely’s Cafe sells modern coffee carts; Sportsman Tracker is funded; Yahoo! + Flickr = Wetter; TripAdvisor buys ZeTrip; and PayPal invests in Pulsate….

Street Fight Daily: Lyft Eyes Big New Round, Groupon Sells Beacons

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…Ride-Hailing Service Lyft Is Said to Be in Talks to Raise $250 Million (New York Times)… Expedia Buying Orbitz for $1.6 Billion (Skift)… Online-To-Offline Metrics Increasingly Available, Important To Marketers (Search Engine Land)…

Groupon Plans to Start Selling Beacons to Merchants

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The deals company announced solid fourth quarter earnings Thursday evening, finishing the year with gains in both revenue and gross billings. During the earnings call, CEO Eric Lefkofsky announced its latest project: a redemption system that uses beacons to allow merchants to track and communicate with Groupon customers in their stores…

Florists Hate Valentine’s Day — BloomNation Thinks It Can Change Their Mind

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Americans will spend $18.9 billion on flowers, candy and more for the holiday — but the spike in demand typically does not translate into big profits for small flower shops…