News and Analysis

Report: 34% of Ad Impressions Placed on Low-Quality Sites

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Reputable brands have pushed back hard against having their ads appear alongside content that goes against their values—for example, advertising running alongside articles or videos about how to complete the Tide PODS challenge—but Gartner L2’s research shows that the pushback hasn’t been effective enough, and the industry still has work to do.

Street Fight Daily: Facebook Releases Slew of Local Features, Here Challenges Google Maps

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TODAY IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING… Facebook Announces Slew of Changes to Boost Local Businesses… Here Attacks Google Maps with New Freemium Website Plan… Alexa Users Are Reportedly Not Buying Anything with Their Voice…

5 Things to Know About Amazon’s Fast-Growing Ad Biz

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Search “Amazon advertising,” and the first webpage you’ll find comes from the e-commerce giant itself. The pitch? In a phrase: “Reach millions of customers who find, discover, and buy at Amazon.” It doesn’t get much more compelling than that. Here are five things you need to know about the most legitimate challenge to Google and Facebook’s digital ad dominance. 

Commentary

The Art of Local Marketing: Becoming Selfie-Aware

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The jury is still out on the new Foursquare’s scalability and I’ve grown to like it. But it’s no Yelp killer. For one thing, Yelp has 1000+ local ad sales reps — one of its biggest and most underrated assets. I’ve long been bullish on Yelp for that and other reasons. And in the past month, a few things have shed more light on Yelp’s potential direction…

Traditional Businesses Still Failing to Reach Online Consumers

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An infographic from Marketecture offers a useful compendium of statistics pointing both to the great opportunity in local and the persistent gap between that opportunity and the actual practice of marketing by many small business owners…

Amazon Getting Pieces in Place for Next-gen Payment System?

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At first glance, many are seeing Amazon’s new card reader as a competitive move against the likes of Square and PayPal. But this is actually a tiny start to a bigger vision. Amazon’s vast reach can make its card reader matter in a variety of interesting ways…

Latest Posts

Lowe’s-Backed Porch Raises $65 Million to Target Angie’s List

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With the second largest home improvement retailer in its corner, the Seattle-based startup has raised a $65 million round of funding to beat out a set of cash-rich startups vying to help people manage their next kitchen remodeling…

Why Chilean Hyperlocal Network Mi Voz Succeeds Where Patch Failed

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Over the past decade, the Chilean community news network Mi Voz has transformed the way news is produced, consumed, and sustained in the often neglected small cities and towns outside of the country’s capital, Santiago. In the process, it has also proven that a local news network can be profitable…

Street Fight Daily: Twitter Buys ZipDial, Porch Nabs $65 Million

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…Twitter Buys Indian Mobile Marketing Startup (Time)… SoftBank Emerges As The Biggest Challenger To Uber (TechCrunch)… Marketers Claim to Be More Mobile Than We Might Think (MediaPost)…

The Importance of Responsive Web Design for SMB Sites

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It’s critical for local businesses to have a beautiful site that doesn’t just scale down to low resolutions, but also looks great on all devices — from a 27” desktop display to a “smart” refrigerator, and every tablet, phablet, and phone in between. That’s why for the majority of local businesses, responsive design is the best mobile strategy…

Street Fight Daily: Google Eyes Softcard, Lyft Seeks Mega-Funding

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyGoogle Is In Talks With Mobile Payments Company Softcard (TechCrunch)… Lyft Seeking New Mega-Funding to Battle Uber (Recode)… Are Facebook And Yelp Losing The Support Of Small Businesses? (Pando)…

Openings and New Hires at UberMedia, Yext, Google and Dex Media

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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 Groupon, MenuPages, Square, Skyhook Wireless, and more…

How to Get to 5 Years of Success in Hyperlocal Publishing

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This month Scott Brodbeck is celebrating the fifth anniversary of ARLnow, which has expanded into a mini-network of four sites in metro Washington D.C. We caught up with Brodbeck recently to see how he’s made a journalistic and business success out of community news and where ARLnow is headed in 2015…

LBMA Podcast: TapSense for Apple Watch, Canopy Labs Founder

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On the show: WiFi Aware; The RealTalk app; GM’s At Your Service; Robots invade Lowe’s; Jawbone wants corporations to move more; VoucherPages launches an app; Yummly + Instacart = 1 hour ingredient delivery; Skyhook partners with FiLIP Technologies; 3D maps of ski hills…

Street Fight Daily: Bud Light On-Demand, Google Adds Events

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyAB InBev Launches App For One-hour Home Delivery Of Beer (MarketWatch)… Google Makes It Easier To Buy Tickets For Live Events, Straight From Search Results And Maps (The Next Web)… With The Booking Now App, Booking.com (aka Goliath) Just Arrived To The Last-Minute Hotel Game (Pando)…

Thinknear Founder Eli Portnoy Launches New Startup Sense360

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Two months after exiting Telenav, Eli Portnoy has raised $2.75 million from a handful of investors for a new project, Sense360. The startup is developing software to analyze the data from sensors such as light readers or accelerometers…