News and Analysis

Street Fight Daily: Facebook to Cut Off Third-Party Data Oct 1, Amazon Wants to Monopolize the Smart Home

TODAY IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING AND MEDIA… Ad Buyers Prepare for Headaches as Facebook Cuts Off Third-Party Data… Report: Voice Tech Not Meeting Consumer Expectations… Amazon Announces Slew of Voice-Activated Products, Leading the Way on Voice…

Report: Voice Tech Not Meeting Consumer Expectations

“When looking at this data, it’s clear that enterprises simply don’t understand consumer expectations when it comes to voice, or how frequently they’re already relying on the technology to make their everyday lives better,” explains Matt Chotin, senior director, technical evangelism at AppDynamics.

Raise Report: HYP3R, Postmates, Singular Secure Fresh Funding

Every two or three weeks, we round up some of the biggest fundraises taking place in hyperlocal marketing, commerce, and tech. This week’s edition includes funding for GitLab, Tamr, Wove, and Leena AI.

Commentary

The Year in Local Search: A Timeline of the Top Stories of 2014

The holiday season is a time to contemplate the year gone by, so we’ve rounded up some of the top news stories in local search over the past 12 months. It was a year marked by Foursquare’s rebranding, Google’s new SMB interface, and upgrades from the likes of Apple, Yelp, Yahoo, YP, MapQuest, and Bing…

Lessons Learned From the Call Analytics Trenches

It may be a long time before the true value of call analytics data is fully realized, but I’ve been recording the digital marketing revolution one (often uncertain) hello at a time…

Social Studies: Are ‘Follows’ and ‘Likes’ Right for All SMBs?

Social media simply isn’t right for the vast majority of local businesses. Even with its extremely low out-of-pocket-costs, social marketing takes a tremendous amount of ongoing effort and diligence to have any hope of generating what a local business would consider to be results…

Latest Posts

Community News and the Long Game: An ‘Indie’ Makes a Case for the ‘One-Off’

Community news has a decade-plus of digital publishing experience, but it’s not yet clear which kind of community platforms will be winners. New Canaanite founder Michael Dinan has many perspectives on the issue…

Street Fight Daily: Google Plans ‘Android Pay,’ Drones Hit Ad Tech

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…Google Will Launch Android Pay At I/O In May (Ars Technica)… Drones Overhead In L.A.’s Valley Are Tracking Mobile Devices’ Locations (VentureBeat)… Bigcommerce, Square Partnership Offers Omnichannel To SMBs (ZDNet)…

Location3 CEO: User Profiles From Web Giants Will Refine Ad Targeting

While programmatic advertising is still in its infancy, location targeting on these new platforms is really heating up, says Andrew Beckman. Street Fight recently caught up with Beckman to talk about the value of proximity, the problem of “dirty data” and why leveraging user profiles from Web giants could be the key to attribution…

4 Hot Startups Using Big Data in Local Contexts

Technology companies, both big and small, are creating new ways for marketers and consumers to connect locally. These startups, who will be speaking at the Local Data Summit next week, are using local data to reinvent the way we travel, market and even park…

Street Fight Daily: Facebook Gaining With Small Biz, Google Tests ‘Local Chat ‘

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…Now With 2 Million Advertisers, Facebook Is Gaining a Foothold With Small Businesses (AdWeek)… Google Search Tests “Chat” Button In Local Business Box (TechCrunch)… GoDaddy Takes Another Step To IPO (USA Today)…

Amazon and Yelp Want a Piece of Online Ordering — Here’s Why There’s Still Hope for Startups

A wave of consolidation in the food ordering industry has reignited the race to capture a $70 billion sector. But as market leaders go public and other firms barrel in on the industry, is there still room for younger companies to grow? CEO Matt Howard at EatStreet, one of the largest remaining independent ordering firms, thinks so.

5 Tools for Generating Personalized Video Ads

Hyperlocal technology is enabling businesses to go beyond the 30-second television spots most consumers are used to seeing, with personalized online videos ads that can be targeted by customer location and demographic to drive conversions and new acquisitions. Here are five online video advertising platforms that businesses of all sizes can try…

Street Fight Daily: Google Buys Softcard, GrubHub President To Exit

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…Google Strikes Mobile Payments Deal With Big Wireless Carriers, Buys Softcard Technology (Recode)… GrubHub’s No. 2 Heading For The Exit (Crain’s Chicago Business)… Thumbtack Adds Big Name Design And Engineering Execs To Oversee Big Growth (TechCrunch)…

Study: Franchises Spend ‘Nearly Half’ of Marketing Budgets on Digital

Franchises, equipped with the resources of a large brand but the flexibility of a small business, could help provide a critical stepping stone for vendors looking to reach SMBs. New data shows they are substantially more digitally advanced than their independent counterparts…

How Local Found Itself on a Mound of Big Data

There is no question the hyperlocal era has brought with it a heady onslaught of data about consumer behavior and the way local businesses interact with their customers. But it’s not an easy road. There are real issues around sourcing and parsing the data; around finding the best strategies to put it to use…