News and Analysis

Sprinklr, Snaps Launch Solution to Blend Efficiency of Chatbots & Care of Human Reps

Primarily a customer experience management solution, Sprinklr believes its new integration will help brands more easily manage the transition between automated chatbots and human agents when dealing with complex customer care questions on Facebook Messenger, Twitter, and SMS.

GetFiveStars Expands Its Capabilities, Rebrands as GatherUp

GetFiveStars, which helps businesses generate feedback from customers and capitalize on that feedback to better serve them, is rebranding as GatherUp. The name change intends to convey an increasingly holistic approach to customer engagement.

Street Fight Daily: What Ad Tech Consolidation May Look Like, GetFiveStars Rebrands as GatherUp

TODAY IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING AND MEDIA… What Ad Tech Consolidation Will Look Like… GetFiveStars Expands Its Capabilities, Rebrands as GatherUp… Mary Meeker Is Leaving Kleiner Perkins…

Commentary

Why Apple Maps Is Partnering With Local Search Companies

Last week, after I uncovered that Apple Maps had cut deals with at least ten new companies (including Yext, Location3, Yodle, et cetera) to provide business listings data, I got a few emails asking what the big deal was. Here’s what I see is going on…

A ‘Radical Transformation’ Is Brewing in SMB Phones

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

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 […]

Latest Posts

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

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

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

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

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…

How Iowa’s Gazette Is Working to Make Deep-Dive Local Journalism Sustainable

Display ads, even successfully targeted ones, aren’t likely to pay for the resources that go into The Gazette’s innovative journalism, where packages can take weeks or months to produce. As a result, sponsorships and memberships are the focus…

Street Fight Daily: Google’s New Payment Project, Real Estate’s Digital Decline

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…Google Said To Be Testing A Point-of-sale System Called Plaso (GigaOm)… Borrell: Real Estate To Scale Back On Digital (NetNewCheck)… An Attribution Standard? IPG, Horizon, Digitas and Others Agree to Use One Firm (AdAge)…

Uber and Foursquare Co-Founders Lead $15M Investment in Dining App Reserve

Expa, the startup accelerator founded by Uber co-founder Garrett Camp and Foursquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai, has led a $15 million venture investment in Reserve. The round included a number of celebrity investors including actors Jon Favreau and Jared Leto as well as rapper Will.i.am…

Yelp Acquires Eat24, Bringing the Battle to GrubHub

The company announced Tuesday it had acquired Eat24, a food ordering service, for $134 million in both cash and stock. The acquisition positions Yelp on a collision course with GrubHub, the online ordering firm that went public last year after merging with the New York-based Seamless.

5 Tools for Mobile Customer Service

Catering to customer demand doesn’t have to mean scouring Twitter and Yelp for negative reviews all day long. Using one or more hyperlocal platforms, even the smallest merchants can introduce the types of mobile customer service channels their customers want. Here are five examples…

Street Fight Daily: Yelp Buys GrubHub Competitor, Facebook Eyes Craigslist

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…Yelp Acquires Eat24, Bringing the Battle to GrubHub (Street Fight)… Facebook Update Looks a Lot Like Craigslist (Recode)… SMBs Divided On The Effectiveness Of Google My Business (Search Engine Land)…