News and Analysis
BPA Worldwide and Bombora Supply Publishers With Tools To Compete with the Duopoly
If publishers are to compete with Google and Facebook for advertising dollars, they need to offer hyper-valuable media inventory that provides cutting-edge insights on the audiences exposed to sold ads. Enter secure media exchange BPA Worldwide and provider of B2B intent data Bombora, which are announcing a partnership today to offer those resources to publishers.
How JumpCrew Grew to a Team of 200 in Just About Two Years
The way that people are going about acquiring new customers has really kind of been the same for the last 15–20 years,” CEO Robert Henderson said. He hopes that JumpCrew’s services will change that. “We’re putting together those solutions in packages and processes that are really easy for businesses to understand,” he said.
Commentary
Let’s Simplify and Strengthen Business Listing Verification
Verification is a great idea in theory and, once you navigate the tangled process, it even works well for most business owners in practice. However, there is very little consistency across publishers as to how the process should work or what the result should be, and there is plenty of evidence that the supposed lockdown of business data via owner verification doesn’t always operate as it should…
Phone Leads for Local Businesses: The Unsexy Cousin of the Click
We’re seeing tech and media worlds finally come around to what we’ve been saying for years: phone calls are what businesses want. That’s especially true in high-value categories like professional services, autos, travel and insurance. Clicks and impressions, despite a sexier image, aren’t as valued in lots of cases…
Latest Posts
Interconnectivity and the Mobile Mind Shift
We hear a lot these days about the massive transition in consumer attention from desktop to mobile devices. That transition is an undeniable reality, but it would be a mistake to assume that it’s just about mobile devices themselves. What the smartphone has done is to enable a change in mental attitude when it comes to the use and consumption of online services…
VIDEO: Hyperlocal Media 2.0 — Events and Email?
The sale of AOL’s local media network, Patch, earlier this year marked something of an end to a lot of the optimism that once surrounded hyperlocal media. As local media veteran Jim Brady says, the category entered the “huddle for warmth” phase of its lifecycle. But a more optimistic tone has begun to return to the industry…
Street Fight Daily: Facebook Redesigns Places, Local News Searching for Answers
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook Takes a Big Step Toward Competing in Local Search (Local Search Insider)… Is There Hope for Local News? (Atlantic)… Groupon Kicks Off First Analyst Day Amid Pivot to E-Commerce Site (AdAge)…
StockUp Presents the Latest Take on the Local Inventory Dilemma
The three month-old startup has spent a year in stealth building a community around an app that allows users to scan barcodes and add product and pricing information manually to its database. Andy Ellwood, a former Gowalla and Waze executive who joined as chief revenue officer in January, says the company now has information about over half a million products in its database…
The Local Service Layer: How National-to-Local Succeeds
In developing a national-to-local strategy, brands need to consider these two key resources: people and data. Employees, affiliates and other local evangelists offer an immense resource for promoting a brand to local consumers. At the same time, a deluge of local information is now available to allow brands to tailor messaging programmatically. In the first of a series sponsored by Surefire Social, we delve into the emergence of a way to harness data and empower agents on the ground…
5 Tips for the Aspiring Hyperlocal Publisher
Although the business — and consumption — of journalism continues to evolve, its health certainly seems much more robust than it was five years ago. This is particularly true at a hyperlocal level. Yet at the same time some constants remain. In particular, issues around funding — and sustainability — continue to remain one of the sector’s biggest challenges…



















































Authentic Storytelling: Real-Life Scenarios Showcase Brand Values and Build Trust