News and Analysis

Street Fight Daily: Web.com Agrees to $2B Sale, Mobile Ad-Blocking Threat Grows

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Web.com Agrees to Tentative $2 Billion Sale… Mobile Ad Blocking Is Becoming a Bigger Threat… Apple’s Push Against Push Is An Opportunity for Advertisers…

Street Fight Daily: Self-Service DSPs for SMBs, Local Media As Alternative to Ads on Facebook?

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Ad Tech Abandoned the SMB Market… Amazon Prime Wardrobe Launches to All U.S. Prime Members… As Brands Look Closer, Is Local News the Tortoise and Facebook the Hare?…

Topgolf Inks Deal with Vistar to Bring Programmatic to In-House Screens

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As of today, Topgolf will be working with Vistar to integrate a full ad serving digital signage suite, where inventory will be available through Vistar’s programmatic and digital-out-of-home (DOOH) exchange.

Commentary

5 Things SMBs Can Do to Optimize for Mobile Search

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Recent data from Google found that 94% of smartphone users have searched for local information, 70% have called a business after searching, 66% visited in person, and 90% of these users acted within 24 hours. So what do SMBs need to do to ensure they’ll get calls from potential customers who are searching on mobile?

Geo-Intent: Going to Where the Puck Will Be

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So what can make a business geo-disruptive? Beyond location awareness, it is far more important to know where a person is headed and his needs and wants at the destination. Let’s call this “geo-intent.” For the geo and mobile world to move towards its promise, web designers should be focusing more on creating engaged, opt-in behavior, and gaining robust information on geointent. With better information on geo-intent, solutions can be well targeted, and privacy concerns are more likely to fade…

Legacy Media’s ‘Agency’ Business: Just More Brand Extension?

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When we clear aside all the hype, legacy companies with “agency” offerings are just creating clutter in the marketplace without offering anything of substantial new value for merchants. Media companies are far too busy playing defense to consider offense, and defense always includes copying what the other guy across town is doing…

Latest Posts

In Apple Pay, Signs of a Digital (Payments) Divide

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The belief that Apple Pay will turn the payments industry on its head draws on a long-held assumption in the tech industry that the Internet and the physical marketplace live by the same rules. In fact, these two marketplaces operate under much different dynamics…

Openings and New Hires at Placeable, SIM Partners, UBL and Surefire Social

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Every two weeks, Search Influence’s 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 Balihoo, Colony Logic, Hibu, PlaceIQ and more…

LBMA Podcast: AVG Acquires LocationLabs, Twilio CMO Lynda Smith

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On the show: Heineken’s location-based loyalty rewards for small bars; xAd and IndoorAtlas raise rounds; InMobi partners with Factual on mobile ads; FUZ design brings us the bluetooth-enabled Noke padlock; MCX to launch the CurrentC wallet and Isis rebrands…

Street Fight Daily: Ebay’s Mobile Ad Business, Consolidation in Calls

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyeBay Launching First Mobile Ad Business in Q4 (Recode)… Voice Marketing Company Ifbyphone Raises $30M More, Acquires Competitor Mongoose Metrics (TechCrunch)… Consumer Spending Data Indicates Uber is Far Larger and Growing Faster Than Lyft (Pando)…

Where Online Ordering of Local Products and Services Is Headed

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Any local search site that sets its sights on powering transactions will need to take into account the broad range of consumer needs in the local space. But some products are likely much better suited to online purchasing than others…

Revived EveryBlock Looking to Work With Community News Sites

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EveryBlock is back in business under its new operator, Comcast. Re-launched in Chicago last January and in Philadelphia in August, it will be expanding to five more cities this year. Here, Comcast Local Media Director Paul Wright defends the old EveryBlock, and details new features of the resurrected data aggregator…

Street Fight Daily: California’s ‘Yelp Law,’ Apple Pay and Brands

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyCalifornia Protects the Right to Yelp Without Penalty (Washington Post)… What Apple Pay Means for Marketers (AdAge)… Guardian Space & Guardian Membership, Playing the Physical/Digital Continuum (Nieman Journalism Lab)…

Signpost Adds Payment Integration as Small Business CRM Market Grows

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Signpost, a New York-based startup that got its start selling deals software to small business, wants to expand deeper into maybe the most important sources of data in the front-office: payments. The company has rolled out a new product that can programmatically pull customer information from a phone call or credit card swipe, and then send text messages or emails to those people with offers or requests for reviews…

Apple’s Big Day: Here’s Everything That Matters for Hyperlocal

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As expected, Apple introduced the iPhone 6 (and the iPhone 6 Plus), the Apple Watch and a new payments system called Apple Pay. Here’s a breakdown of the major announcements and what they could mean for local-minded entrepreneurs…

Ecommerce Retailer Indochino Ventures into Brick-and-Mortar

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Indochino, a Vancouver-based apparel brand that made its name selling custom suits online, opens its first permanent retail showroom in New York today in a move that builds on a series of pop-up shops that the apparel maker has hosted in cities across the country for the past few years. It’s just the latest in a series of ecommerce firms to invest in brick-and-mortar retail…