News and Analysis
Brand Battle: The Body Shop vs Bath & Body Works
Sponsored: To see how two personal care brands—The Body Shop and Bath & Body Works—stacked up in a competitive marketplace, digital marketing company Brandify used its proprietary software to see which marketing and branding areas stood out as strengths and which areas fell short.
Square Announces SDK, Opening Its Platform Directly to Developers for First Time
Recognizing and looking to capitalize on the fact that some businesses may have needs its own software does not exhaust, Square announced on Thursday the release of the Square Reader SDK, which will allow developers serving brands and SMBs around the world to redesign the check-out experience in exactly the right way for their specific businesses.
Prime Day Powers Industry-Wide Boost in Mobile App Downloads for Retailers
Amazon’s mid-July Prime Day powered not only sales at local businesses and direct purchases on Amazon’s rival retailer sites but also spikes in mobile app downloads for those retailers, according to data released today by mobile app marketing company Liftoff.
Commentary
Is Newspapers’ Falling Knife Finally Starting to Rise?
Wall Street thinks the long-term decline of newspaper revenues may be near bottom as print losses are close to being outweighed by consumer and digital revenue increases. With Warren Buffet and Jeff Bezos buying into the industry as a long-term play, the broader financial markets are following suit. The newspaper industry is getting some of its most positive signs in years…
Google’s Local Social Conundrum
Google’s attempt at ushering in the Facebook-ization of search, local and otherwise, depends on a major shift in perception and engagement. It may be difficult to bring about such a shift with a “build it and they will come” approach — given the current volume of content, the emphasis on social turns Google’s rich local result set into a desert.
Hyperlocal Execs’ 2014 Predictions (Part Two): Locu, Radius, Placed
As we have for the past couple of years, Street Fight recently asked a number of hyperlocal luminaries to weigh in with their predictions for where local is headed in 2014. We ran the first installment of their responses yesterday — here are a bunch more…
Latest Posts
Holiday Shoppers Will Move Between Online and Offline More Than Ever Before
In two new studies, the Gannett-owned digital marketing company G/O Digital took a look at the capabilities and offerings that will drive shopper behavior during the holidays for national and smaller retailers respectively. According to one, 84% of online shoppers said they planned to use an online channel to help decide where to shop before purchasing a gift in store at a small business…
With Nomi Deal, Brickstream Kicks Off Consolidation in Store Analytics
Brickstream, an in-store analytics firm, has snapped up the New York-based Nomi, an indoor marketing startup founded by a handful of Salesforce alums, in an all-equity deal. The entire 37-person Nomi team will join Brickstream including CEO Marc Ferrentino who will now serve as chief marketing officer for the Atlanta, Ga.-based company…
Wix Buys Its Way Into Online Ordering
Wix, the Isreali-based website builder, has quietly pushed into the wider small business technology market since going public last year. Now the company has acquired OpenRest, a small Israeli-American startup that provides restaurants with the ability to accept orders through a website or mobile app…
Street Fight Daily: Taco Bell’s New App, Sun-Times’ Network Play
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Taco Bell Unveils Mobile Ordering (USA Today)… The Newsonomics Of The Sun-Times National/Local Network Play (Nieman Journalism Lab)… Groupon’s New Product Boss Leaving After Less Than Two Months (Recode)…
In Frozen Yogurt Wars, A Battle for Digital Domination
In a new regular series, a deep-dive analysis of local presence pits Yogurtland against rival Pinkberry, finding that Yogurtland outperformed its smaller counterpart across Google, Facebook, Foursquare and a number of other local search sites. The study shows that Pinkberry has done slightly better on social media, but still struggles among some of the more fundamental elements of local search and discovery…
Mobile Payments Still Facing the Same Big Obstacles
This year has been a turning point in mobile payments, as Square, Paypal, along with Apple and others like SoftCard (formerly ISIS) have all made strides in their digital payment offerings. But three years after starting a now-defunct mobile payments company, I’ve identified three big reasons why we will not be paying with our phone in everyday retail stores for a long time to come…
5 Geo-Location Tools for Social Media Posts
As social media usage takes off among SMBs, geo-location is an increasingly relevant topic. When businesses listen primarily to the opinions of consumers in their direct marketing areas, they’re better able to streamline their listening strategies and optimize their social media marketing programs. Here are five tools that businesses can use to geo-target their social media strategies…
Street Fight Daily: LivingSocial Losses Grow, Yelp’s European Push
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… LivingSocial Losses Grow To $32M In Third Quarter (Washington Business Journal)… Yelp’s European Push Continues As It Snaps Up French Review Site Cityvox (TechCrunch)… Apple Pay Registered One Million Credit Cards in First 72 Hours (Recode)…
Is Apple Pay Set to Power On-Demand Local Services?
Apple Pay’s value as a conduit for local on-demand will be determined by how many apps consumers transact with daily or weekly. If the answer is many, its value as a single entry point to all those apps and services will be validated…
Openings and New Hires at CivicScience, Urban Airship, Gimbal
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 Manta, Stubhub, PLaced, and Colony Logic…
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