News and Analysis
#SFSNYC: Investors on Billion-Dollar Opportunities in Local and Where to Find Them
Long before startups become the “next big thing” the masses talk about, investors have an opportunity to use their wallets to weigh in on the prospects for those emerging companies. At Street Fight Summit Wednesday in New York, investors pointed to voice, VR and AR, and influencers as some hot topics in local investing right now.
#SFSNYC: Verve’s Mark Fruehan Talks Being a Tactician in Location-Based Advertising
Mobile and local offer huge opportunities in potential revenue to advertisers smart enough to capitalize on them. But location data will ultimately hold value for marketers only if its collection and analysis rests on accurate audience identification, said Mark Fruehan, executive vice president of enterprise platforms at Verve, at Street Fight Summit Wednesday.
#SFSNYC: Broadly CEO: Brick-and-Mortars Need to Become Messaging Centers
Phone calls and contact forms are dead, but what about websites? Not so much, said Josh Melick, CEO of Broadly, at Street Fight’s annual summit in New York Wednesday. With this trend showing no signs of stopping, websites—especially those of local businesses—need to become messaging centers.
Commentary
Is Foursquare’s SMB Monetization Here for Real?
The company may discover that SMBs paradoxically prefer the simplicity of flat pricing over relatively complex (albeit more efficient) performance-based ads. The latter requires some degree of ongoing maintenance which challenges non-tech-savvy or time-starved (read: majority) SMBs. This is one reason for famously high churn for SMB self-serve advertising…
What Local Media Can Learn From the Royal Birth
Who is “royalty” in your community? It’s something news organizations big and small should know, because these are the people who make things happen — or not happen — in and around you. They are of the 1% that we speak of in the widening “us versus them” debate in our culture today. Their comings and goings can be real news, but their social activities and personal lives can also be news…
With Digital Video, Newspaper Companies Could Disrupt Local TV
Here’s what I think will happen. The local newspapers that are smart are already getting serious about creating video content. Some of them are beginning to figure out how to get that content to consumers via set-top boxes, and they will be the first to experiment with partnering with companies like Aereo instead of fighting them in court…
Latest Posts
ReachLocal CEO: Company Got ‘Distracted By Shiny Things’
After a turbulent twelve months, which saw two founders depart and its stock price plummet, ReachLocal appears to be working on a comeback. Sharon Rowlands, the turn-around expert who took the helm as chief executive four months ago, remains as critical as anyone, but she believes that the company is on track to get things moving in the right direction in 2015…
Services Join Products in Goodzer’s Local Marketing Platform
Goodzer has been making it easy for consumers to find products in local stores since launching in 2011. Soon the company will be doing the same with services. Last month Goodzer announced that it is adding “enhanced local services content” to its database of more than 2.5 billion products. The addition expands the company’s number of locations from 500,000 to 2.5 million…
Street Fight Daily: Square Adds Booking Service, Lyft Drives Uber Competition
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…Square Continues to Diversify With Launch of Booking Service (Fortune)… Lyft Drives Uber Competition With False-Order Allegations (Bloomberg)… Online Meal Delivery Firm Foodpanda Raises $60 Million (Recode)…
It’s Official: The Newspaper Industry Has Given Up on Newspapers
In the past couple of weeks, three of the major legacy media companies announced they were splitting their companies into separate-but-unequal broadcast and print ventures. The decisions by Gannett, E.W. Scripps and Tribune to divide their once “synergistic business models” into separate and very distinct businesses indicate that we are now at the beginning of the end-of-the-end for this industry…
6 Marketing Strategies for National Retailers Managing Local Outlets
National retailers have access to expertise, money, and boatloads of data-driven marketing tools, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve got it all figured out when it comes to local marketing. One-quarter of national brands say they’re unable to track ROI at the local level, and 33.8% aren’t even investing in local marketing. Here are six strategies that national brands should consider…
Street Fight Daily: BuzzFeed Raises $50M, Senator Warns of Wearables
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… 50 Million New Reasons BuzzFeed Wants to Take Its Content Far Beyond Lists (New York Times)… Senator Warns Fitbit Is A ‘Privacy Nightmare’ And Could Be ‘Tracking’ Your Movements (Business Insider)… Apple iPhone Privacy Changes Lead to Layoffs at Retail Tracking Startup Nomi (Recode)…
How Innovation in Payments Can Drive Local Marketing
The changes in payments that Seth Priebatsch foresaw three years ago are certainly underway, but it remains more of a revolution than an evolution. Street Fight caught up with the LevelUp CEO recently to talk about why he thinks transaction data is the foundation of the next big wave of innovation in the marketing industry…
Street Fight Daily: Twitter Eyes SMBs, 7-Eleven Creates Venture Arm
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Twitter Learns From Facebook by Revamping Its Advertising Fees for Small Business (Wall Street Journal)… Oh Thank Heaven, Even 7-Eleven Has a Venture Capital Arm (Recode)… What Foursquare’s Looming Data Mean to Advertisers (AdAge)….
How Seattle’s South King Media Grew From Hobby Into Profitable Mini-Net
Southend was long dominated by “legacy” Robinson Newspapers, which last year was forced to consolidate its Southend print weeklies into one subscription product because of what it called “market forces,” but kept its individual community websites. Meanwhile, Scoot Schafer’s independent “pure-play” South King Media is profitable and growing. Street Fight caught up with Schaefer recently to talk about the different elements involved in successful hyperlocal publishing projects…
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