News and Analysis
#SFSNYC: The Growing Power of SMB OS
Until recently, brick-and-mortar shopping relied on the digital world for advertising functions and not much else. But now, local retail has a new digital arena—the full-service operating system. Three leaders in this expanding set of technological solutions for SMBs laid out the state of the field, known as SMB OS, at Street Fight Summit in New York Wednesday.
#SFSNYC: Making Conversational Interfaces the Frontline for Customer Interaction
The development of conversational language to interact with chatbots, digital assistants, smart devices, and other machines is changing the ways consumers make use of such platforms to find the information and services they want—and this change is only going to get more important for brands and local businesses to address.
Commentary
It’s Local Media That’s Broken, Not Hyperlocal
In mid-sized cities across America for nearly 100 years, the daily newspaper was the purveyor of enterprise journalism, the opinion maker and a focal point for advertising. In many cities they were monopolies: they set the pricing for advertising, they promoted and punished political officials, and they decided the news cycle every day. But as digital has overtaken American life, mid-sized American newspapers have not kept pace…
Report: Pureplays Using Legacy Media as a Farm System for Sales Staff
Local media companies need to do something to protect their digital sales assets or run the risk of losing them to pureplay web companies, according to a new report from Borrell Associates. Pureplays offer starting salaries in the range of $12,500 per year more than their nearest competitors, the local TV stations. The gap between starting pureplay sales people and those who work for newspapers is an incredible $21,000 more…
Local Video Copyrights in the Age of Online Virality
We need to find a way to attach revenue-producing messages to videos, so that the Web can do its thing without hurting the incentive for local media companies to create such videos in the first place. And I’m not talking about attaching 30-second prerolls. It can be done, and we need to talk about it. The Web is not TV…
Latest Posts
Street Fight Daily: Starbucks Orders Ahead, Google’s Mobile Problem
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Starbucks Has Bigger Plans in Mobile Payments Than Most People Realize (Recode)… Google’s Quarterly Results Show Its Continuing Struggle With Mobile Advertising (New York Times)… Despite a History of Dismal Failures, Hyperlocal News Continues to Attract Believers (GigaOm)…
Surge Seen in Online Political Ads, But Which Sites Will Be Winners?
Digital platforms traditionally haven’t gotten too much in the way of political ad spending, but new projections from Borrell Associates show online outlets making a big leap this year amid the midterms, going from $14.1 million in 2010 to $211.2 million in 2014. But it’s not clear how much community news sites — many of which cover campaign news diligently — will benefit from these gains…
How to Use Video Content to Boost Local Search Rankings
Over the past year, online video has become a powerful tool for boosting organic SEO rankings. Search engines still value video because it’s harder to make and is typically much more engaging. Here are a few tips to make sure you are getting the most value out of your branded content to compete online…
Street Fight Daily: Investors Cash Out of Payments, Airbnb’s New Logo
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Investors Cash Out Of Payment Technology Startups (TechCrunch)… Airbnb Unveils a Major Rebranding Effort That Paves the Way for Sharing More Homes (FastCompany)… Google AdWords Express App Aims to Boost SMB Self-Service (Screenwerk)…
Meet Cups: Endless Coffee for $45 a Month
The third biggest coffee chain in New York isn’t a chain at all. It’s Cups, an Israeli app that wants to turn the city’s independent coffee shops into Netflix-style subscription service. The app offers subscribers unlimited coffee, tea, or espresso at a growing number of small coffee shops across Manhattan and Brooklyn…
5 Platforms That Connect Online Campaigns to Offline Results
A number of major digital and data players are beginning to realize the importance of making this attribution connection, and they’re snapping up platforms that connect the dots between offline data and online marketing. Here are five examples of offline-to-online data platforms that tie the results of digital marketing campaigns to in-store transactions…
Street Fight Daily: Snapchat Adds Location Filters, Yelp Opens API
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Snapchat Adds Location-Based Photo Filters (VentureBeat)… Yelp Liberates Its API To Box Out Foursquare And Google (TechCrunch)… Clear Channel Brings Outdoor Ads to Life On Smartphones (AdAge)…
Order Ahead, Confusion at Counter: Square’s New App, and the Problem of Leading From Behind
A clumsy experience with Square’s new app points to a deeper challenge facing the tech industry as it takes aim at the way we buy and sell goods in the real-world: technology companies, in all their glory, can only lead from behind. As companies like Square look to not only automate existing behaviors, but introduce new ones, the gatekeepers to the future of retail are on the main streets and in the malls across America.
Thinknear Launches Scoring Metric for Location-Based Targeting
Location-based advertising is more popular than ever, but the mobile ecosystem is littered with inaccurate data. That’s why Thinknear, the mobile advertising wing of Telenav, has unveiled Location Score Tags, a new free tool that measures the quality of the location data used in across a campaign.
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