News and Analysis
Street Fight Daily: Google Expands Into Fresh Food Marketing, Snap Expands Commerce for Brands
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Enters Deal with Carrefour to Sell Food Online in France… Snap Expands Commerce for Brands Within Stories… Report: Social Attracting Most Widespread Investment from Advertisers, Topping Search…
Street Culture: Pointy’s Collaborative Culture Grows Without Written Values
In one year, digital search company Pointy has grown from 13 to about 30 employees, moved into a new office, and seen significant growth in its product, which allows retailers to publishes their inventories online, attracting potential customers nearby. What hasn’t changed much is the company’s culture, says co-founder Mark Cummins.
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: Amazon’s New Wallet, Linkedin Buys Bizo
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Passbook Redux: Amazon Copies Apple’s Underwhelming Digital Wallet (Pando)… LinkedIn Makes Another Deal, Buying Bizo (New York Times)… For Its First Google Glass Effort, EBay Adapts Its RedLaser Product Finder App (TechCrunch)…
Street Fight Daily: Yahoo Buys Flurry, Urban Compass Raises $40M
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Yahoo Acquires Flurry to Bolster Mobile Offerings (New York Times)… Urban Compass Raises Money at $360 Million Valuation (Bloomberg)… Airbnb Drops Homejoy From Cleaning Trial, Handybook Remains On In Three Test Markets (TechCrunch)…
Yelp, Foursquare, and the Downsides of Mobile-First
In an era where the “mobile-first” motto borders on dogma for tech companies, the virtues of the desktop internet often are overlooked. While Yelp continues to benefit from desktop search, mobile-first Foursquare has struggled to sustain the explosive growth it saw early on — partly because its influence on the web ecosystem remains relatively weak…
Mapkin Wants to Put Community Into Local Navigation
How many times have you missed a turn when using a GPS device, or been uncertain that you even understood the directions? Mapkin a Cambridge-based startup, aims to fix that. Mapkin’s mission is to provide an improved GPS-app experience that’s “as human as possible” using nuanced navigation provided by locals…
Street Fight Daily: A Race for Food Delivery, Bing Refines Local Targeting
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Postmates is Giving GrubHub Seamless a Run For Its Money (SFGate)… Bing Ads Refines Local Targeting Features (SearchEngineLand)… Apple’s New Push To Randomize MAC Addresses: What’s The Impact On Ad Tech? (AdExchanger)… ….
LBMA Podcast: Google’s Chromecast, Ubimo’s Gilad Amitai
Top stories of the week include: Google’s Chromecast gets Ultrasonic; Chicago’s Array of Things makes the city smarter and creepier; ReservationHop takes reservations hostage; Amscreen and Garmin partner at the Tour de France; Muuzii taps SMS for real-time translations; RetailNext and iZettle close financing rounds; Ubisoft shows us the map of the future; TAB unveils spot ratings for billboards thanks to Inrix…
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)…
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