News and Analysis
Street Fight Daily: Buyers Lag on Mobile Programmatic, The Turn to Video Goes Multichannel
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… When It Comes to Mobile Programmatic, Buyers Are Behind… B2B Marketers Turn to Shorter Videos Across Many Channels to Engage Millennial Buyers… A Year After Amazon Devoured Whole Foods, Rivals Pursue Countermoves…
Street Fight Daily: Marketers Look for Data Beyond Duopoly, GDPR Spawns a Need for Innovation
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Concerns Grow Over Facebook, Google Duopoly as Marketers Prioritize Data Transparency… GDPR Panic May Spur Innovation in Data and AI… Native Mobile Video Ads 15 to 20 Seconds Long Show Highest Rates of Engagement…
Ericsson Emodo Launches Carrier-Verified Audience Solution
In a bid to address quality concerns currently looming over the mobile advertising industry, Ericsson Emodo is launching a product that uses carrier data at scale to pre-verify mobile audiences and inventory, and then makes those audience segments available through any major demand-side platform.
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: 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)… ….
Openings and New Hires at Main Street Hub, Yext, PlaceIQ, and CallFire
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, moves and new openings at Porch, The Search Agency, VendAsta, Local Yokel Media, Colony Logic and more…
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)…
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)…
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