News and Analysis
Street Fight Daily: Square Embraces Sales and Moves Beyond SMBs, The Staying Power of Email
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… As It Grows, Square Deploys Sales Force to Acquire SMB Customers & Bigger Brands… Selling to Multi-Location Brands: Building on Omnipresent Email… Microsoft Acquires AI Company to Make Cortana and Bots Sound More Human…
Commentary
What Hyperlocal Marketers Can Learn From Disney’s Wearable Devices
We talk a lot in the hyperlocal industry about what the future of offline marketing and commerce will look like. Mostly it would seem to involve taking the advantages of online marketing and shopping (customization, personalization, analytics, actionable CRM data, etc.) and bringing them into the real world of retail stores. Different players have been experimenting with different elements of this online-to-offline migration of technology, but the Walt Disney Company has really taken the ball and run with it…
Local Search for Events: The Great Missed Opportunity
My jumping off point for this week’s column is a recent post from Greg Sterling, where he observes that despite all the impressive innovation around local search in recent years, no one has launched a truly useful local events service. I have had this feeling for years and wasn’t sure if it was just me. But if Greg doesn’t know about a local events service that truly works, I think it’s fair to say one doesn’t exist. So pay attention, developers and entrepreneurs: local events need a killer app…
How Consumer Messaging Is Going From ‘Push’ to ‘Pull’
The biggest battle coming in the world of marketing is a 180-degree shift in the routing of commerce-related messages. Today, we call them “advertisements,” one-directional messages FROM somebody with something to sell TO somebody who may potentially be a buyer. Tomorrow, the messages will come FROM those wishing to buy TO those with something to sell…
Latest Posts
Street Fight Daily: Apple’s ‘City Tours,’ Controversy at PayPal
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Apple’s Maps’ New “City Tours” Feature Uncovered In iOS 8 Betas (TechCrunch)…. eBay Rumors Say PayPal President David Marcus Was Fired; Execs Refute the Claims (VentureBeat)… A Reply to Clay Shirky (Columbia Journalism Review)…
What Booker’s New Partnership Says About GrubHub’s Future
Booker has announced a new partnership with Como to use the firm’s technology to allow businesses to instantly generate a customized consumer-facing mobile application with full booking capability. The move offers an insight into how back-office software companies could undercut commerce companies like Grubhub…
Why ‘Google My Business’ Helps, But Doesn’t Fix, Local for SMBs
The company’s redesign of its SMB portal replaces both the old Google Places for Business interface and the equivalent within Google+, and consolidates several features into a friendlier interface. The features for the most part are not new, but the update does a good job of tying together the claiming and profile management process with Google+ sharing…
Street Fight Daily: Amazon’s ‘Showrooming’ Phone, Is Uber Worth $17 Billion?
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon’s Fire Phone Introduces Firefly, A Feature That Lets You Identify (And Buy!) Things You See In The Real World (TechCrunch)… Uber Isn’t Worth $17 Billion (FiveThiryEight)… How Pinterest Tapped World Cup Enthusiasm with Place Pins (Fast Company)…
When the ‘Popup’ Store Sticks Around
Retailers from art galleries to apparel manufacturers have started to rethink their sprawling storefronts. Instead, companies have turned to smaller, more specialized locations that that can adapt to declining store revenues while addressing some new opportunities in selling to a connected consumer…
A Local Business Network Puts the Community First
The expanding public consciousness around movements for civic sustainability, green tech and social enterprise have spawned a new way of looking a local business communities as ecosystems that should work for the community good. Their unique challenge is coordinating hundreds of local advocates to collectively market and promote each others’ programs and campaigns…
Street Fight Daily: Oracle Eyes Micros, Yelp Adds Messaging
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Oracle Said to Near Deal to Buy Micros Systems (Bloomberg)… Yelp Gives Customers The Ability To Send Messages To Businesses (MarketingLand)… Microsoft Shuttering Bing Ads Express (SearchEngineLand)…
At Tesla, a Peek Into Retail On-Demand
The company has developed a retail and marketing strategy aimed at getting people into one of its three fully electric models regardless of whether they can afford, or even are interested in buying, a luxury car. The model draws on some of the work of the legendary Apple’s Ron Johnsonas well as the emerging phenomenon of on-demand technologies such as Uber….
6 Waitlist Management Tools for Restaurants
Eager to eliminate the organizational challenges and financial liabilities that go along with traditional reservation systems, restaurants are increasingly turning toward digital platforms that allow diners to stay at home, or shop at nearby businesses, until their tables are ready. Here are six platforms that restaurants can use to manage their waitlists…
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