News and Analysis

Street Culture: Techstars Co-CEO on Coaching Startups to Define Culture

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“I think that culture is one of the few problems that you have to address before they’re problems,” says TechStars co-founder and co-CEO David Brown. “If you’re struggling to figure out how to grow sales, you can wait until sales are in trouble and still turn it around. But if you wait until you’re in trouble with culture, it’s really hard to turn that boat.”

Street Fight Daily: GDPR Is Here and Complaints Are Being Filed, How Not to Handle Reviews

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Tech Giants Face First GDPR Complaints Over ‘Forced Consent’… Google Confirms Feed Ads Are a Test… Namogoo Releases 2018 Online Consumer Behavior Study…

Local News Pioneer Mike Orren on Industry’s Future: A Steep but Climbable Hill

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“There are no silver bullets,” Mike Orren tells Tom Grubisich. Local news “has always been a complex industry, and advertising, marketing services, managing the print demand—all are going to continue to be a part of the equation.”

Commentary

What SMBs Need to Know About Facebook’s News Feed Redesign

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In the hopes of creating a better user experience (and ultimately more monetization opportunities), Facebook recently overhauled the design and functionality of its news feed — aiming to become the “personalized newspaper” of the digital age. The redesigned layout will include bigger photos, maps and news articles and users can now sort through feeds based on interests — so SMBs currently managing a page should definitely adjust the way they approach their Facebook marketing and creative strategy…

Overlaying Local: Do We Want Listings in Context?

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Maponics is working on an initiative that includes overlays of demographics and what they call “lifestyle data” on top of maps. The idea is to create a value-added component to traditional maps that may help to bring primary mapping information into a meaningful context for users…

Why Local Online Publishers Should Also Be Designing Merchants’ Sites

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One of the most sustainable sources of income for local digital publishers ought to be web design and hosting for their local customers. Web design and hosting has counted for 20% of my company’s total annual revenue for the last five years. It’s a natural fit for publishers in so many ways, and yet I see very few who offer it. They’re missing out big time…

Latest Posts

Openings and New Hires at Dex Media, Connectivity, GoDaddy, and Hearst

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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 hibu, Google, PlaceIQ, Advance Visibility and more …

LBMA Podcast: Chuck E. Cheese Meets Oculus Rift

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Welcome to This Week in Location Based Marketing, a weekly video podcast from the Location Based Marketing Association. Top stories of the week include Metaio’s Thermal Touch, Beck’s playable poster, tipping street musicians with Bitcoin, JINS health glass — and Bubbly launches direct carrier billing…

Street Fight Daily: Pinterest Eyes Small Business, Mobile Search Shifts From Google

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyPinterest Takes on Google and Facebook With Self-Service Ads (Wall Street Journal)… Study: Mobile Search Is Shifting From Google to Mobile Apps Like Yelp (AdAge)… P&G, Pepsi Try Out Foursquare’s New App, Swarm (AdAge)…

3 Models That VCs Are Buying in Local Tech

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Venture investment continues to pour into local tech, but tastes are changing. During a panel at Street Fight Summit West on Tuesday, Jared Fliesler (General Partner, Matrix Partners), Jim Scheinman (Founder, Maven Ventures) and Raj Kapoor (CEO, Fitmob) spoke about where the hyperlocal industry is heading and where they expect the next billion-dollar local startup idea to come from…

Caterina Fake: The ‘Finding a Restaurant in This Town’ Problem Has Been Solved

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During a fireside chat at Street Fight Summit West on Tuesday, the co-founder of Flickr told Jeff Bercovici that the restaurant discovery problem — a hobby horse of local tech of the past few years — has effectively been solved. Earlier this year, Fake released her newest venture to the world in Findery, a service that allows users to share content, or “notes” about places across the world…

Tinder and Grindr Share Their Secret (Local) Sauce

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During a panel at Street Fight Summit West on Tuesday, Local SEO Guide proprietor Andrew Shotland spoke with Tinder co-founder Jonathan Badeen and Grindr’s global head of sales, Steve Levin, about what’s working for the mobile personals industry and what other hyperlocal vendors can learn from their successes…

Street Fight Daily: Senate Revives Location Data Bill, ZocDoc Enters New Market

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyLocation Privacy Bill Gets Another Push (AdAge)… ZocDoc Tackles a New $600 Billion Market (Fortune)… iOS 8 Includes a New Location-Aware Lock Screen Button (GigaOm)…

Street Fight Daily: Yext Raises $50M, Facebook Courts Small Business

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyYext Raises $50 Million to Build Local-Business Directory (Wall Street Journal)
Facebook Courts Small Business: ‘We Don’t Want to Take a Ton of Money’ (AdAge)… What Apple’s Fingerprint ID Changes Mean for Its Big Mobile Payments Plans (Recode)…

How Brands Like Taco Bell Are Buying Into Local

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As director of media at Digitas, the digital agency of record for Taco Bell, Eric Perko was the mind behind the fast food restaurant’s massive breakfast menu launch earlier this year. Perko spoke with Silk.co’s Alex Salkver at Street Fight Summit West on Tuesday about his agency’s role in developing Taco Bell’s breakfast campaign and where he think digital marketing is headed.

Facebook’s Ted Zagat: ‘Clicks Don’t Matter’

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During a keynote at Street Fight Summit West on Tuesday, Facebook’s Ted Zagat said that there was “zero correlations” between online clicks and offline spending. The long-time president of the reviews company admitted that the social networking giant could do a better job of emphasizing the relationship between digital engagement and reach to its local merchant advertisers…