News and Analysis
Macaroni Kid Leverages Local Influencers to Connect Brands to Consumers
“Our secret sauce is our ability to connect brands with consumers on a local level, via authentic local influencers,” says Macaroni Kid co-founder Eric Cohen. “Other media outlets can plug into an algorithm to target an audience. We have local moms telling other local moms the scoop as they hand out samples.”
Commentary
How to Create a Great Vertical Directory
It’s tough for a start-up to break into the top echelon of local search players and become a one-size-fits-all solution like Google or YP. The great opportunity that exists in the space lies in serving special interests or special use cases better than anyone has before. Foursquare and Yelp are highly visible examples of this, but other very successful, vertically oriented directories exist, flying mostly under our radar…
What Do Google’s Enhanced Campaigns Mean for SMBs?
To wildly mixed reactions, Google last week announced a major redesign to its pervasive AdWords SEM platform. Known as Enhanced Campaigns, the redesign will force advertisers to run a single, converged — though conditionally governed — campaign across desktop, mobile, and tablet devices…
After Boom and Bust, How Will the Discount Economy Evolve?
The discount industry experienced 2012 as a major turning point. In the past 12 months, the deal provider landscape shook out even more, with the consolidation of many deals sites and the decline of some industry giants. Given the changed landscape, here are a few predictions about where the local offer and voucher space is heading…
Latest Posts
LBMA Podcast: Indoor Location Tech at Waitrose, Motorola’s New MPact
Top stories of the week include the British Navy & quantum positioning; Freedom Telecare’s PunchPrompt; the Gap’s #summerloves campaign; Square’s shift in focus from Wallet to Order; SinglePoint & Drive Media Network; WhatsAppleBees, an anonymous social network for Applebees patrons; MonkeyParking App; and Starwood Hotels’ Google Glass App…
Street Fight Daily: Uber Eyes $12B Valuation, Facebook Adds Menus
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Uber Discusses Investment at $12 Billion Valuation (Wall Street Journal)… Facebook Lets Restaurants Post Menus to Their Pages (Mashable)… TripAdvisor Begins Using Its Own Restaurant Reservations Tool In Challenge to OpenTable and Yelp (Skift)…
Texas ‘Indie’ Pure Play Is Hog-Tying ‘Legacy’ Competitor
Tired of his four-hour commute between Dallas and San Angelo, Dallas Morning News ad salesman Joe Hyde applied to the San Angelo Standard-Times in 2009. He never heard back. Today, Hyde is the founder-publisher of San Angelo Live, an independent “pure play” that — in its eight months of existence — is already surpassing his Scripps competitor in key traffic metrics, and, since last month, operating in the black…
Consumers Are Using Cash Less — And That’s a Good Sign for Digital Marketers
A report by Javelin Research found that in-store cash sales in the U.S. dropped from $874 billion in 2012 to $788 million last year — a 10% decline. Over the next five years, the report projects that consumers will spend $100 billion less with cash, opting instead to pay using credit and debit cards as well as still-nascent mobile payment systems…
Street Fight Daily: Yelp Adds Video, Verizon Sells Mobile Ads
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Yelp Is Adding A New Video Feature To Its Reviews (BusinessInsider)… Verizon Looks to Target Its Mobile Subscribers With Ads (AdAge)… Google Plans Low-Cost, High Quality Wi-Fi Networks For Small- And Medium-Sized Businesses (TechCrunch)…
Conference Notebook: Mobile Commerce Without the Wallet
During a conversation at the M1 Summit in New York Tuesday, American Express’s CEO Kenneth Chenault attributed the recent failure of some of the most-hyped mobile payments products to a lack of focus and an inability for these services to equal the established ease of the credit card. But he remained confident that a fundamental transformation in the payments industry was still underway…
Local Mobile Search in U.S. Still Outpacing Other Major Global Markets
We recently culled data from more than 13 million users of our mobile shopping platform in six countries. Not surprisingly, because of its high saturation of smartphone users, the U.S. market reports the highest percentage (60%) of all our search traffic from mobile devices. We expect that to increase as smartphone sales continue to grow…
Street Fight Daily: Investors Bet on Marketplaces, Direct Response Dominates
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Local Services Marketplace Thumbtack Raises $30 Million (TechCrunch)… Direct-Response Tactics Take Majority of US Marketers’ Budgets (AdAge)… Marketers Get On Board the Offline-to-Online Data Train (AdAge)…
At Westfield Labs, Rethinking Retail One Mall at a Time
In 2012, the Westfield Group, one of the largest owners of indoor malls in the world, opened Westfield Labs, a division tasked with developing technology to improve the retail experience. Street Fight recently caught up with Nicholas Cabrera, the division’s SVP of product development, to talk about the role of technology in the physical shopping experience…
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