News and Analysis

With GDPR In Place, Will Push Marketing Recede?

Retailers love push marketing. But the practice relies on consumer data in order to work, and that’s becoming a major problem with the European Union’s new General Data Protection Regulation firmly in effect.

Study: Challenges Persist with One-Partner Programmatic Strategy

84% of brands want to bring their programmatic ad spending in-house as a way to gain more control over what’s become an opaque process. The problem? A study by Visto shows that advertisers who use just one platform are losing out on opportunities to lower inventory costs and efficiently delivery on KPIs.

Street Fight Daily: Google Retires AdWords & DoubleClick Brands; GDPR Threatens Push Marketing

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Is Killing Off DoubleClick Branding… With GDPR In Place, Will Push Marketing Recede?… Study: Challenges Persist with One-Partner Programmatic Strategy…

Commentary

The Local Search Shadow Economy

We know that there exist a great number of businesses in our local communities that service a variety of needs at their clients’ homes or business locations. Aside from specialized services like Angie’s List and Service Magic, there are few local search outlets that serve potential clients or service providers well in terms of their ability to connect a need with the appropriate provider…

Mobile Local Advertising: Not Just for Early Adopters Anymore

Over the past few years I’ve done some axe-grinding about the lack of location targeting in mobile advertising — and the fact that desktop ad strategies have largely been ported over to the small screen, particularly among large brands and agencies. But in recent months we’ve started to see some of those habits break down, beginning with newer companies in mobile that don’t have to “unlearn” anything to get there…

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…

Latest Posts

Street Fight Daily: Apple Building New iBeacon Device, Square Eyes Another Acquisition

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyApple is Building a New iBeacon-powered Device, FCC filing reveals (VentureBeat)… Curated Food Delivery Startup Caviar In Talks To Be Acquired By Square For $100 Million (TechCrunch)… Pew: Only 2 Alt-Weeklies Saw Circulation Gains in 2013 (Poynter)…

Designing a New Value Proposition for Consumer Location Data

In a paper published earlier this month, a group of researchers tried to put a price tag on the personally identifiable information that flows from our mobile devices. The results shine a light on the unique challenges facing companies interested in mining location data, and the divergent paths of two tech companies that have built businesses around that information…

LBMA Podcast: SnapChat Tests Location, MapCo’s Howard Curtis

Top stories of the week include: Google acquires Skybox Imaging; Aisle411 partners with Walgreens and Google; Robocat’s Thermodo weather keychain; Apple patents location-based security; and Ikea Russia builds a website inside of Instagram;…

Street Fight Daily: TaskRabbit Pivots, Bill Gurley On Uber

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyTaskRabbit Pivots, Launches On-demand Service for Cleaning, Handiwork, Moving, & Errands (VentureBeat)… How to Miss By a Mile: An Alternative Look at Uber’s Potential Market Size (Above the Crowd)… Birchbox Is Opening Its First Retail Store, And Here’s What It Looks Like (BusinessInsider)…

Why Retail Will Face the Same Fate as the Media Industry

Jeremy Rifkin, the prolific author who has served as an advisor to a number of world leaders, believes that the astronomical investments in Uber and Airbnb signal the breaking of a long-held “firewall” that kept the transformative effects of the Internet contained to the virtual world. Here Rifkin discusses why a small reduction in margins could kill traditional retail…

With Acquisitions, Brooklyn’s Corner Media Grows Into a Regional Cluster

Publisher Liena Zagare’s independent Corner Media network in Brooklyn has added three established community news sites in the borough to grow into a cluster of seven sites in a market of 1 million people. Street Fight recently caught up with Zagare to learn more about what her two acquisitions will mean for their neighborhoods and her company…

Street Fight Daily: Yelp’s Case Against Google, Urban Airship CEO Resigns

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyLeaked Documents Show How Yelp Thinks It’s Getting Screwed By Google (TechCrunch)… CEO Of Startup Urban Airship Leaves Company After Being Accused Of Sexually Assaulting His Ex-Girlfriend (BusinessInsider)… Finding Ways to Use Big Data to Help Small Shops (New York Times)…

Unmanaged Local Listings Hurt Consumers and Businesses Alike

Google Maps and its competitors have become the most important pathways to brick and mortar businesses outside foot traffic and word of mouth. As one recent case indicates, an accurate Google Maps listing can be a matter of life or death for a local business. The company needs a stronger and more concerted effort to enlist the help of business owners to address this problem…

6 Ways to Personalize Mobile Ads Without Violating User Privacy

Global mobile ad spending increased to $17.96 billion last year, and it’s on pace to rise another 75.1% in 2014. But in order for mobile advertising to continue growing at such a rapid rate, one issue has to be addressed — privacy. Here are six strategies for personalizing mobile ads without violating user privacy.

Street Fight Daily: Yodle Files for IPO, RetailNext Raises $30M

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyMarketing Software Company Yodle Files for IPO (Reuters)… RetailNext Raises Another $30 Million To Track In-Store Data (TechCrunch)… Lyft Expands Its Car Hailing Service to New York (New York Times)…