News and Analysis

Street Fight Daily: Web.com Agrees to $2B Sale, Mobile Ad-Blocking Threat Grows

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Web.com Agrees to Tentative $2 Billion Sale… Mobile Ad Blocking Is Becoming a Bigger Threat… Apple’s Push Against Push Is An Opportunity for Advertisers…

Street Fight Daily: Self-Service DSPs for SMBs, Local Media As Alternative to Ads on Facebook?

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Ad Tech Abandoned the SMB Market… Amazon Prime Wardrobe Launches to All U.S. Prime Members… As Brands Look Closer, Is Local News the Tortoise and Facebook the Hare?…

Topgolf Inks Deal with Vistar to Bring Programmatic to In-House Screens

As of today, Topgolf will be working with Vistar to integrate a full ad serving digital signage suite, where inventory will be available through Vistar’s programmatic and digital-out-of-home (DOOH) exchange.

Commentary

How Long Will Local Web Video Be Held Hostage by the ’30-Second Spot’?

The 30-second spot will be the ruin of those in local media who shift this old television workhorse to the Web. Local media companies rarely run anything less than 30 seconds, because that’s what advertisers want to buy, but this is a grave error — it spits in the face of the one who has clicked through to watch a short video…

How Marketers Can Help Merchants and Consumers Win With Local Search

For the sake of local businesses and local searchers, marketers need to come to the rescue. vSplash estimates that there is a $3.2 billion opportunity for local marketers to help clean up local search and help local businesses with their digital marketing efforts. And in that number there is some low-hanging fruit — especially for marketers that already have a foothold in local markets…

‘Enhanced’ Local Listings Could Be Even More Important on Mobile

Enhanced listing services appeal to many SMBs and local brands because they are a holistic advertising medium that goes beyond the basic banner or text ad — not only do they stand out against free listings and hold the user’s attention, but they also drive conversion and social interaction at higher rates. But most sites currently lack unique enhanced listing features specific to mobile…

Latest Posts

Local’s Sleeping Giants; A Tale of Two Keynotes

We’re at the height of keynote season, and in the past month Apple, Amazon and Google, have all carted out their wares. Local was understated at each, but below the surface were huge implications…

Google Hooks Up with Aisle411 to Map Stores

The company will partner with Walgreens to test an in-store service that helps shoppers navigate store aisles. Throughout the shopping experience, shoppers can be introduced to personalized coupons and other promotional offers, as well as rewards that can be accrued just by browsing…

Street Fight Daily: Tech Helps Small Business, Inside Uber’s War Machine

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyStartups’ Modern Tools Help Small Merchants Compete (New York Times)… Inside Uber’s Political War Machine (DailyBeast)… Airbnb CEO: Cities Are Becoming Villages (Atlantic)…

LBMA Podcast: Glympse, Blippar, and Esri

Top stories of the week feature McDonalds Canada, Pinterest, Food Network, Lowe’s, Naziha Mestaoui, Match.com, Amazon, Oman, Kraft, and Wal-Mart.

Foursquare

Street Fight Daily: Foursquare Charges Fees, Intuit’s M&A Machine

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyFoursquare Will Start Charging the Heaviest Users of its Places Database (TheNextWeb)… With Its M&A Train Rolling, Intuit Looks to Prove the Big Company Can be a Good Home for Small Firms (Pando)… Apps Now Account for Half of All Digital Media Time (MarketingLand)…

Despite Many New Local News Sites, ‘Media Deserts’ Are a Stubborn Reality

More than 120 newspapers have shut down in the U.S. since 2008. Surviving papers have been forced to cut their local news budgets in the implosion of old media ad revenue. Hundreds of digital community news sites have been launched in the meantime, but journalist and educator Dr. Michelle Ferrier from the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University says that millions of Americans have ended up in a “media desert.”

Is the U.K. Moving Ahead of the U.S. in Location Targeting?

If the American Revolution were fought based on technological powerhouses alone, we’d win in a heartbeat. Yet some advertisers in the U.K. are pulling off the sorts of campaigns that we only dream of here. It’s easy to chalk that up to the comparatively small size of the market, but that’s selling ourselves short. There’s no good reason that we can’t roll out the same location-based ad tech that has proven so successful in the U.K…

Street Fight Daily: Amazon Plans Grubhub Competitor, Google Moves to the Car

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyAmazon Is Quietly Launching A Local Takeout Service To Rival Seamless And DeliveryHero (TechCrunch)… Google Moves to the Car with Android Auto (Recode)… Uber: The Great Disruptor of Pizza Delivery? (Fortune)…

How Retailers Can Bridge the Gap With Beacons

Using beacons, content can be delivered to a consumers’ mobile device that augments the shopping experience and bolsters the relevancy of the merchant’s real-time communications based on the consumer’s location and real-time behavior. As a result, the messaging can be perceived by the consumer less as “marketing” and more as “helpful.”

8 Strategies for Reaching Out to Online Influencers

Rather than sitting idly by while influencers dictate what’s being said about their businesses on social media and review websites, merchants are beginning to reach out to these social media users on a personal basis. Here are eight strategies that marketers should consider when reaching out to influencers online…