News and Analysis

Street Fight Daily: Google Steps Up Recommendations in Maps, Walmart Acquires Flipkart

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Maps Goes Far Beyond Directions… Challenging Amazon Abroad, Walmart Buys Flipkart… Apple Is Removing Apps That Share User Locations With Third Parties Without Explicit Consent…

Advertisers Clamor for Enhanced Audience Segmentation to Improve Targeting

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Sixty-two percent of advertisers, publishers, and tech developers in a recently released survey said they want better audience segmentation to support ad targeting, and 54% want the ability to map customer behavior across different channels.

Street Fight Daily: Brands Demand Video Strategies, Scandal Doesn’t Affect Facebook Use

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Selling to Multi-Location Brands: Streaming Video Is On the Rise… Poll: Three-Quarters Facebook Users as Active or More Since Scandal… Volvo Cars to Come With Google Assistant, Maps Built In…

Commentary

The Localization of the Enterprise

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Organizations are decentralizing and adapting to consumer hardware cycles by storing data in the cloud and utilizing software services without deployments. Tech capability dictated by employees is a seismic shift that will forever change the world of technology. We’re going to see a similar shift in marketing: the localization of the enterprise…

Facebook Nearby and the Mobilization of Local

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At long last, Facebook has made a serious move in the local space, and Nearby now recommends local businesses based on your friends’ likes and check-ins as well as your proximity to general business listings. I can’t think of a better or a more timely summation of what’s happened in local search during the past year…

Is Facebook Local’s Waking Giant?

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“Google is the best advertising product in the history of the world… because it’s like advertising at a store,” Business Insider CEO Henry Blodget said recently. “Facebook, meanwhile, is like advertising at a party.” But despite Google’s user-side advantages here, Facebook could have an edge in SMB engagement…

Latest Posts

Newspaper Companies Make Another Big Investment in a Circular Startup

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Gannett, Hearst, Belo, and others have invested another $15 million in Wanderful Media, a service that digitizes and distributes the millions of merchandizing ads that go out every weekend in local papers across the United States. The deal, which brings the startup’s total funding to over $50 million, highlights the newspaper industry’s struggle to find an answer to a depreciating revenues after technology companies have picked off many of its valuable assets…

Openings and New Hires at Thinknear, Twitter and Verizon

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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, new hires and jobs at Factual, Angie’s List, Local Yokel Media, Facebook, Mediative and hibu.

LBMA Podcast: Twitter’s Gnip Buy, Facebook’s Nearby Friends

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Top stories of the week include Coca-Cola, Jasper, GNIP, Twitter, Gowalla, Last.co, Goodnight Lad, TigerAir, UNMAS, Takara Tomy Arts, Facebook, WunWun, Gett and Beacon Crawl…

Street Fight Daily: Facebook Buys Moves, Lyft Puts Capital to Work

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… By Buying Moves, Facebook Acquires High-Value Passive Location Technology (GigaOm)… Lyft Puts New Megabucks to Work: Launches in 24 Cities, Cuts Prices Again, Drops All Fees (Recode)… Berg Insight: Mobile Location-Based Advertising will be worth $14.8B in 2018 (FierceWireless)…

Brady on Thunderdome: The Glue at the Core Was Never Able to Dry

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“The local digital news solution is probably going to come from new players rather than legacy ones,” says outgoing Digital First Media editor-in-chief Jim Brady. “It’s extremely hard to try and create that next-generation local news product while you’re dealing with the rapid decline of your core business. … Somewhere in that broad swath of experimentation are all the pieces for a successful model. It’s just a matter of time until someone finds the right mix.”

Connectivity Raises $6 Million to Make Marketing Automation Work for Small Businesses

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The Los Angeles-based startup has raised $6.35 million in funding to help small businesses structure and draw insights from digital interactions. The company is developing software to identify and analyze references to brick-and-mortar businesses in social media, reviews and other user-generated content, and then aggregate that data into a dashboard for small businesses to monitor their presence online…

Sightly Launches Localized Video Ad Product

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The San-Diego-based company launched TargetView, a new product that will allow local branches of national advertising agencies, small agencies, and SMB marketing teams to develop and deliver localized content on YouTube, Google Display, and social media. Using IP and GPS information, individual ads and campaigns will be able to cater to potential customers in specific locations…

Shopkeep Raises $25M to Build a Better Cash Register for Indie Retail

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The New York-based startup that builds point-of-sale software for mobile devices has raised $25 million in its third round of funding. The new capital thrusts the company to the forefront of a busy pack of upstarts looking to rethink the point-of-sale. It also sets the stage for a drawn-out fight between a handful of well-funded startups, the legacy point-of-sale providers who control much of the market, and a number of other tech giants looking in…

Street Fight Daily: Reddit Targets Locations, Facebook’s Billion Mobile Users

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.. Reddit Introduces Location-Targeted Promoted Posts (Wall Street Journal)… Facebook Posts Earnings Beat as Mobile Soars Past One Billion Monthly Users (Recode)… Uber Drives for Asian Expansion (Financial Times)…

Yext Says It Will Be Profitable By 2015 — Here’s How

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Over the past 23 months, the New York-based startup has silenced critics, turning the listing-synching concept into a cash cow that helped the company generate over $34 million in revenue last year. In an interview last week, Yext CEO Howard Lerman told Street Fight that the company expects to generate $56 million in 2014, and hit $85 million — and profitability — by 2015.