News and Analysis

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…

SMB Index: Local Stocks See Solid Gains in April

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April marked another volatile month in the public markets. But it was a relatively strong month for local stocks, as the SurePath SMB Index was up 2.8% in April, topping all major indices.

Commentary

How Enhanced Targeting Will Change Local Commerce in 2013

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Restaurants are moving away from the traditional daily-deal model and demanding more targeted services. In 2013 we will see the marketing landscape dominated by three types of marketing services addressing more specific merchant goals: snipers, niche pure plays, and the cycle-conscious…

Local Mapping Services and the Public Trust

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The towering presence of Google in the mapping world today is testament to its success in product development, but this also indicates something else. People don’t just think of maps as a product to be consumed. It seems that we have begun to consider mapping services as a public trust…

Why the Future of SMB-Focused Applications Is Mobile

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Although most SMB-focused applications are now web-based, the rising adoption of the smartphone as the de facto dashboard for small business owners will drive a wave of mobile applications customized for them…

Latest Posts

Street Fight Daily: Square Discusses Sale, Facebook’s Local Ads

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyMobile-Payments Startup Square Discusses Possible Sale (Wall Street Journal)… Facebook ‘Nearby Friends’ Will Track Your Location History To Target You With Ads (TechCrunch)… TPG-Led Group Closes $450 Million Investment in Airbnb (Wall Street Journal)…

Putting Small Businesses on the (New) Google Map

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Google Maps is a key resource that businesses can use to get more local searchers to discover them online. But can it also help them get more leads? The simple answer is yes, but it’s a not as easy as simply claiming a listing. It’s only by taking advantage of all that Google Maps has to offer — and then tracking how traffic from your maps listing converts into leads and customers — that you can see just how powerful accurate, optimized maps listings can be…

Niche Site CHARLIE Goes Big With Underwriter Le Creuset

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After an initial stint doing publicity in the movie industry in Los Angeles, Caroline Nuttall migrated to Charleston, S.C., and fell “head over heels” for its “beauty and progressive culture.” She expressed her passion for the city by creating the local digital magazine CHARLIE, whose words, images and design capture the many faceted, old-new richness of her publication’s namesake. Here Nuttall tells Street Fight how she navigated CHARLIE to new revenue streams, including an underwriting partnership with national cookware maker Le Creuset.

Street Fight Daily: Facebook’s ‘Nearby Friends,’ Twitter Debuts App Promo Suite

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologynearby-friendsFacebook’s “Nearby Friends” Feature Aims for More Offline Connections (Recode)… Twitter’s New Ad Unit Is A Huge, Huge Deal. Here’s Why (Forbes)… Citymapper Just Got Off the Funding Bus and Is Now $10M Richer (VentureBeat)…

LBMA Podcast: Mahana’s Brian Menell and Richard Bagdonas

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Top stories of the week include Quantum Dots, Apple, the Lego Movie, American Express, Amazon’s Dash, Tesco, Uber’s Rush, Breeze, Santa Monica’s Wellbeing Project, Traffle’s travel app and SmartMat.

Recent Studies Show Mobile’s Broadening Reach

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The reports underline what we might call the inherently local nature of mobile search. Whether you are in a store contemplating a high-ticket purchase or downtown hoping to discover a new restaurant, the phone in your hand is your portal to timely and actionable information as well as marketing incentives that are increasingly likely to gain your attention…

Case Study: Frozen Yogurt Chain Integrates Payments Into Mobile App

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No clear frontrunner has shown up in the mobile wallet space, and businesses like Orange Leaf Frozen Yogurt are tired of waiting for one to appear. Instead of utilizing an existing mobile payment platform, the frozen yogurt chain is rolling out its own mobile wallet as part of an update to its iPhone and Android app. When its mobile payments solution debuts this summer, Orange Leaf customers will be able to pay for purchases with their smartphones at the POS…

Street Fight Daily: LevelUp Eyes ‘Zero Interchange,’ Zuckerberg on Graph Search

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologylevelupLevelUp Thinks It Has Found A Way To Charge Merchants A 0% Credit Card Processing Fee (Business Insider)… Zuckerberg: Facebook Graph Search Is ‘A Five-Year Thing’ (SearchEngineLand)… Seamless Delivers Tips Agreement (WSJ)…

In Run-Up to IPO, Yodle Makes Its Bet on Local Marketing Automation

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Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that local marketing firm Yodle was shopping for banks to underwrite a potential public offering. In an interview with Street Fight, Court Cunningham, chief executive at Yodle, declined to comment on the reports, but talked about the the evolution of the small business marketing space, the rise of local marketing automation, and the subsequent push by these companies to bundle services into an integrated product…

Microsoft Research Project Tells You What a Neighborhood Is Thinking

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HereHere, which launched earlier this year, profiles the 42 neighborhoods in New York City by collecting publicly available 311 data to reveal the most talked-about issues in the boroughs. By entering their zip code, a user can interact with an animated map displaying the neighborhood’s statuses, seeing updates like “delighted” or “uncomfortable.”