News and Analysis
#SFSNYC: GroundTruth Turns On-the-Ground Data Into IRL Transactions
When consumers visit physical stores, the likelihood that they will complete a purchase shoots up, especially in comparison to the likelihood they will make a purchase after visiting a digital site. “Visits lead to sales,” was the message of Hongzhe Sun of GroundTruth, one of the sponsors of Street Fight Summit in New York Wednesday.
#SFSNYC: May AI Help You? The Marketing Opportunities in Intelligent Search
Artificial intelligence is the future of search engines. Increasingly conversational, intelligent, and visual, search engines are adapting to become the centerpiece of consumer engagement, as well as a virtually new tool for marketers. Purna Virji, senior manager for global engagement at Microsoft/Bing, broke down the AI revolution in search at Street Fight Summit Wednesday.
#SFSNYC: Investors on Billion-Dollar Opportunities in Local and Where to Find Them
Long before startups become the “next big thing” the masses talk about, investors have an opportunity to use their wallets to weigh in on the prospects for those emerging companies. At Street Fight Summit Wednesday in New York, investors pointed to voice, VR and AR, and influencers as some hot topics in local investing right now.
Commentary
Overlaying Local: Do We Want Listings in Context?
Maponics is working on an initiative that includes overlays of demographics and what they call “lifestyle data” on top of maps. The idea is to create a value-added component to traditional maps that may help to bring primary mapping information into a meaningful context for users…
Why Local Online Publishers Should Also Be Designing Merchants’ Sites
One of the most sustainable sources of income for local digital publishers ought to be web design and hosting for their local customers. Web design and hosting has counted for 20% of my company’s total annual revenue for the last five years. It’s a natural fit for publishers in so many ways, and yet I see very few who offer it. They’re missing out big time…
Defining the Local Coefficient: A Conversation with Yelp
A growing chunk of physical purchases are influenced online. And the path to purchase increasingly weaves between different screens. But for conversions, it’s all about offline. The question is how long this will remain to be the case. Out of sheer curiosity, Yelp VP Mike Ghaffary ventured to quantify this…
Latest Posts
Street Fight Daily: Intuit’s Buying Spree Continues, Google Eyes Skybox
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Intuit to Buy Bill-Payment Service Check Inc. for $360 Million (Wall Street Journal)… Google Close To Snapping Up Satellite Startup Skybox Imaging For $1B+, Say Sources (TechCrunch)… Investor Talk on Uber’s Valuation Hits as High as $17 Billion (Wall Street Journal)…
Watch Out Yelp and Foursquare — Facebook Starts Flexing Its Local Muscles Again
During a presentation at Internet Week in New York on Thursday, Justin Moore, an engineering manager at Facebook, offered a full-throated pitch for the company’s local data initiatives. Moore, a former Foursquare engineer who joined Facebook in early 2012, says a team in the company’s New York office has spent the past two years turning the 32 billion pieces of location-tagged content, which have been created on the social network, into a sprawling database of places that spans the globe…
Openings and New Hires at Telmetrics, OPA, Square, and Pro.com
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 PayPal, Signpost, Search Influence, Angie’s List, LiveIntent, hibu and more …
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…
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