News and Analysis

Street Fight Daily: GDPR Is Here and Complaints Are Being Filed, How Not to Handle Reviews

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Tech Giants Face First GDPR Complaints Over ‘Forced Consent’… Google Confirms Feed Ads Are a Test… Namogoo Releases 2018 Online Consumer Behavior Study…

Local News Pioneer Mike Orren on Industry’s Future: A Steep but Climbable Hill

“There are no silver bullets,” Mike Orren tells Tom Grubisich. Local news “has always been a complex industry, and advertising, marketing services, managing the print demand—all are going to continue to be a part of the equation.”

Street Fight Daily: Facebook Adds Services to Marketplace, Sketchy Google Knowledge Panel Practices

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook Marketplace Launches New Services Feature in Partnership with On-Demand Startups… A Fifth of Amazon Merchants Sell More Than $1 Million a Year, Double Last Year’s Share… How the Washington Post Is Building Its Tech Platform, Arc…

Commentary

Fragmentation in the Device Landscape and What It Might Mean for Local

We know that the great mobile shift has arrived. This does not mean the end of the laptop era entirely, as any user of processor-intensive software like Photoshop knows. But it does mean that we are using our devices in ways that have become heavily context dependent…

National Advertisers: Time to Get Local

“Local” is often thought to be synonymous with SMBs. In many media like television, however, huge portions of the local ad spend is from national brands buying up geographically specific advertising inventory. The same thing is happening in mobile. The projected growth in local mobile ad spending will mostly come from national advertisers that localize campaigns…

Leveraging Converged Media in Local Digital Marketing

Converged media is a term many local marketers might have heard of but may not be familiar with in terms of digital media environments. Essentially, converged media is the area of overlap between any two of three media types: paid, owned, and earned. This overlap is rich with opportunity and should be a focal point in any local digital marketing program…

Latest Posts

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Revenue Flowing Faster to New Marketing Channels, But Integration Is Key

A recent advertising report from the IAB found that U.S. interactive advertising revenues hit an all-time high of $42.8 billion in 2013, with digital exceeding broadcast television advertising revenues ($40.1 billion) for the first time ever. But some brands who are succeeding at hyperlocal are integrating legacy channels rather than eliminating them…

Street Fight Daily: Airbnb Clashes In Court, DeliveryHero Raises $85M

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyNew York’s Case Against Airbnb Is Argued in Albany (New York Times)… Delivery Hero Gobbles Another $85M To Fuel A Price War With Just-Eat (TechCrunch)… Facebook’s “Nearby Friends” Must Work Against the Historical Failure of People Discovery (GigaOm)…

Locable’s Aim: To Help Sites Build Community as a Brand

Locable is a network of 50 local and hyperlocal websites that shows its “partners” how to build community around their brand. It does this through an approach it calls “Main Street for the 21st Century.” In this recent Q & A with Street Fight, the company’s co-founder and CEO Brian Ostrovsky talks about what this approach means, and how community sites can position themselves for success…

6 Ways to Improve Business Operations Using Indoor Location Data

In many cases, indoor location analytics platforms take the guesswork out of operations management. Rather than guessing whether expensive in-store displays are increasing conversions, and wondering how dwell times influence sales, retailers can look at the data being spit out by their analytics platforms to find their answers. Here are six ways that businesses can use indoor location tools to improve in-store operations…

Street Fight Daily: Facebook Plans Mobile Ad Network, Apple Readies Payment Push

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyFacebook Plans Mobile-Ad Network (Wall Street Journal)… Apple Interviewing Job Candidates for Mobile Payments Push (Recode)… Square Denies Report of Potential Sale (USA Today)…