News and Analysis

Street Fight Daily: Mobile to Take the Lead in U.S. Ad Spend, GDPR Spooks Location Firms

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Mobile Ad Spending to Surpass TV in 2018… The GDPR Is Spooking Location-Targeting Companies… Amazon’s Other Jeff Steps Into the Spotlight…

Raise Report: Zaius, Punchh, Drift Score New Funding

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Every two or three weeks, we round up some of the biggest fundraises taking place in hyperlocal marketing, commerce, and tech. This week’s edition includes funding for Instapage, Sensu, PullRequest, and Stord.

Customers Who Hop Onto Digital Trends Earliest Less Engaged With Advertisements

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Marketers look to trendsetters as “influencers,” but can the influencer be influenced herself? A study recently published in the journal “Marketing Science” suggests that, in fact, early propagators of trends tend to respond less to advertising than latecomers.

Commentary

The 3 Biggest Misconceptions About Mobile Location Targeting

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Since the dawn of mobile, advertisers have salivated at the idea of targeting users based on their current location — but despite the clear promise of the medium, many have struggled to capitalize on it. A number of misconceptions threaten to confine the industry to the progress made in these early years of mobile, so in an effort to continue our momentum – it’s time a few these myths were officially debunked…

Apple Maps: Taking the Long View

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There’s no dancing around the fact that the much-anticipated launch of Apple Maps has turned into a fiasco for the company. Yet there’s little doubt Apple will buff out this particular blemish with time. The interesting part will be seeing exactly how the company chooses to address the gap in expertise that led to the current sub-par product. A big acquisition of talent or technology seems likely…

iOS6: Can Google Beat Apple in its Own Backyard?

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Mapping is a game ultimately won on function rather than form. This requires lots of listings data and search algorithms; in other words, things that are non-core to Apple. Relative to Google’s tenure in this area, Apple is only starting to stitch together local vertical content partners like Yelp and TomTom. And it’s already starting to show…

Latest Posts

LBMA Podcast: Square, LevelUp, and Thinknear’s Eli Portnoy

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Top stories of the week include Square and Bookfresh, CommuteStream, LevelUp and Foodler, Muber, SounderPoster 3.0, Amtrak, Caribou Coffee, IMGuest.com, Mastercard and Syniverse and Stylinity…

Street Fight Daily: Staples Ditches Bricks, Flickr Founder Goes Hyperlocal

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyStaples to Close 225 Stores as Sales Move Online (New York TimesS)… Flickr Co-Founder Seeks Another Hit With New Findery App (Reuters)… Yahoo Rolling Out Indoor Maps (SearchEngineLand)…

New Patch Owner Hale Running Company in ‘Lean, Entrepreneurial Mode’

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“There are lots of potential models, and there’s no reason to be ideological about finding the right match between models and communities,” says Hale. “The best thing for hyperlocal journalism is a sustainable business model.”

In the Age of Big Data, Sometimes a Phone Call Still Works Best

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More and more, marketers are turning to deep data analytics to measure the impact relative to a local marketing campaign. But call measurement provider Telmetrics says that value can still be delivered by paying attention to a more basic form of interaction: phone calls…

Street Fight Daily: Google Kills Offers, Foursquare Reveals Revenues

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyGoogle Shuts Down Self Serve Offers Product (Blumenthals)… Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley, Rebuffing Sale Offers, Says Revenues Grew 500% in Q1 2014, 600% In 2013 (TechCrunch)… Short-term Profit Taking vs. Long-term Value Creation: The Future of PayPal (LinkedIn)…

New Location-Based Services Are Poised to Enter the Mainstream

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To a surprising degree, the panels and presenters at Street Fight’s Local Data Summit last week in Denver emphasized a similar theme: we’re about to see a plethora of new technology-enhanced real-life experiences centering on ingenious uses of data. The signal feature this time around is an orientation toward experiences situated in a physical context. The question the new technologies will answer is this: “What do I need my technology to do for me now, in this place, at this time, under these circumstances?”

Can Renewed Coordination Prevent a Rollup in Local Media?

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Last week Google made news when the search giant struck a deal with the Local Media Consortium to power a private advertising exchange . Yesterday, Christian Hendricks, the Consortium’s chairman and a McClatchy executive, pitched the plan to a room of media executives, and made the case why the new consortium could succeed where it failed nearly a decade ago…

Street Fight Daily: RadioShack Shutters Stores, A Rollup in Food Delivery

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyRadioShack Plans to Close Up to 1,100 Stores (Wall Street Journal)… With Eye On Growth, Just Eat Buys Meal2Go To Offer EPOS Tech To Its Takeaway Partners (TechCrunch)… NCR Updates Its iPad Cash Register With Loyalty Features (GigaOm)…

6 Call Monetization Platforms for SMBs

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Phone leads may not be glamorous or trendy, but they’re the backbone of local marketing strategy for millions of small businesses in the professional services, travel, auto, and insurance industries. $68 billion is spent annually on localized ads to generate these calls. Here are six call monetization vendors that businesses can work with…

Street Fight Daily: Square Makes Loans, Why Microsoft Invested in Foursquare

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyWith Square Capital, Square Begins Offering Controversial Merchant Cash Advances (Recode)… It’s Now Obvious Why Microsoft Invested Millions In Foursquare (Business Insider)… Uber Says it Doesn’t Discriminate by Neighborhood in Chicago (GigaOm)…