News and Analysis
Retailers Use AI for In-Store Experimentation, Customer Service
Brick-and-mortar retailers are looking for an edge in their fight against the e-commerce behemoths, and as the battle rages on, it’s looking like artificial intelligence might be the answer.
Street Fight Daily: Google Revamps Maps, Echo’s Market Share Slides as Speaker War Heats Up
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Maps Platform Arrives, Changing the Game for Developers… Amazon Echo Losing Market Share as Smart Speaker Rivalry Intensifies… Square’s Loss Widens As Spending Picks Up…
Who’s Using Local AR? And How Often?
According to a recent survey, AR users like what they see, with a whopping 73% reporting high or very high satisfaction. But non-users report explicit disinterest, with the biggest reason being the rather daunting “just not interested.” This presents a big hill for AR app developers to climb.
Commentary
What Can Online Directories Learn From the Yellow Pages?
I’m not advocating a return to the phone book, but I am curious about the lesson it might have to teach us. In particular, the notion of restricted and curated data sets may be worth a revisit. Without foregoing the benefits of scalability, search sites could do more to enable the curation of local data by business owners and other members of local communities…
5 Things Communities Can Do to Improve Their Online Presence
How does your community’s online presence measure up? Does it capture the vibrancy and activity your community has to offer, or does it look out-of-date and abandoned? Since most people’s first impressions of your community are online these days, it’s more important than ever to make sure that impression is accurate and positive…
The 3 Biggest Misconceptions About Mobile Location Targeting
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…
Latest Posts
How One Community News Project Grew From One Blog to 30 Sites
When Kerry Anne Ducey started blogging in her suburban community of Ridgefield, CT. in 2009, what happened within the several square miles of this 300-year-old community of about 25,000 people was the center of her journalistic universe. Today her HamletHub is a partnership of 30 community websites in the Connecticut-New York suburbs, which she says will soon grow to 45 sites…
7 Ways to Use Weather Data for Hyperlocal Marketing
Hyperlocal vendors are making it possible for business owners like Stromberg to overlay weather data on top of daily sales figures to make better decisions, but many local merchants are still unsure of how to utilize the insights they glean from this information. Here are seven strategies for local businesses to use weather information to better target their hyperlocal messaging…
Street Fight Daily: Square Buys Scheduling Startup, Uber’s Latest Snafu
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.…Square Acquires BookFresh To Add Booking Services For Merchants (TechCrunch)… Uber Kept New Drivers Off the Road to Encourage Surge Pricing and Increase Fares (Verge)… The Payments Challenge for Mobile Carriers (New York Times)…
Thinknear’s Portnoy on Scoring Accurate Location Data
In the world of location marketing, precision matters. In a presentation at Street Fight’s Local Data Summit in Denver on Tuesday, Thinknear GM Eli Portnoy described how location data is derived and how it can be improved…
Street Fight Daily: Apple Rolls Out iBeacon Program, Square Picks Up In-Store
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.… Apple Starts iBeacon Product Certification Under ‘Made for iPhone’ Program (Apple Insider)… Square is Testing a New App for Ordering Food: Square Pickup (Priceonomics)… Ford to Drop Microsoft From Car Systems (New York Times)…
Why Data May Kill Content as the Key to Local Relevancy
During a keynote at Street Fight’s Local Data Summit in Denver Tuesday, Carol Davidsen, chief executive at Cir.cl and a former Obama for America staffer, spoke about the way the campaign used data to avoid pricey local news buys, and how those learnings are shaping the way companies in the private market buy media…
Inventory Data Could Help Turn The Tide for Brick-and-Mortar Retailers
The rapid growth of Amazon, and the high-profile decline of brick-and-mortar retailers like Borders, masks a surprising statistic: e-commerce makes up only 5-10% of total retail sales in the country. During a panel at Street Fight’s Local Data Summit in Denver Tuesday, panelist argued that bringing inventory data online could provide small, brick-and-mortar stores with an advantage over their online-only competitors…
Charting Consumer Behavior In the Real World
At Street Fight’s Local Data Summit on Tuesday, LocalSEOGuide proprietor Andrew Shotland started off a morning panel discussion on charting consumer behavior in the real world by asking panelists how close the local data industry is to being able to collect and aggregate the location of consumers, and then sell that information directly to marketers…
#LDS14 As New Sensors Emerge, Risks and Rewards in Location Data
The bulk of location data may come from smartphone’s today, but a new wave of sensors could open up a range of new possibilities for developers and businesses to interact with consumers a given place. During a panel at Street Fight’s Local Data Sumit in Denver Tuesday, speakers from Intel, Qualcomm, and KS Technologies discussed the way chip-level innovations are driving the local tech space, and how new sensors could open up a flood of consumer location data.
How Esri’s Amber Case Plans to Make Technology Invisible
At the Street Fight Local Data Summit in Denver on Tuesday, Esri R&D Director Amber Case spoke about ‘calm technology’ and the future of location data. Case, who sold her startup Geoloqi to Esri in 2012, argued that mobile data should empower people and bring meaning to their lives by making interactions invisible…
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