Commentary
When Tools Become Channels: Rethinking Local Promotion Distribution
Promotional commerce between small businesses and local consumers is undergoing a massive reconstruction. In the process, media channels are being forced to proactively adapt or wither into irrelevance. Media channels no longer enjoy the spoils of having critical mass in consumer reach and limited competition…
Local Stores Become Showrooms for Online Buying
“Showrooming” refers to the act of using local stores as showrooms for more price-competitive online purchases. Retailers can get on the right side of this trend by beating Amazon at its own data-centric game. That means launching apps — or working with those that aggregate retail feeds, such as Milo — through which personal recommendations and incentives are offered to in-store buyers…
As Facebook Readies IPO, Local Strategy Is in Focus
Considering that 70% of small businesses already use Facebook as a promotional tool through Pages, the company has a serious leg up on the competition. Transitioning these users into paying customers means cutting into Google’s massive market share of local ad spend, and potentially replacing the search giant as the de facto marketing tool for local businesses online…
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Geo-Unicorns: Will Local Spawn More Billion-Dollar Startups?
At the Street Fight Summit in New York a couple of months ago, I moderated a panel that looked at the “Billion-Dollar Opportunities in Hyperlocal.” Our thesis in putting the panel together was that the personalization made possible by location-based technologies was still in its early stages of evolution, and that the “geo-web” will be spawning many of the billion-dollar exits that later-stage VCs crave…
JiWire Partners With Datalogix to Ramp Up Mobile Targeting and ROI
“Where people spend their time and where they spend their money are two very powerful signals for understanding audiences in the context of their daily lives,” JiWire President David Staas told Street Fight. “Our partnership enables marketers to leverage the power of mobile targeting, measurement and insights across hundreds of rich audience segments.”
In-Store Tracking — Privacy Intrusion or Communications Problem?
As the web continues to expand beyond the desktop, it is infusing itself into the parts of our lives which we’ve traditionally viewed as offline and out of reach, creating an uneasiness among consumers. The question for the technology community is whether users’ fears represent a material resistance by a weary market or natural lag between their concern and the recognition of the value of location tracking which these services will eventually produce…
5 Mobile Ad Tools for Very Small Businesses
Why should the big guys get to have all the fun? When it comes to mobile advertising, most vendors are still targeting their offerings at major brands and brick-and-mortar chains. However, a growing number of hyperlocal vendors are beginning to develop mobile ad products aimed squarely at the small business community…
Street Fight Daily: Patch Not Dead Yet, Amazon Buys Square Competitor
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.… Amid Postmortems, AOL Says Patch Is Still Alive (Businessweek)… Amazon Reportedly Buys Mobile Payments Startup Gopago, Working On An ‘Ambitious’ New Project (TechCrunch)… Customers Out in the Cold Balk at Uber Surge Pricing (New York Times)…
Mobile Local Media: The State of the Union
The end of the year is upon us and that means top ten lists, year-in-reviews, and predictions galore. Sort of in that spirit but a slightly different format, I’ve been organizing the way I look at the mobile local world into a few buckets. So as this month’s column, here’s my state of the union in mobile local media…
New Ebook Looks at Instagram as a Local Channel for Marketers
Instagram has evolved since its debut in 2010 to become a true local channel, one in which brands can build deeper, more authentic connections with their most devoted fans. A new ebook from MomentFeed, “The Year of the Instagram Strategy,” delves into this topic and provides strategies and real-life examples of how brands like JCPenney, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, and Disney have successfully tapped into the power of Instagram…
How Hyperlocal Publishers Can Leverage Native Ads
Depending on your perspective, so-called “native advertising” is either a bold new frontier or the re-naming of a tried and true form of advertising — the advertorial. But either way, it is a tool that should be in the kit of every hyperlocal publisher because native ads can deliver content from the native (local) perspective that hyperlocals share with their readers…
Street Fight Daily: AOL Winds Down Patch, Twitter Tests ‘Nearby’ Feature
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.… AOL Chief’s White Whale Finally Slips His Grasp (New York Times)… Twitter Test Shows ‘Nearby’ Tweets (Wall Street Journal)… Amazon Said To Launch Pantry To Take On Costco, Sam’s (USA Today)…
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