News and Analysis

Street Fight Daily: Duopoly Dominance Declines, Macy’s Rolls Out AR & Mobile Checkout

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… The Duopoly’s Share of the Ad Market Could Decline for the First Time… Demonstrating Where Retailers Are Going, Macy’s Rolls Out Mobile Checkout & AR Feature… The Cambridge Analytica Scandal Won’t Stop Advertisers from Spending on Facebook..

5 ‘Smart’ Shelf Solutions for Retailers

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So-called “smart” shelves are changing the way retailers interact with customers on the sales floor and offering added value to consumer-facing store apps. Here are five examples of smart shelving technologies being used by retailers right now.

SMB OS Operators: Part II: Slice

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Having raised $15 million in funding just last year, Slice is a prime example of what we call SMB OS operators: companies helping SMBs compete in today’s digital economy with a full suite of solutions beyond core advertising and marketing.

Commentary

One Last Round of 2012 Predictions: Deals, Photo-Sharing, and Google Killers

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In the coming year, the big names in mobile local usage (i.e. Yelp, Foursquare) will start to monetize their apps for the first time; U.S. mobile ad revenues will grow 50 percent over 2011, reaching $1.6 billion in 2012; and better targeting and personalization will replace deep discounts as the user “hook” for deals companies…

How Groupon Will Expand in 2012

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As Groupon matures, its path will doubtless expand beyond its core product. Perhaps that’s why I have such a hard time keeping a straight face when people say that Groupon’s model for daily deals is fundamentally broken. It’s not. If anything, their second act has the potential to be even bigger than their first…

Hyperlocal in 2012: More Consolidation and Scale, Less ‘Free’

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What it comes down to is that hyperlocal companies like Foursquare and Groupon, despite their “hyperlocal” raison d’etre, need scale to bring an effective proposition to merchants and big brands. Scale helps, even if that just means a larger audience within a metro area or even a single neighborhood…

Latest Posts

Street Fight Daily: Patch Not Dead Yet, Amazon Buys Square Competitor

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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)…

How Can Low-Revenue Indie News Sites Boost Their Game?

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“The ability sell digital ad space efficiently is, in general, becoming an absolute necessity to compete for advertiser dollars,” says Kenny Katzgrau, a co-founder of Broadstreet Ads. “Local ad inventory cannot be an exception. More importantly, the ad inventory of beloved community news sites has a special value that isn’t being optimally exposed to buyers, big or small.”

6 Ways National Brands Can Improve Their Local Campaigns

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The hyperlocal technology that brands need to reach consumers locally is available and ready, so why aren’t more brands taking advantage of the opportunity? Only 7% of national marketers say they have effective local campaigns in place, according to a 2013 study by Balihoo. Here are six strategies for helping brands make the most of their local campaigns…

LBMA Podcast: PlaceIQ Partners With Mazda, Amazon’s Drone Delivery

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On the show: Singtel soft-launches their shopping app Lyke; PayPal partners with OrderBird in Germany; Texas Instruments patents indoor location; Apple buys Topsy; Tantrum Street launches Cartwheel register. Special guest is Marc Castrechini, VP Software Development of Merchant Warehouse…

Street Fight Daily: Highlight Rebounds, Uber Talks Deliveries

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.Highlight Raises $4 Million From DFJ, Releases Version 2.0 Of Its Location-Based Social Networking App (TechCrunch)… Uber: From Taxis To Deliveries On Demand (CNN MoneyGoogle Maps iOS App Updated To Show Flight, Hotel And Restaurant Reservations (GigaOm)…

How Yahoo and Intuit Plan to Win With Small Businesses

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Major companies have started to turn their gaze to the small business market, looking to cash in on a segment that has long eluded some of technology ‘s biggest players. During Interactive Local Media in San Francisco Wednesday, two Web 1.0 giants – Intuit and Yahoo – laid out their strategies to position themselves as the go-to source for small business software…