News and Analysis

Street Fight Daily: Thumbtack Brings AI to Local Services, Amazon Go Model to Expand

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… How Thumbtack Creates Work By Giving the Yellow Pages an AI Twist… Amazon Plans to Open As Many As Six More Amazon Go Stores This Year… Twitter Tightened Up the Requirements for Its Amplify Publisher Program…

Street Fight Daily: Google Debuts ‘Auto Ads,’ Digital Media Titan Vox Cuts Staff En Masse

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Debuts AdSense ‘Auto Ads’ with Machine Learning… Vox Media Cuts About 50, Scales Back Social Video… Snapchat’s E-Commerce Strategy Hit a New High…

Pursuant Health, Vistar Media Look to Change How Brands Connect In-Store

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In a move that could impact the way marketers connect with more than 30 million shoppers inside physical stores around the country, Pursuant Health is partnering with the location-based advertising technology firm Vistar Media to provide better access to its digital advertising inventory.

Commentary

Why Local Media Can Dominate Daily Deals

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Pundits have been quick to predict the demise of daily deals following the recent news that Facebook and Yelp have scaled back their entries into the market, and that Groupon has delayed its IPO. Rather than buy into this hype, local media need to view this moment as an opportunity to double down and consolidate their positions to capitalize on this important new revenue stream…

Can Hyperlocals Help Solve the Jobs Problem?

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The stock market is falling, Europe is teetering and for many Americans, there are few jobs in sight. On Monday, the National Association of Business Economics issued a report underscoring what many Americans already know: jobs aren’t coming back in any substantial way any time soon. The panel of 52 economics experts said they expected GDP to grow just 1.5% this year, too low to move the needle on the 9% unemployment rate…

Daily Deals 2.0: Card-Connected Offers

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Banks now know more than practically anyone about consumer spending behaviors and they are rapidly entering the digital marketing and local commerce space. Many have rolled out programs that leverage technology to offer customers truly digital deals from merchants of all types via their existing credit or debit cards…

Latest Posts

Selling Search to Small Businesses

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It’s no secret that national brands are investing heavily in local marketing and small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) are feeling the increased competitive pinch. After all, there are only so many people looking for a given product or service in one’s neighborhood. But while national brands will likely continue to dominate TV, print and radio advertising, digital marketing offers SMBs a rare opportunity to compete with national brands on equal footing…

Street Fight Daily: How Google Maps Lost, Groupon’s Risky Initiative

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyApple Maps: How Google Lost When Everyone Thought It Had Won (Guardian)… The Risky Groupon Initiative That Beat Back LivingSocial Perhaps Once and for All (AllThingsD)… American Express Teams Up With Mightybell To Connect Small Businesses With Each Other Locally (TechCrunch)…

Handybook Co-Founder: The Key To Scaling Local Is Great Service

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Mobile bookings services are on the rise as consumers look to use their smartphones to do more than find information about local businesses. Enter Handybook, a New York-based technology company that allows users to book household services on its site and app. Street Fight recently spoke with Umang Dua, Handybook’s co-founder, to find out more about the consumer services space and Handybook’s plans to impact the way customers book household services…

6 Tools to Track the Real World Impact of Online Ads

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The percentage of companies that analyze online-to-offline interactions is steadily growing — reaching 48% in 2013, according to Econsultancy. As interest grows, hyperlocal vendors are rising to the occasion and refining the metrics they provide. Here are six tools that businesses can use to track the real world impact of their online ads…

Street Fight Daily: Seamless Eyes IPO, LivingSocial In 2014

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologySeamless Eyeing IPO For 2014 (The Deal)… O’Shaughnessy: Ticket Monster Sale ‘Sets 2014 Up To Be Nothing Like 2013’ (Washington Business Journal)… Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman Takes on Critics in Freewheeling Reddit AMA (Mashable)…

New Hires and Openings at Ballantine Digital, Linkdex, Centro, and Time Warner

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Every two weeks, Search Influence’s Kelly Benish — who knows practically everyone in hyperlocal — covers some of the latest job changes taking place in this dynamic industry. In this week’s edition, new hires and jobs at Linkdex, Gannett, VendAsta, MOGL and LocalVox…

LBMA Podcast: Findery, Esri and Modev Founder Pete Erickson

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On the show: Spindle brings payments to K-Cups in the office; Mozilla launches an open source location service; Tide tries to DOOH up their Halloween Vines; Aptilo launches ad-supported free WiFi in Peru; Google maps Arlington National Cemetery; and Yihaodian launches 1000 augmented reality stores…

Street Fight Daily: Facebook Tests New Ratings, Google Brings Search Offline

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyFacebook Tests Out A New Star-Rating System That Could Hurt Yelp (Business Insider)… Google Brings Local Search To Digital Displays Across London (MarketingLand)… Yelp’s New Home Illustrates The Company’s Success (Forbes)…

As Revenue Lags, Groupon Forks Over $260M to LivingSocial for Korean Deals Site

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In Eric Lefkofsky’s largest acquisition since stepping in as chief executive, Groupon has bought Korean Deals site Ticket Monster from LivingSocial for $260 million in cash and stock. The deal, which was announced during the company’s earnings call Thursday, comes as the company posted a wider-than-expected loss in the third quarter due to continued weakness in international markets as well as rapid slowdown in the growth of its goods business…

Street Fight Publishes 2nd Annual ‘Local Merchant’ Research Report

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Street Fight’s “2013 Report on the State of the Local Merchant,” gets up close and personal with dozens of local merchants who shared their desires, disenchantments, successes, and failures in hyperlocal marketing. In a Street Fight survey, 40% of respondents said that “ability to drive new customers” was the No. 1 reason to spend local marketing dollars. Second most important factor was “ensure the right people are being targeted”…