News and Analysis

Drawbridge Partners with mParticle to Help Brands Deliver Personalized Experiences

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“Brands don’t want to engage with devices, they want to engage with consumers,” wrote Brian Ferrario, VP of Marketing at Drawbridge. “Devices don’t buy stuff, grow affinity with brands, or help amplify brand messages. People do.”

With 66 Franchises, TAPinto Is Ready to Expand Up and Down Coast

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TAPinto has grown into a network of 71 hyperlocal news sites, 66 of them operated by independent franchisees and five owned by CEO Mike Shapiro. Most of the sites are in North and Central New Jersey and five are in New York City suburbs in the Westchester area north of the city.

Street Fight Daily: Amazon Begins Whole Foods Deliveries, SEO Metrics To Bear in Mind

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon Begins Offering Whole Foods Deliveries via Prime… SEO Metrics You Should Be Tracking But Probably Aren’t… A Crazy Idea for Funding Local News: Charge People for It…

Commentary

Brownstoner: The End of the Open Thread

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One of the biggest challenges facing any hyperlocal publisher is the development, maintenance, and growth of audience. If you are starting from scratch, one of your first challenges is to find that core audience — the rabid readers that will check back 10 or more times a day to see what you’ve got for them next. But as a site develops, and its audience becomes more established, the questions change.

Delivering Local Deals: It’s All About the Data

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It’s become clear that the two hottest areas of digital media — deals and mobile — are colliding. Mobile payments (i.e. Google Wallet) are meanwhile closing the loop on decades-old deal redemption and tracking challenges. This has led to another important variable: Data. More specifically, mobile payment technologies open the door for more comprehensive consumer purchase data, which can fold back into the equation for more targeted deal delivery…

How to Use Flipboard to Create a Killer DIY Hyperlocal Publication in 5 Minutes

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For anyone who owns an iPad, it’s no surprise that Flipboard is a breakthrough. The one-year-old application allows you to instantly turn any news site, social feed, or photo stream into a slick, tablet-optimized, ad-free magazine — a pretty neat parlor trick. Apple selected it as their app of the year and Time listed it as one of their top 50 innovations of 2010…

Latest Posts

LivingSocial CEO: Our Business Isn’t ‘Daily Deals,’ It’s Ad Dollars

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“We realized with the asset base that we had that we should be able to do other things and leverage it into new areas,” said Tim O’Shaughnessy at Street Fight Summit on Thursday in New York. “How do we take the hundreds of thousands of merchants that we work with, the tens of millions of customers that we have, this big salesforce, and a technology team and figure out new ways to get customers through the doors of merchants.”

Street Fight Daily: Uber’s Regulator Fight Continues, Google’s New Take On Self-Service

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyWhy Is Uber Fighting a Regulatory Battle That It Already Won? (AllThingsD)… Google Updates Its Self-Service Offers Tool (TheNextWeb)… Square’s Credit Card Payments Are Great, But Here’s What The Company Actually Does Best (Business Insider)…

For Groupon, Resurgence Is In The Numbers

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Even as investors interest in daily deals company has waned, the game is not over for Groupon, and others in the deals space. After a calamitous 2012 , the company has bounced backed in 2013 thanks, in part, to a rise in the number of merchants offering longer-running, recurring campaigns instead of one-off deals, according to Jim Moran, co-founder at Yipit, who gave the afternoon keynote at Street Fight Summit in New York on Thursday…

In Race to Go Local, Brands Push Ahead Cautiously

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There’s been a quiet emigration in the local technology world away from the mom-and-pop market, with startups and existing players alike moving upstream to bigger brands with more. During a panel at Street Fight Summit in New York Thursday, executives from Groupon, YP, and the well-funded upstart Brand Networks sat down with AdAge’s Michael Learmonth to talk about the growing interest in local among brands, and the limitations that are holding them back…

Who’s The Future Of Local Search? The Consumer.

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As more and more consumers look to buy, as well as find and discover local businesses, online, the industry has evolved. During a panel at Street Fight Summit in New York Thursday, panelists from Yelp, Bing, and Yext gathered to discuss the evolving role of commerce in the local search industries, and strategies for the industry to adapt…

What Brands Are Doing Wrong On Mobile

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As consumers spend more time using mobile devices than browsing the web and even watching television, a mobile strategy isn’t an opportunity; it’s a matter of survival, says Urban Airship chief marketing officer Brent Hieggelke. During a keynote at Street Fight Summit in New York Thursday, Hieggelke argued that brands need to change the way they approach mobile, shifting from looking at the platform as yet another marketing channel to treating it as a central tool in creating a better consumer experience…

Riverhead Local Revenues Show Hyperlocal Display Ads Still Have Life

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Some local media observers say display ads don’t work anymore. But don’t tell that to Riverhead Local’s Denise Civiletti. In this wide-ranging Q&A she talks about why display continues to be the major revenue source for her site, and why she still believes “local doesn’t scale.”

Street Fight Daily: Showrooming’s False Threat, Groupon ‘Designed’ For Mobile

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyShowrooming Is Not A Threat To Retailers’ Revenue (eConsultancy)… Groupon CEO: Our Deals Are ‘Designed For Mobile’ (CNBC)… OpenTable Is Hoping For A Second Helping (PandoDaily)…

Why Attribution Is the ‘New Black’ in Local Marketing

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Advertising performance measurement has never been a simple process, but cross-platform consumer media usage, mobile, and advanced targeting technologies have made the process of linking ad engagement to a consumer purchase action even more challenging. The next generation of proper attribution has become essential for the ad tech industry and marketers looking to make ROI-driven advertising decisions…

Why It’s So Hard to Create Marketplaces for Local Commerce

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Recognizing the success of Uber, startups and incumbents alike rushed to replicate the company’s model in other verticals, developing new products to help business and consumers buy and sell local services like car repair, house cleaning, and haircuts. MyTime, the 9-month old project launched by RedBeacon founder Ethan Anderson, is one of these and is staying the course. When I spoke with Anderson last week, he outlined a few key strategic decisions and clever hacks, which have helped the company get some early traction for its marketplace..