News and Analysis

Dr. Soon-Shiong and His New ‘Patient,’ the L.A. Times: Will His Rx Be ‘Local’?

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My hunch is that Patrick Soon-Shiong will find that applying advanced technology to local news is not as challenging as conquering cancer, especially if he listens to what Angelinos say is their biggest concern by a wide margin – getting from their home to work or other day-to-day destinations.

Street Fight Daily: Facebook Sheds Young Users, Brands Move Marketing In-House

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook Is Shedding Those Coveted Gen-Z Users… 56% of Brands Plan to Move More Marketing In-House… What It Would Take for Amazon to Become FedEx or UPS…

#SFSW18: Street Fight Announces Winners of the 2018 Local Visionary Awards

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Street Fight has announced the winners of the 2018 Local Visionary Awards. The awards were presented in a ceremony at Street Fight Summit West. The 9-category competition honored the very best campaigns, companies, ideas, and individuals working in the local marketing and commerce ecosystem.

Commentary

Hyperlocals: ‘Use Facebook Like the Rest of the Planet’

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Facebook, with its semi-walled set-up, is where it’s at for indie hyperlocal publishers like the Valley Independent Sentinel.
We’re in a market with two of the three largest newspapers in Connecticut. The two dailies are in no way ignoring the Web. It’s their top priority, from what they keep saying. Yet we have more followers on Facebook then one of the big fellas — and we’re not too far off from the other heavy hitter.

So here are a few Facebook tips that can help independent publishers rack up the “likes”:

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…

Latest Posts

Focus Turns to Attribution in Mobile Local Ad Tech

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The promise of mobile local advertising continues to invoke the “closed loop” idea. The device’s portability and location awareness means that it goes to the store with you – enabling all new ad performance tracking opportunities. Nothing terribly new there. But it seems like the tech and media worlds are finally acknowledging that 93% U.S. retail spending happens offline. And an increasing share of that — to the tune of about $1.5 trillion — is influenced online and on mobile. So connecting those dots is the name of the game…

How Early Stage Hyperlocals Can Determine Their Ideal Customers

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Defining the ideal customer should be one of the first steps a startup takes during its earliest days, since the needs of that ideal customer will play a major role in the features and tools included in a particular hyperlocal platform. Here are five ways that early-stage hyperlocal startups can go about defining their ideal customers.

Street Fight Daily: LivingSocial Posts Another Loss, ByteLight Raises $3 Million

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyLivingSocial Posts Another Loss, Valuation Plunges (Washington Post)… Boston’s ByteLight Raises Series A As It Promises To Let Retailers Find You Anywhere (PandoDaily)… VCs Talk Location-Based Services And Why It’s Hard To Invest In Hyperlocal Startups (AdExchanger)…

Schumer Urges Retailers, Location Tech Companies To Address Privacy Issues

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During a speech at the Street Fight Summit in New York Friday, Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) spoke about his role in developing a privacy code of conduct for the location analytics industry, and the need for consumer advocates, technology companies and retailers to come together and pro-actively address the issue….

Why Partnerships Are Key to the Future of Local

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The future of local lies in partnerships. That was the topic of a wide-ranging discussion between Ohad Tzur, North America Lead for Google’s Wildfire partnership program, Delivery.com CEO Jed Kleckner, and Leaf CEO Aron Schwarzkopf, during a panel at Street Fight Summit on Friday morning…

Mobile Payments Startup Flint Raises $6 Million in Series B Round

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Flint wants to tap into local commerce by bringing payment processing, and basic marketing capabilities, to mobile — without a dongle. The Redwood-based company announced a $6 million series B round of funding at Street Fight Summit this morning to expand its solution, led by Digicel Group with additional funding from SVG Venture…

Openings and New Hires at Tribune, Trulia, Moasis, Twitter

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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 Groupon, VendAsta, MOGL, Leaf, and more…

LBMA Podcast: Zumigo, Mobiquity, and the Explosion of Wearables

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On the show: Zumigo uses location to combat payment fraud from the phone; Mobiquity Networks brings proximity marketing to broadway; Shazam breaks into bricks and mortar; Trafi helps map the unmapped; Google gets deeper into NSA territory; and Asda brings 3D printing to the grocery store…

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)…