News and Analysis
Raise Report: Salesloft, Nift, Intercom Score New Funding
Every two or three weeks, we round up some of the biggest fundraises taking place in hyperlocal marketing, commerce, and tech. This week’s edition includes funding for Fastdata.io, Kloudless, Instacart, and Neighbor.
Street Fight Daily: Brands Wise Up About Location Tech, Google’s Exchange Bidding Exits Beta
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… How Brands Are Getting More Sophisticated at Using Location Data… Google’s Answer to Header Bidding Is Now Generally Available… Instacart Raises Another $150 Million…
Toys ‘R’ Us Foot Traffic Analysis Reveals Challenges in Smaller Markets
The results of a new foot traffic analysis conducted by the location data firm Factual reveal that Toys “R” Us’ demise, while partly attributable to Amazon’s strength, could just as easily be blamed on stiff competition from within the brick-and-mortar retail market.
Commentary
Unpacking the Twisted Thinking of Small Business Self-Service Online
Feeling “in control” is the most central need with merchant behavior. How can they feel in control of how they drive results with technology; how do they know if they are out-performing competition; and how do they know if customers are satisfied?
When Credit Card Companies Can’t Process Hyperlocal Risk
If you are working with merchants in any capacity and processing payments for them, then you can probably expect credit card processors to give you a hard time. They might accept your account and then shut you down, or charge you prohibitive fees and cap the amount you can process, stifling growth…
Why Isn’t Mobile Display Advertising Huge Yet?
Instead of trying to force web paradigms onto mobile, advertisers should be rushing to localize their message and take advantage of the 1-2 punch of smartphones’ portability and location…
Latest Posts
Street Fight Daily: Square CEO’s Gift, Groupon Expands Point-of-Sale
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.… Square’s Dorsey Returns 10% of his Shares (Fortune)… For Groupon, The iPad is its New Passport to Global Markets (Washington Business Journal)… UrbanSpoon Hires New Top Exec, Hopes to Emerge from Restaurant Discovery Pack (PandoDaily)…
DemandForce CMO: There’s No Limit to Where We Will Want to Go
If Google’s acquisition of Waze was the biggest exit in local tech over the past few years, Intuit’s buy of Demandforce was arguably the most important. Since shelling out nearly half of a billion dollars for the retention marketing software provider, the company has quietly executed on a strategy to position itself an integrated solutions provider for small businesses…
Openings and New Hires at Patch, Callfire, Kenshoo and Radiate Media
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 BIA/Kelsey, AOL, User Friendly Media, and more…
LBMA Podcast: LIVE From MoDevEast!
On the show: UC Berkeley tests image-based indoor location; Qualcomm’s Gimbal sensors hit the street; Mojiva partners with Retailigence; and Pitney Bowes partners with Twitter. Special guest is Barg Upender, founder of Mobomo…
Street Fight Daily: Foursquare Raises Another $35M, eBay’s Strategy for Offline Commerce
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.…. Foursquare Raises a $35 Million Round and Adds DFJ’s Schuler to the Board (AllThingsD)… EBay’s Strategy for Taking On Amazon (New York Times)… Nextdoor Talks Growth, Now Being Used In One In Six Neighborhoods In The US (TechCrunch)…
Why Small Local Sites *Must* Have Multiple Revenue Streams
“If there is a ‘model’ for community news, it’s finding the right mix of diverse revenue streams that are best suited to the particular conditions of a news organization’s local market and journalistic mission,” says Jake Batsell of NewsBiz. “But that diversity of revenue is critical, because news outlets depending on a single stream of income are leaving themselves vulnerable…”
Case Study: Caribou Coffee Amps Up Holiday Sales With Mobile Gift Cards
In an effort to enhance Caribou Coffee’s mobile marketing capabilities, and spur a boost in gift card sales during the important holiday shopping season, vice president of marketing Michele Vig launched an eGift card initiative in early November. Now, customers who purchase eGift cards online can send their gifts to friends via email. Recipients can then redeem their gifts by showing their smartphones to a cashier or printing the gift card at home and handing over a paper printout…
Street Fight Daily: Moovit Raises $28M, Local’s Next IPO
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.… Moovit Raises A $28M Sequoia-led Funding Round For Its Public Transit Service (PandoDaily)… Local Heroes: The Public Companies of Tomorrow (AllThingsD)… Hey Uber, Lyft Is Growing Faster Than You (TechCrunch)…
Could Patch Find New Life as a SaaS Platform for Local Publishers?
At this point, the best path forward for Armstrong to realize his noble goal of delivering high-quality community news might just be to simply throw open the gates and recast Patch as a publishing platform for small and medium-sized publishers…
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…
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Meta Is Automating Ads, But Brands Still Face a Bigger Problem