News and Analysis
#SFSW18: Local’s Visual Future: The Rise of AR, VR, and New Customer Experiences
“We want to please the restaurants and we want to please the users,” said Danny Gordon, CEO of Auredi, just one company at Street Fight Summit West using visual technology to enrich customer experiences. “It’s unbelievable the amount of excitement we see when we show customers dishes that look exactly like they do in person.”
#SFSW18: How Nextdoor Is Building a Business Around Neighbors
Nextdoor is an app exclusively devoted to the local communities that keep the lights on for small businesses. Prakash Janakiraman, co-founder and chief architect of Nextdoor, joined Mike Boland, Street Fight’s analyst in residence, at Street Fight Summit West in Los Angeles Wednesday afternoon to discuss Nextdoor’s growth into a billion-dollar local business.
Commentary
Google Offers: Not a ‘Groupon Killer’ (But Still Pretty Killer)
It’s been widely reported over the past few weeks that Google has launched a deals platform known as Offers. But most of this coverage has missed the point — falling into the tired but pervasive trope of “[insertnamehere] Killer” claims (in this case, Groupon). Offers will be similar to Groupon in some ways, but its economics and mobile integration are quite different. Comparisons aside, the real story is how Offers plugs into Google’s massive distribution network of search, Gmail, mobile and about 26 other products.
Hyperlocal Case Study: Efficiency, Aggregation, and Profit
There’s one thing every publisher of a local news site knows: making enough ad dollars to get paid is hard. In fact it’s really hard. But it’s been my experience that if we look at why the Web is so dang good, we can make the struggle to keep the lights on a stiff hike rather than a mountain climb. At TheDigitel, which I founded in 2008 to offer a central place for hyperlocal coverage in Charleston, S.C., we’ve managed to carve out a niche among a saturated market (we have several conventional media outlets and a vibrant local blog and Twitter community) by taking an evolving approach to creating content and winning advertisers…
Using Mobile Inventory Data to Drive Foot Traffic
It’s no secret that local brick and mortar retailers have been heavily competing with online shopping for years now. So, how do these stores stay competitive in an environment where Amazon offers free shipping, no taxes, and consumers can shop from the comfort of their own home? In other words: how do retailers localize their presence, stand out from the crowd and bring shoppers right to their front door?…
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Street Fight Daily: Patch Staffs Top Sites Only, BrandNetworks Acquires Optimal
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Patch Will Staff Outlets In Top-Performing Areas Only, Memo Says (Poynter)… Social Ad Companies Team Up As Brand Networks Acquires Optimal For $35M (TechCrunch)… In-Store Analytics Firm Nomi Raises $10 Million, Looks Beyond Retail (Mashable)…
Case Study: Natural Food Chain Sees Steady Growth In Mobile Coupon Redemptions
One-in-five consumers has downloaded a supermarket app, and the majority of those consumers use their mobile apps at least twice a month. In an effort to get in on the trend, PCC Natural Markets, a health food co-op with nine locations in Washington, partnered with Chinook Book earlier this year on a mobile coupon app. “Print coupons are still very popular — we get a ton of them that come through our registers — but it’s inevitable that digital coupons will become more prominent,” says Tom Monahan, marketing manager at PCC.
Street Fight Daily: GoDaddy Continues Buying Spree, Walmart Expands Same-Day Delivery
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… GoDaddy on an Acquisition Tear: Five Companies Since February (Screenwerk)… Walmart Expands Same-Day Grocery Delivery To Denver (TechCrunch)… Savings.com Launches Favado Mobile App, Aims To Solve Grocery Savings Once And For All (PandoDaily)…
The Government Shutdown and the Local Data Economy
For the most part, local search appears to demonstrate with flying colors the benefits of getting things done in the private sector. Not only is it a self-sustaining and profitable industry; it exhibits a drive to innovate that brings ever-improving services to our desktops and handheld devices at a dizzying pace. Imagine if local directories and apps were run by the same bureaucracy that manages the Postal Service, the IRS, and the Census Bureau. We’d probably still be using phone books. Yet at a fundamental level, governmental authorities still act as objective reference points when it comes to information of interest to the public…
5 Mobile Payment Platforms With Integrated Marketing Solutions
When a cashier swipes a customer’s credit card at a mobile point of sale terminal, he’s doing more than just processing a financial transaction. He’s transmitting data about who that customer is, what he’s buying, and when he’s buying it. Although this data has traditionally been closely guarded by legacy POS vendors, an increasing number of providers are opening up their doors and giving merchants a peek inside—using the data they gather through customer transactions to fuel integrated marketing programs for merchants…
The Local Conference You Don’t Want to Miss
It’s that time of year again when the most exciting companies in local gather in New York City to hash through and celebrate the best ideas and strategies. Street Fight Summit is coming next Thursday and Friday to TriBeCa, and one of the themes we’re focusing on this year is partnerships. Partnerships are a key reason we have been bringing people together for the last few years, but never have they been such a high-profile, essential element of success as they have become over the past year…
Street Fight Daily: PayPal Teams With Revel, Drones Deliver Same-Day
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… PayPal Expands “Real World” Presence Via Integration With iPad Point-of-Sale Maker Revel Systems (TechCrunch)… Zookal Starts “World First” Delivery-By-Drone Service In Sydney (PandoDaily)… Report: Google Smartwatch “Heavy Into” Google Now Functionality (GigaOm)…
Foursquare Introduces Ads For Small Businesses
This morning the company rolled out its flagship small business advertising product, capping a two-year effort to solve the company’s toughest challenge yet: making money. With the new product, which the company has been piloting in New York since May, local businesses will be able to buy ads that surface in the search results pages or home screen of its popular mobile app…
Should Hyperlocal Publishers Accept Barter Deals?
Most of the better known hyperlocal sites we contacted told us they didn’t do trade or barter, and they didn’t want to talk about it on the record. In Dallas, hyperlocal pioneer Mike Orren said people don’t talk about it because they don’t want to attract the attention of auditors, or they don’t want competitors to know that they’ll do barter. He agreed, however, that trade is “absolutely viable” for independents…
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