News and Analysis

Drawbridge Partners with mParticle to Help Brands Deliver Personalized Experiences

Share this:

“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

Share this:

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

Share this:

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

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

Share this:

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…

The Hyperlocal Journalist and the Salesperson

Share this:

“I worry about the future of my profession when I see large segments of the online news industry failing to rigorously test the kinds of revenue models journalism needs to survive,” writes CJR’s Michael Meyer, who runs the News Frontier Database. “Taking our content seriously is a basic requirement, but are we taking ourselves (or even readers) seriously if we’re not wholly committed to monetizing it?”

U-Deals Represent a ‘Profound’ Shift in Consumer Dynamic

Share this:

Loopt’s new u-Deals services has been widely dismissed it as not much more than a “reverse Groupon.” But there are a couple of reasons that such comparisons are a mistake — and that the u-Deals model may be more profound than it first appears.

Latest Posts

Riverhead Local Revenues Show Hyperlocal Display Ads Still Have Life

Share this:

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

Share this:

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

Share this:

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

Share this:

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..

Case Study: Cosi Drives In-Store Visits With Mobile Campaign

Share this:

Traditional media buys can generate brand awareness, but when it comes to driving foot traffic, it’s all about mobile. “The most important thing for us is to drive traffic to either increase visits from current customers or to bring new customers in,” says Marc Lapides, director of marketing at Cosi, the fast-casual restaurant chain with more than 100 locations in 16 states and the District of Columbia. “We really wanted to find a way to use mobile technologies to drive people into the store.”

Street Fight Daily: eBay Acquires Shutl, Tracking Companies Set New Rules

Share this:

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyeBay Acquires Shutl, Races Amazon To Your Front Door (ReadWrite)… Tracking Companies Agree to Notify Shoppers, But Retailers Demur (Wall Street Journal)… Why Longtime Netflix CFO Barry McCarthy Just Agreed to Work for Clinkle’s 22-Year-Old CEO (AllThingsD)…

What Legacy Local Media Can Learn From the Red Sox

Share this:

In advance of 2013, the Red Sox again fired the team’s manager, changed the executive suite, and reinvented the workforce. The new goal: replace high-cost and complaining “superstars” with a talented new group who bought into the new model. The organization became more horizontal and the salary of the team dropped by 20%. Meanwhile, over the course of the year, productivity increased by 40%…

6 Tools Restaurants Can Use to Fill Tables at the Last Minute

Share this:

With one in five dinner reservations resulting in a no-show, according to some estimates, restaurant owners are always searching for low-cost ways to fill empty tables at the last-minute. Increasingly, these frustrated restaurateurs are turning to hyperlocal vendors for a solution. Utilizing a combination of geotargeted messaging and real-time inventory control, restaurants are able to incentivize would-be diners to come in and fill tables that would otherwise have remained empty. Here are six tools that restaurants can use to fill tables at the last minute…

Street Fight Daily: Google’s New Small Business Tool, Why Top Amazon Exec Went To Groupon

Share this:

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyGoogle’s Maps Engine Pro Aims To Help Small Businesses Visualize Location Data As Easily As They Make A Pie Chart (TechCrunch)… Why Amazon Prime’s Top Exec Bolted for a New Job at Groupon (ALlThingsD)… PaperG Brushes Off Competition From Google, Continues To Grow Profitably (PandoDaily)…

How Back-Office Innovation Is Transforming Local Marketing

Share this:

Over the past few years, we’ve watched as a host of payment processing, point-of-sale and scheduling services have popped up, helping local businesses manage day-to-day operations in more efficient ways. Using the cloud, these ‘commerce’ software plays have begun to undercut a number of large legacy companies, shaking up industries which have remained static for decades. In a new report, Street Fight takes a look at the impact of supply-side technologies on the local marketing industry, detailing the opportunities and risks that these emergent services present to existing solutions providers…