News and Analysis
Street Fight Daily: Thumbtack Brings AI to Local Services, Amazon Go Model to Expand
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… How Thumbtack Creates Work By Giving the Yellow Pages an AI Twist… Amazon Plans to Open As Many As Six More Amazon Go Stores This Year… Twitter Tightened Up the Requirements for Its Amplify Publisher Program…
Commentary
Delivering Local Deals: It’s All About the Data
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
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
“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?”
Latest Posts
LBMA Podcast: NeoPost Acquires DMTI, ByteLight’s Series A
On the show: Superpedestrian works to commercialize the Copenhagen Wheel; Square is up against the patent wall; privacy’s voice gets stronger with the Future of Privacy Forum and Chuck Schumer; iZettle let’s you pay the homeless with your credit card; and location-based CPR assistance arrives…
Street Fight Daily: Groupon’s Big Redesign, Local Ad Tech Moves Outdoors
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Groupon Builds New Website, Eyeing Marketplace Growth (USAToday)… Vistar And Verve Link DOOH, Mobile Screens, Create Location-Based Programmatic Platform (MediaPost)… Square Market Is Attracting Sellers That Have Never Taken A Reader Payment (GigaOm)…
Hyperlocals and Scale: How a ‘No-No’ Can Be Turned Into a Win-Win
“Local doesn’t scale” is the mantra of many independent community news sites. Based on the recent wrenching experiences of some major corporate hyperlocal networks, that may be the case on some level. But what about the view from other end of the telescope — of advertisers everywhere seeking to target consumers down to the neighborhood level?
How Hyperlocal Publishers Can Strengthen Relationships With Advertisers
One of the key takeaways from the Street Fight Summit in New York was that the future of local lies in partnerships. Forging relationships with local businesses is absolutely necessary for any hyperlocal publisher hoping for long-term success. The question that remains is how, exactly, publishers should go about strengthening the relationships they’ve built with small business advertisers and other organizations in their communities…
Do Small Businesses Really Need a Website?
The website is the richest online repository of compelling information about a business, but it probably isn’t its primary means of attracting customers. Rather, customers who find you via Google Maps or Facebook may need to refer to your website in the event a third party search doesn’t provide enough information to make a buying decision. The website serves as a last stage effort to win business that hasn’t already been secured via local search…
Case Study: Udi’s Pushes Targeted Messages Using Hyperlocal App
Getting customers to participate in Udi’s Food’s paper-based loyalty program was never a challenge for Angie Hoagland, director of brand development for the Colorado-based company. But as the years went by, it was the lack of data that Hoagland was able to collect from the punch card program that led her to start looking for mobile alternatives…
Street Fight Daily: NextDoor Raises $60 Million, First Data Acquires Perka
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Nextdoor Raises $60 million In Funding To Bring Neighbors Together (GigaOm)… First Data Acquires Cardless Customer Loyalty Startup Perka (AllThingsD)… Yelp Loss Widens, With Costs Eclipsing Revenue (Wall Street Journal)…
Here’s What Twitter Needs To Do To Win Over Local Businesses
As Twitter hits the road to sell its stock to the public, the company’s monetization plans will take center stage. For Twitter’s stock to perform, the company will have to focus on growing its active user base, monetize its international users, grow mobile offerings and make money off initiatives like #music and Vine. But it will also have to crack one of the great white whales of consumer tech: the local market…
6 On-Demand Home Service Marketplaces
By going beyond basic business listings and customer reviews, and allowing consumers to actually schedule and pay for their home service providers online, hyperlocal vendors are closing the loop and converting more online prospects into paying customers. Here are six examples of hyperlocal marketplaces that consumers can use to research, reserve, and even pay for home service professionals…
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