News and Analysis
Upserve Uses Restaurant Transaction Data to Track Industry Trends
Upserve recently released its State of the Restaurant Industry Report, using data pulled from thousands of restaurants and millions of transactions through the United States. Performing a retroactive analysis, Upserve’s data science team looked at 2017 trends to see which predicted trends lived up to the hype, and which fell flat.
Commentary
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?…
Police Scanners and Speculation = Necessary Hyperlocal Journalism?
A lively discussion erupted yesterday in the comments section of Street Fight’s interview with B-Town Blog’s Scott Schaefer. At issue: Schaefer’s suggestion that sites did their communities disservice by reporting on rumors and information that comes over the transom via unconfirmed rumors and police scanner reports… Among those taking issue were The Batavian’s Howard Owens, who wrote: “When you don’t do scanner reports, you’re missing a key to audience growth and retention, and I think abandoning your ethical obligation as a real-time news service to keep readers fully informed.”…
Foursquare, Groupon, and the Market-Making Problem
With Groupon’s filing to go public last week, there has been even more debate over the two-sided market strategy of consumers and local merchants. Another business that has focused on this approach is Foursquare. Is the window of opportunity closing for Foursquare to become the breakout success it could be? The answer depends on how much the company is willing to change its DNA to serve both sides of their market — and perhaps take a few lessons on self-serve and average selling price from Groupon…
Latest Posts
Gauging Hummingbird’s Impact on Local SEO
Standardization of data structure on simple things like name-address-phone number (NAP) information, mapping, local business category, organization (micro-formats) are now starting to pick up steam and become increasingly important for local search and discovery. Now with Hummingbird, things are about to get even more interesting…
Street Fight Daily: Yahoo Revisits Ad Consortium, Yelp Goes To Washington
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Newspapers’ Ad Consortium With Yahoo Reboots (Poynter)… Yelp Just Got Its First D.C. Lobbyist (Fast Company)… WhitePages.com Fulfills Its Enterprise Destiny, Launches WhitePages PRO Identity Verification Platform (PandoDaily)…
Survey of ‘Indie’ Hyperlocals Finds Mixed Bag When It Comes to Revenue
There are hundreds of independent community news sites in the U.S. — thousands if you count blogs — but only 131 of them meet the standards of “Michele’s List.” The list was assembled and is periodically updated by journalist/researcher/consultant Michele McLellan, who was the principal founder of Block by Block, a network that inspired (and goaded) “indie” community editors and publishers to focus, and stay focused, on achieving sustainability in the brave new world of digital journalism. McLellan, who still compiles her “list,” talked with Street Fight recently about what her new survey revealed….
Famous Footwear Integrates Mobile App With Digital Wallet, Rewards
As shoppers grow more accustomed to using their smartphones to research products and search for coupons while shopping in-store, retailers are being forced to introduce their own branded mobile apps just to keep up. Famous Footwear is one of the latest retailers to jump onboard, with a mobile app that integrates with the company’s rewards program and provides shoppers with features meant to improve the in-store shopping experience…
Street Fight Daily: Foursquare’s Real-Time Recs, First Data (Re)Launches POS
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… With Real-Time Recommendations, Foursquare Checks Into Google And Apple’s Turf (ReadWrite)… First Data Quietly Buys Payments Startup Clover; Launches Point Of Sale Platform For Merchants (TechCrunch)… Google Now Cards Invade The New Google Maps (SearchEngineLand)…
Study: Digital Ad Revenues Grow As Mobile Accelerates
Internet advertising revenues surged in the first half of 2013, reaching $20.1 billion on continued growth in the mobile sector, according to new study commissioned by the IAB, and conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Mobile revenues, which include both smartphones and tablet media, more than doubled in Q1 and Q2, growing from $1.2 billion in 2012 to over $3 billion this year…
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