News and Analysis

Street Fight Daily: Microsoft Makes a Big Move, Snap Slashes Ad Team Numbers

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Microsoft Is Ready for a World Beyond Windows… Snap Cuts About 100 Employees on the Advertising Side of the Biz… How Facebook’s Shutdown of Third-Party Data Affects Advertisers…

4Cite’s Email Platform Helps Digital Brands Secure the Path to Purchase

“Across the board with all of our retail clients, the most successful marketing campaign they have is their abandoned shopping cart email campaigns,” 4Cite CEO Bob Gaito said, referring to emails sent to remind customers that they have items left in their shopping carts.

Street Fight Daily: Google Puts Mobile First, Facebook Cuts Out Third-Party Data Brokers

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Search Takes Another Big Step Toward a Mobile-First World… Facebook Is Cutting Third-Party Data Providers Out of Ad Targeting… Amazon Directly Hires Housekeepers to Conquer Local Services…

Commentary

Hyperpublic: Structuring Place Data, Redefining Hyperlocal’s Scope

What might we see spring forth from the ether when local data is properly structured? It’s easy to imagine various applications of search — i.e. “Show me all wine bars that serve croquettes.” Similarly, one can imagine that this type of data would be immensely valuable to advertisers who want to target, for example, everybody who drinks beer and is in walking distance of an establishment…

Why Local Will Dominate Mobile Ad Spend

BIA/Kelsey’s U.S. Mobile Local Ad Revenue Forecast projects that local mobile ad spend will go from $320 million last year to $3.37 billion in 2015 — when it will comprise about 2/3 of overall ad spend. Why will locally targeted ads be so dominant in the coming years?

Why Hyperlocal Marketing Will Best Gamification

Hyperlocal marketing strategy and gamification both strive to accomplish the same purposes: attract new customers and drive increased customer-visit frequency. And yet one of these won’t be fueling marketing efforts just a couple years from now. In my mind, it’s hyperlocal that wins, while gamification, as defined and promoted today, disappears.

Latest Posts

#SFSNYC VIDEO: The Next Billion-Dollar Exit in Hyperlocal

With Google’s acquisition of Waze earlier this year, local tech is back in the limelight. During a panel at Street Fight Summit in New York last month, Matt Turck of First Mark Capital, Ben Siscovick of IA Ventures, and Jason Klein from OnGrid Ventures discussed where the best investing opportunities are these days in the local…

LBMA Podcast: Placecodes, Pinterest, Shopkick and Verve Mobile

On the show: Placecodes helps you find your Friendly’s ice cream; Macy’s deploys ShopBeacon from ShopKick; PlaceIQ announces PIQ and PreVisit; Pinterest adds Place Pins; Bombsquare opens your city to virtual war against real friends; Philips and Desso create light transmissive carpet…

Street Fight Daily: Retailers Embrace Showrooming, Pinterest Pins Main Street

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.Retailers Seek Partners in Social Networks (New York Times)… Pinterest Piques Interest On The High Street (Financial Times)… Surprise: Everyone Hates Working for the 22-Year-Old’s Mystery Startup (Gawker)…

How Reviews and Ratings are Driving Local Search

Despite the tremendous amount of press we have seen on fake reviews, ongoing interest in reviews by consumers and local search providers make it clear that these services aren’t going away. As platforms give reviews more importance and improve their ability to filter out fake ones — and government officials crack down on dishonest practices — consumer trust and use of reviews can only be expected to grow. This trend will continue to increase the impact they have on local businesses…

5 Signs That It’s Time for Your Hyperlocal Company to Pivot

The majority of hyperlocal startups will pivot at least once in their lifetimes. Many will pivot two or even three times. But as a founder who’s looking to steer his or her company in the right direction, it can be difficult to determine whether to keep plowing forward with an original concept or go a new direction. Here are five signs that it’s time for your hyperlocal startup to pivot, from industry leaders who’ve been there before…

#SFSNYC VIDEO: How Big Data Is Revolutionizing Retail

In a panel at Street Fight Summit in New York last month, experts from the retail analytics space explored the ways big data is transforming the retail industry. Wesley Barrow, CRO at Nomi and Alexei Agratchev, CEO at RetailNext talked about how retailers can maximize profit from the moment a shopper walks into their store. Meanwhile, Larry Promisel, SVP Digital Commerce at Camuto Group, offered the retailer’s perspective, saying that while privacy is concerning for retailers, the overall benefit of creating the better experience a customer wants outweighs those concerns…

Street Fight Daily: Google Adds Review Dashboard, Ads Enter The Car

“A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing commerce, and technologyGoogle Gives Business Owners A Single Place Online To See All Their Customers’ Reviews (TechCrunch)… Harman, Placecast Test In-car Radio Ads That Know Where You Are (GigaOm)… Uber Customer Claims Abuse And Assault By Driver. Uber Confirms: Yes, He Works For Us (PandoDaily)…

Shopkick, iBeacon and the Future of In-Store Tech

Thanks to a number of new technologies — namely, Bluetooth LE and Apple’s iBeacon protocol — in-store location is entering a new phase in its maturity. There are still a number of wrinkles in the technology to iron out — first and foremost, making it work across devices — but the new generation of beacons solve many of the issues that have traditionally limited in-store tech. Here’s where we are and what to expect…

ARLnow Expands to Third Community in Metro D.C. – Reston, Va.

Independent hyperlocal publisher Scott Brodbeck has launched a third digital news publication in the suburbs of metro Washington, D.C. His new RestonNow serves a thriving, nationally recognized planned community that was built from scratch on farmland in Northern Virginia’s Fairfax County…

6 Tools SMBs Can Use to Monitor Customer Sentiment

As many as 80% of SMB mobile advertisers now perform some type of online sentiment monitoring as a way to get a better understanding of what customers are really feeling about their business. Sentiment analysis, which is loosely defined as “detecting and understanding how the audience is reacting to a brand, either positively or negatively,” has an important role in the small business owner’s marketing playbook. Here are six tools that SMBs can use for this exact purpose…