News and Analysis

Raise Report: Pilot, Airtable, AdStage Secure New Funding

Every two or three weeks, we round up some of the biggest fundraises taking place in hyperlocal marketing, commerce, and tech. This week’s edition includes funding for RapidAPI, Chargebee, Made.com, and TheSkimm.

Openings and New Hires at Mono Solutions and Twitter

Every two weeks, Geoff Michener covers some of the latest openings and new hires in this dynamic industry. This week’s edition includes moves and new openings at Emerging Insider Communications and MoviePass.

Street Fight Daily: Snap Doubles Down on Location, A Grocery Mega-Merger?

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Location May Be the X Factor for Snap’s Appeal to Advertisers… As Amazon Applies Pressure, Target and Kroger Mull a Merger… Where and When AI Can Make a Difference in Marketing…

Commentary

How Will the “Check-in” Behavior Evolve?

Just as it began to wane, the attention paid to Foursquare as the darling of the geo-social world has reemerged in the wake of the app’s version 4.0.2 release. Two Foursquare execs were on hand to dive deeper into the update during the recent Street Fight Summit in New York…

How to Market to Local Moms

As publishers of websites for suburban moms and advocates for the main street merchants trying to woo them, we spend a lot of time thinking about what matters to the maternally minded. Since women are responsible for 85% of household purchases, reaching the “Chief Household Operator” is a key objective for most local merchants. While these tips are squarely directed at local business owners, many apply to hyperlocal news and blogs as well…

Public Radio Gears Up for Hyperlocal News Innovation

Federal, private and individual donors are all supporting myriad local and hyperlocal reporting experiments based at radio stations. The results of these initiatives have been mixed. Better and more replicable models are needed for cross-platform storytelling, participatory reporting that brings in a broader range of perspectives, and narrative forms that more closely reflect the shifting media consumption and sharing habits of younger users…

Latest Posts

6 Strategies for Managing the Expansion of Your Hyperlocal Business

As the hyperlocal industry continues to flourish, more and more vendors are experiencing growing pains. Oftentimes, expansion means larger offices, more employees, and more headaches from a business management perspective. Here are six strategies for managing an expansion as an early-stage hyperlocal, from executives who’ve made their way through the trenches and lived to tell about it…

Street Fight Daily: PayPal Nabs Uber Deal, Facebook Revises SMB Count

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyPayPal Nabs Uber Partnership in Pursuit of Mobile Marketplaces (Bloomberg Businessweek)… Facebook Expands Its Definition Of Small Business Pages, Says It Now Has 25M Of Them (TechCrunch)… Digital First Media Will Add Paywalls At Most Of Its Daily Newspapers (GigaOm)…

Study: Mobile Revenues Growing Faster Than Expected

A new study from BIA/Kelsey finds that mobile advertising revenues may be picking up more quickly than previously thought. In the fall 2013 update to its Local Media Forecast, the research firm projects that U.S. mobile advertising revenues will jump from $7.03 billion in 2012 to over $20 billion in 2017. Meanwhile, local’s share of mobiles spending continues to grow, with local targeting set to touch one of every two dollars spent on mobile advertising by 2017.

5 On-Demand Fulfillment Platforms For Holiday Shoppers

As the days get shorter and the weather gets cold, shoppers are less likely to venture outside to make purchases from brick-and-mortar stores. But that doesn’t mean community businesses have to admit defeat in their battle for market share against online-only retailers. A number of on-demand fulfillment platforms are providing holiday shoppers with tools to make purchases from local retailers without leaving home…

New Report Examines Effect of Localized Ads On Holiday Sales

A new white paper from Neustar, “Localized Online Ads Mean Stronger Holiday Sales,” takes an in-depth look at the science of local targeting and the effect that it can have on a company’s overall marketing strategy. Although there is no denying that the direct purchase of contextual ads from mammoth publications allows marketers to reach millions of readers at once, these tactics may not work well for marketers with key performance indicators like engagement and sales…

Street Fight Daily: Turnover At Clinkle, Disney Nears Personalization At Parks

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology>A Lot Of People Have Already Left Clinkle, A Buzzy Payment App That Still Hasn’t Launched (Business Insider)… Disney World Characters Aren’t Greeting All the Visiting Kids by Name — Yet (AllThingsD)… Can Same-Day Delivery Succeed This Time? (MIT Technology Review)…

What Closed Circuit TV Can Tell Retailers About Customers

Prism Skylabs, a San Francisco-based startup, has built software that analyzes video streams, measuring everything from overall store traffic to heat maps illustrating the way in which customers move through a store. The company, which closed $15 million round in October, also provides retailers with remote access to surveillance feeds, allowing businesses to replace some of the costly quality assurance testing…

#SFSNYC VIDEO: Scale Still Elusive for Hyperlocals, But Hope Springs Eternal

According to BuzzMachine blogger and author Jeff Jarvis, AOL’s Patch did hyperlocal scale all wrong: “What they should have been was a sales network for local sites,” he said during a conversation with CBS Local Digital Media President Ezra Kucharz at Street Fight Summit last month. “If that existed, other local sites would have been able to start. It would have led to mass opportunity…”

LBMA Podcast: Decawave, Drinks4You, and Opterus’ Janet Hawkins

On the show: Tesco face-scans and targets ads in 450 gas stations in the U.K.; Amazon payments brings location-based ads; AutoTrader partners with Chatmeter to help marry social and local; and L’Oreal hopes to sell product in the subways of New York City…

Street Fight Daily: eBay Aims at Angie’s List, Isis Expands Nationwide

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyeBay Debuts New Angie’s List Competitor And Local Service Provider Marketplace, eBayHire, In The US (TechCrunch)… Carrier-Backed Isis Mobile Payment System Rolls Out Nationwide (Verge)… Flush with Cash, NextDoor Adding 100 Neighborhoods a Day (Screenwerk)…