News and Analysis
Street Culture: A Culture of Growth at PacketZoom
“Introducing [new employees] to the culture has been very important; it’s important that the people we hire are growth-oriented,” PacketZoom co-founder Chetan Ahuja says. “We want them to already be useful to the business, but their main goal is to grow and to grow with the company. They’re much more valuable that way.”
Street Fight Daily: Benchmark’s Kalanick Suit Dismissed, IAB Releases Influencer Guidelines
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Benchmark’s Lawsuit Against Former Uber CEO Kalanick Dismissed (TechCrunch) It’s over. Benchmark’s lawsuit against former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has now been dropped, ending one of the biggest VC-founder disputes in history. Street Culture: A Culture of Growth at PacketZoom (Street Fight) “Introducing [new employees] […]
Commentary
Civic Networking: The Next Next Thing?
This is the first in a series of guest posts by thought leaders in the local arena. We asked where local-social media might go in 2011.
By Tom Grubisich
Some Cassandras are forecasting the end of social networking. I will keep my ear next to my computer for the sound of some 600 million people migrating to the next big thing, but don’t think Facebook faces doomsday any time soon. Or Foursquare, Yelp or Gowalla, to name just a few of the proliferating social networks that have claimed a piece of Web space. But I do think social networking is on the threshold of an important evolution that will both affirm its basic value but also take it into new and ever more beneficial directions. Shaping this transformation are economic, technological and societal forces that are propelling people toward a path with many entry points but one destination: to act together and to do so smarter and locally…
Ultra Local, Simplicity, Ego Lead the Way in 2011
I thought I’d wait for the smoke to clear on all the 2011 tech prognostications before filing a few of my own. These are actually a bit less predictions than bankable trends. Their focus is on mobile but also the things around the edges that will make mobile-local interesting, scary, useful, intrusive and wonderful in the coming 363 days.
Simple Gets Simpler: Successful online and mobile experiences will become much closer to being intuitive than ever before, anticipating not the geek’s natural next clicks but the average Jane’s. I’m not talking about Web 2.X, with its big buttons, oversize input boxes and Ajax popovers but rather one action to the next dictated by the glassy smoothness of an inhale following and exhale. This is true behavioral anticipation leaving no room for confusion and no time for pause. Simple = successful…
7 Things I Want From My Phone for Christmas
I’m a little weary of the “Holiday Tech Stuff” roundups, as I suspect are you, so let’s just leap right into what I’d demand from Cell-a-Claus and his App Elves, were he to ask.
I’ve been a goo… not horrible guy this year, Cell-a, really. And I’m not asking for anything current technology would not permit. So please bring me the following:
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Latest Posts
Street Fight Daily: Google Wallet Comes To iOS, Groupon’s Monster Rally
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Google Wallet Finally Comes to the iPhone (With a Big Asterisk) (AllThingsD)… Three Reasons Groupon’s Monster Rally Will Continue (Wall Street Journal)… Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman Ignored Advice From Elon Musk and Peter Thiel And Succeeded Anyway (CNNMoney)…
Community News Revenues: How the Networks Compare to the ‘Indies’
I was surprised — shocked, actually — to discover that the regional community news network Daily Voice has average ad sales of only $38,000 annually on a current basis at each of its 41 sites in suburban Connecticut and New York. Is this the new normal for ad revenue at community news sites? I went to four other community news publishers-owners, all independents, to get their reaction…
Case Study: Lowe’s Builds On Mobile Strategy With In-Store Item Locators
As consumers get savvier in the way they use mobile technology while shopping at brick-and-mortar stores, retailers are beginning to provide their own tools to combat the showrooming effect. For Lowe’s, that means offering mobile tools that shoppers can use to locate items in-store, scan barcodes, read product reviews, check out image galleries, and manage their own loyalty program accounts…
Street Fight Daily: Groupon Bolsters Events, nCrowd’s Acquisition Spree Continues
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Groupon Bolsters its Offerings With SideTour Deal (Wall Street Journal)… Still Clinging To The Daily Deals Dream? One (Very Active) Buyer Temains (PandoDaily)… Why Consumer Reports Says You Can’t Trust Angie’s List (Forbes)…
Calculating the ROI of Local Search Campaigns
How can we calculate just how much return a given business can expect on the investment of time, money, or both into a local search campaign? For many business owners, it’s that type of dollars and cents calculation that will drive them to decide whether or not to move forward with a campaign. Other metrics are important but ultimately secondary to the bottom line…
Marketing to the ‘Happy’ Majority of SMBs
The local search industry needs to offer more responsive solutions for the average small business owner. The industry can’t simply drive more leads — it has to drive more, better-qualified, and better-paying leads at profit margins that incentivize buy-in from a business consumer that demands all or nothing. Only by catering to the “disconnected and contented majority” can the industry push itself to the highest standard of usability and convenience…
Street Fight Daily: Google Wallet Expands, Square IPO ‘Eventual’
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Google Expands Digital Wallet Offering (Wall Street Journal)… Jack Dorsey: Square IPO Will Happen ‘Eventually’ (Mashable)… With Webvan’s Implosion as Cautionary Tale, Instacart Slowly Begins to Expand, Starting With Chicago (AllThingsD))…
8 Strategies for Selling Cloud-Based POS Systems to SMBs
Cloud-based point-of-sale systems are an easy sell for vendors working with small businesses without existing mechanisms in place for handling transactions, but getting an established merchant who has already invested thousands of dollars in a legacy POS system to consider making the switch to mobile is a trickier proposition. So what is the secret to onboarding more merchants, including those who already have hardware POS systems in place? To find out, we spoke with several experts from the mPOS industry…
Streets Ahead: Google Chat, and Instagram Reels