News and Analysis

Three Candles to Light in Dark Times for Local News and Journalists

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The news about local news hasn’t been good lately. But there have been three recent positive signals helping to balance the scales in the form of a digital newsgathering tool, a new survey about trust, and the survival of an important hyperlocal network in Brooklyn.

Street Fight Daily: Brands Bet on Dynamic Ads, Inside Uber’s Espionage Operation

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Brands Bet on Smarter Ads… The Tricks and Travails of Uber’s Spies… After Folding in Print, Self Finds Audience of Over 8 Million on Snapchat…

How Major Brands Are ‘Gamifying’ the Consumer Buying Experience

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Although gamification itself is not a new marketing strategy, advancements in mobile apps and location technologies are providing brands with new opportunities to engage customers using these time-tested techniques. Here’s how six major brands are using gamification to change the consumer experience and promote loyalty.

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Case Study: Managing Online Reputation in a Healthcare Setting

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As the healthcare industry evolves, it’s becoming increasingly common for physicians to utilize hyperlocal tools for both patient acquisition and retention. As the public relations director at Nova Medical Group, one of the largest integrative primary care practices in Northern Virginia, Melanie Schmidt is responsible for spearheading the group’s digital marketing initiatives. She works with hyperlocal vendors like Demandforce, CriticMania, and Binary Fountain on patient acquisition and retention efforts…

Street Fight Daily: PayPal Tracks You In-Store, Twitter Buys MoPub

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyNow PayPal Aims To Track You In Real Life (AllThingsD)… Twitter Plans to Sell Ads for Other Companies With MoPub Acquisition (New York Times)… Foursquare Now Lets You Search for Individual Menu Items (Mashable)…

Placeable CEO: Local Directories May Die Off

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Thanks to changing strategic incentives and evolving trends in the search market, Placeable’s CEO Ari Kaufman believes that Google may make changes to its local algorithm that work to push traffic directly to first parties, or keep traffic within its own ecosystem altogether. Street Fight caught up with Kaufman to talk about the state of the local search ecosystem, why Google might devalue directories, and what it means for large brands.

6 Ways Hyperlocal Publishers Can Take Advantage of Online Promotions

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Local merchants are funneling an increasingly large share of their ad budgets toward online promotions, and hyperlocal publishers are well positioned to take advantage of this trend. Here are seven tips for how hyperlocal publishers and local media groups can best take advantage of the shift toward online promotions…

Street Fight Daily: Groupon Buys Booking App, Bing Adds Local Inventory

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyGroupon Buys European Last-Minute Hotel Booking App Blink To Boost Its Travel Business (TheNextWeb)… Bing To Include Local Product Inventory In Search Results (SearchEngineLand)… Foursquare Touts 40M Users In Bid For Renewed Relevancy (CNet)…

Well-Funded SocialRadar Works on App for Local Social Discovery

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In April, Blackboard co-founder Michael Chasen founded a new venture called SocialRadar, planning to build a new app that will provide real-time location-specific information about people nearby. Eight weeks later, Chasen and his team raised nearly $13 million. We asked Chasen about his quick and successful fundraise, how Blackboard informed the founding of SocialRadar, and why the world needs another social discovery app…

Case Study: Boosting Customer Retention With a Card-Based Program

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Local merchants need to keep their customer base in mind when deciding which hyperlocal loyalty platform to use. After experimenting with a mobile-only loyalty platform, Alex Su, the owner of Tpumps Tea Shop in San Mateo, Calif.,was surprised to learn that his customers weren’t as interested in earning rewards through their smartphones as he had previously thought. A different kind of loyalty program from FiveStars provided an alternative…

LBMA Podcast: Ubimo and Belly Funded, Foursquare’s Pro-active Recs

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On the show: Foursquare’s proactive recommendations; McDonalds’ NFC Happy Table; JDS Uniphase launches Location Insight Services; 7Eleven invests in Belly with Andreessen Horowitz. Plus our featured app is CO Everywhere, our mobile minute with Chuck Martin looks at the biggest threat to your mobile strategy, and our special guest is journalist and author Nora Young…

Street Fight Daily: PayPal Redesigns App, Braintree’s on the Block

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyPayPal Refreshes Mobile App to Woo Shoppers and Fight Off Rivals (New York Times)… Braintree Is On The Block, Had Acquisition Talks With Square (TechCrunch)… Last-Minute Deal App HotelTonight Raises $45 Million (Wall Street Journal)…

GoDaddy Cleans Up Marketing and Simplifies Product to Woo VSBs

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The internet services company announced a major rebrand this morning, chucking the racy ads and convoluted site for a cleaner product and entrepreneur-focused pitch aimed at repositioning GoDaddy as a small business marketing firm. The rebranding includes a new marketing campaign as well as a redesign of both the company’s site and its flagship website-building product…