News and Analysis
Street Fight Daily: All Marketing is Local, How GDPR Will Affect Brands
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… How Digital Advances Have Ushered in the Golden Age of Local Marketing… How to Open Your Mind to Amazon’s Marketing Potential… Collateral Damage from Facebook’s News Feed Changes Piles Up..
Amazon Rolls Out Free Whole Foods Deliveries for Prime Members in San Francisco & Atlanta
Further encroaching on one of hyperlocal’s oldest verticals, Amazon sent shivers down the spines of grocers in San Francisco and Atlanta on Tuesday, announcing it would begin delivering Whole Foods orders for free to Prime members in those cities.
SMB Index: Local Stocks Take a Hit in February
In a turbulent February, which saw stocks give back gains from January over 2 days (Feb 7–9), the SCP SMB Index retreated 2% during the month.
Commentary
Hyperlocal Post-Mortem: Lessons Learned From InJersey
When we made the decision this week to shutter InJersey.com — a network of hyperlocal sites across the garden state that I helped build, nurture, and raise like a child -—my biggest fear was that the effort would be branded a failure. In the age of Twitter, I was braced for the #epicfail hashtag. It came instead via Slate, in the form of a Jack Shafer missive…
Surveys All Say: Hyperlocal’s Taking Over Ad Spending. Duh.
A new survey released this week by the hyperlocal network Topix says what is increasingly clear in every new data that emerges: ad dollars are shifting to local, and of that, most are going online. The Topix survey of ad agencies found 90% said they are buying more local ads (“geographically-targeted”) than they ever have.
Google Offers: Not a ‘Groupon Killer’ (But Still Pretty Killer)
It’s been widely reported over the past few weeks that Google has launched a deals platform known as Offers. But most of this coverage has missed the point — falling into the tired but pervasive trope of “[insertnamehere] Killer” claims (in this case, Groupon). Offers will be similar to Groupon in some ways, but its economics and mobile integration are quite different. Comparisons aside, the real story is how Offers plugs into Google’s massive distribution network of search, Gmail, mobile and about 26 other products.
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Case Study: Natural Food Chain Sees Steady Growth In Mobile Coupon Redemptions
One-in-five consumers has downloaded a supermarket app, and the majority of those consumers use their mobile apps at least twice a month. In an effort to get in on the trend, PCC Natural Markets, a health food co-op with nine locations in Washington, partnered with Chinook Book earlier this year on a mobile coupon app. “Print coupons are still very popular — we get a ton of them that come through our registers — but it’s inevitable that digital coupons will become more prominent,” says Tom Monahan, marketing manager at PCC.
Street Fight Daily: GoDaddy Continues Buying Spree, Walmart Expands Same-Day Delivery
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… GoDaddy on an Acquisition Tear: Five Companies Since February (Screenwerk)… Walmart Expands Same-Day Grocery Delivery To Denver (TechCrunch)… Savings.com Launches Favado Mobile App, Aims To Solve Grocery Savings Once And For All (PandoDaily)…
The Government Shutdown and the Local Data Economy
For the most part, local search appears to demonstrate with flying colors the benefits of getting things done in the private sector. Not only is it a self-sustaining and profitable industry; it exhibits a drive to innovate that brings ever-improving services to our desktops and handheld devices at a dizzying pace. Imagine if local directories and apps were run by the same bureaucracy that manages the Postal Service, the IRS, and the Census Bureau. We’d probably still be using phone books. Yet at a fundamental level, governmental authorities still act as objective reference points when it comes to information of interest to the public…
5 Mobile Payment Platforms With Integrated Marketing Solutions
When a cashier swipes a customer’s credit card at a mobile point of sale terminal, he’s doing more than just processing a financial transaction. He’s transmitting data about who that customer is, what he’s buying, and when he’s buying it. Although this data has traditionally been closely guarded by legacy POS vendors, an increasing number of providers are opening up their doors and giving merchants a peek inside—using the data they gather through customer transactions to fuel integrated marketing programs for merchants…
The Local Conference You Don’t Want to Miss
It’s that time of year again when the most exciting companies in local gather in New York City to hash through and celebrate the best ideas and strategies. Street Fight Summit is coming next Thursday and Friday to TriBeCa, and one of the themes we’re focusing on this year is partnerships. Partnerships are a key reason we have been bringing people together for the last few years, but never have they been such a high-profile, essential element of success as they have become over the past year…
Street Fight Daily: PayPal Teams With Revel, Drones Deliver Same-Day
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… PayPal Expands “Real World” Presence Via Integration With iPad Point-of-Sale Maker Revel Systems (TechCrunch)… Zookal Starts “World First” Delivery-By-Drone Service In Sydney (PandoDaily)… Report: Google Smartwatch “Heavy Into” Google Now Functionality (GigaOm)…
Foursquare Introduces Ads For Small Businesses
This morning the company rolled out its flagship small business advertising product, capping a two-year effort to solve the company’s toughest challenge yet: making money. With the new product, which the company has been piloting in New York since May, local businesses will be able to buy ads that surface in the search results pages or home screen of its popular mobile app…
Should Hyperlocal Publishers Accept Barter Deals?
Most of the better known hyperlocal sites we contacted told us they didn’t do trade or barter, and they didn’t want to talk about it on the record. In Dallas, hyperlocal pioneer Mike Orren said people don’t talk about it because they don’t want to attract the attention of auditors, or they don’t want competitors to know that they’ll do barter. He agreed, however, that trade is “absolutely viable” for independents…
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Meta Is Automating Ads, But Brands Still Face a Bigger Problem