News and Analysis

Truffl Revamps Pink Dot’s Services and Brand to Court Social-Native Consumers

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“Creating a share-worthy experience is really important — something that can live online even if it’s offline and turn customers into advocates,” says Truffl founder Raphael Farasat about how legacy brands can compete in the golden age of tech startups and social media.

Street Fight Daily: Voice Really Is a Game-Changer, Alexa’s Stunning Rates of Consumer Adoption

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… The Voice Shopping Future… Even Amazon Is Surprised By How Much Customers Use Alexa… Unicorns Gorge As Investors Dish Out Bigger Rounds, More Capital…

Street Fight Daily: Local Mobile Ads to Soar in 2018, Amazon Posts Record Profits & Ad Revenue

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Mobile Ads to Soar in 2018, Especially in Local… Amazon Posts Largest Profit in Its History As Ad Biz Grows… Factual Expands Location-Based Ad Tools…

Latest Posts

Daily Voice Reports First ‘Unit’ Profitability (With an Asterisk)

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The regional hyperlocal news network Daily Voice says it has recorded its first “unit” profitability for operations covering its 41 sites in the hotly competitive suburban Connecticut and New York market. The profit — which does not include corporate costs — was a tiny $2,000 for August, according to CEO Carll Tucker. But it comes after the company burned through $18 million in four years and experienced near-death six months ago…

Conference Notebook: As Legacy Media Struggles to Adapt, Startups Shift to Software

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During BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local event in Austin Wednesday, executives from local media and yellow pages companies spoke about the challenge in weaning these companies off still-profitable, but doomed businesses, toward a higher-risk-and-lower-margin future…

Street Fight Daily: McDonald’s Tests Mobile Ordering, ‘Showrooming’ Threat Wanes

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… McDonald’s Testing Mobile Order App for U.S. Stores (Business Insider)… Maybe Showrooming Isn’t Killing Retailers After All (Businessweek)… SMB Twitter Followers Show Devotion (eMarketer)…

Local Media Companies Need to Decentralize to Survive

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As applied to information technology, centralization is an error that needs correction. The concept of centralization is counterintuitive to the network, because the network sees every node as equal. The real business opportunities are all local, not in bundling everything together to create scale in order to accumulate digital pennies…

9 Ways Merchants Can Upgrade the In-Store Experience With Hyperlocal Tools

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If brick-and-mortar retailers want to compete with e-commerce competitors, they have to make the in-store shopping experience better for their customers. Nearly half (48%) of shoppers surveyed by Cisco said they are currently using, or would like to use, a smartphone to shop while inside a store. Here are nine ideas for how retailers can tackle the issue from top executives in the field of hyperlocal marketing…

Street Fight Daily: Apple’s NFC Alternative, Google Faces ‘Street View’ Lawsuit

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyWith iBeacon, Apple is Going To Dump NFC (GigaOm)… Google Loses Appeal in Street View Privacy Case (Reuters)… Yelp’s Newest Weapon Against Fake Reviews: Lawsuits (BloombergBusinessweek)…

5 Things SMBs Can Do to Optimize for Mobile Search

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Recent data from Google found that 94% of smartphone users have searched for local information, 70% have called a business after searching, 66% visited in person, and 90% of these users acted within 24 hours. So what do SMBs need to do to ensure they’ll get calls from potential customers who are searching on mobile?

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.