News and Analysis
Street Fight Daily: Facebook Feed to Demote Pubs and Brands, Amazon Takes it Slow on Alexa Ads
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook to Make Major News Feed Change That Demotes Publishers and Brands… Amazon to Agencies: Alexa is the Future, But We’re Going Slow on Voice Ads… How CES Highlights the Speed of Change for Brands…
Facebook Brings Users to Local Sites — But the Rest Is Up to the Sites
The verdict is in: local news publishers do need Facebook, Google and other giant distribution platforms. But only to get the first part of the job done. Whether you’re a self-funded entrepreneurial pure-play publisher or a corporate chain of daily newspapers, you can’t, on your own, generate all the traffic that the platforms deliver to your site.
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7 Mobile Tools for Customer Communication
When it comes to customer service, convenience is everything. Businesses that expect customers to reach out with questions in person or via telephone are taking the wrong approach. Here are seven tools that local merchants can use to communicate with customers and answer questions about product availability, hours of operation, location, and other basic support information…
Street Fight Daily: Inside Patch’s Revenues, Yelp Adds Mobile Reviews
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… 
Inside Patch’s Leaked Revenue Numbers And Its Hunt For Profitability (TechCrunch)… Yelp Adds Mobile Reviews (Mashable)…
Groupon Suspends Sales Rep While It Investigates Thinly Veiled Yelp Review Threat (AllThingsD)
Local Search Needs a Standard Business Listing
Search engines are the preferred medium for local search — Moz’s David Mihm estimated that about 7.5 billion searches a month have local intent — and business listing information is the foundation on which these local queries are served. Whether you’re a listing publisher, data aggregator, consumer or local business, a verifiable business listing that complies with a standard will help everyone win in local search…
Openings & New Hires at Patch, Groupon, Flickr, Search Influence and More
Every two weeks, Search Influence’s Kelly Benish — who knows practically everyone in hyperlocal — covers some of the latest job changes taking place in this dynamic industry. In this week’s edition, new hires at Square and Groupon, and job openings at Street Fight, AOL, Yahoo, BuzzTown, Yext, and the Weather Channel…
LBMA Podcast: WillCall, SpotSetter, and Wistia Co-Founder Chris Savage
In this week’s episode: WillCall looks to be the Square for concerts. Spotsetter launches (and we wonder why). Pizza Hut goes responsive with Amaze. Tradus brings location to online product search. Geolog helps conserve battery power through smart GPS use. Bytelight launches their Light Field Communications Reader. iOS 7 will track your every move. Wistia co-founder Chris Savage on location and video…
Street Fight Daily: Patch Layoffs Coming, ‘Pay-Per-Gaze’ Advertising
Patch Layoffs Coming Today (AllThingsD)… Journatic Made ‘Very Poor Decisions’ About Content, Say Aggrego Founders (Poynter)… Is Millennial Stuck in the ‘Middle Seat’ Even with JumpTap? (i2G)…
Hyperlocal Leaders Weigh In on Impact of Bezos’ Wash Post Buy
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ purchase of the Washington Post is sure to have ramifications all the way down to the hyperlocal level. With all the retail and media disruption, and more on the way, I asked leaders in hyperlocal news how they see Bezos’ purchase of the Post playing out in their territory…
Case Study: Supermarket Chain Increases Basket Size With Card-Linked Coupons
At Lunds & Byerly’s, a chain of 22 upscale grocery stores in the Twin Cities region, marketing manager Dan O’Rourke faced certain operational limitations that made it difficult for his company to expand into the digital arena. To overcome these challenges, O’Rourke looked into vendors that offered card-linked coupons…
Street Fight Daily: Groupon Partners With Verifone, Smartphones Take Market Share
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Groupon Goes Beyond The Dongle, Links Up With Verifone, Ingenico Terminals For Breadcrumb Mobile Payments (TechCrunch)… Smartphones Outsell Feature Phones Globally for First Time (Mashable)… No, Craigslist Is Not Responsible For The Death Of Newspapers (GigaOm)…
With New Ad Product, Placed Connects Dots for In-Store Visits
Slowly but surely, technology firms are finding direct links between the ads we see on mobile devices and the places we visit in the real world. Placed has partnered with xAD to launch a new product called Placed Retention, which uses the company’s panel of participating consumers to determine whether a mobile user who was exposed to an ad appeared within a store days later…
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