News and Analysis

Street Fight Daily: Facebook Tests Feed for Local News and Events, Amazon Partners with Toyota

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook Is Testing a Feed Specifically for Local News and Events… Amazon Is Bringing Alexa to Your Toyota… AI Troubles Marketers More Than Any Other Technology…

5 Retailers Tapping Voice-Controlled Assistants for Frictionless Shopping

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According to a survey by Linc and BrandGarage, one-in-five retailers already believes voice will be an important channel within two years, and 44% of retailers that are increasing their use of AI say they’re doing so through conversational commerce interfaces, Here’s how five major retailers are harnessing the technology.

Why Location Is a Competitive Edge For National Retailers

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We recently caught up with Local SEO Guide CEO Andrew Shotland whose Local SEO Ranking Factors report finds that national brands’ migration to local search, especially multi-location retailers. Focused erstwhile on e-commerce, competitive pressure has compelled them to view their locations as an edge in local search.

Latest Posts

Are We Giving Google Too Much Information?

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While certain groups complain about certain content on the Web, the real danger is always found in that which is not seen, hidden in plain sight within the language that builds that which we can see. Google is the absolute master of doing business where it’s not seen, and I’ve reached the point where I think it’s time we all said “enough.”

Brands Hope to Use Mobile to ‘Conquer’ Competitors’ Locations

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Mobile-local ad network xAd has released a new report that shows a substantive increase in interest from brands in so-called “geo-conquesting,” the technique of targeting messaging to users at or near a competitor’s location. During the second quarter, nearly one third of every lat-long targeted campaign run on the network included some form of geo-conquesting strategy…

Street Fight Daily: Millennial Media Buys Jumptap, Gannett Merges Agency Business

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyMillennial Media Snaps Up Jumptap For $193 Million (AdExchanger)… Gannett Dives Deeper Into Agency Business With ‘G/O Digital’ (AdAge)… To Square Up To Foursquare, Yelp Now Lets Users Post Reviews Directly From Its Mobile App (TechCrunch)…

Why Intuition Fails Us in Mobile Advertising

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When mobile was in its infancy, it was appropriate to use intuition and past experience as a guide for how to run mobile ad campaigns. However, the time has come for us as an industry to evolve and begin to use data and empirical evidence to guide our mobile advertising. We need to test and validate our intuitions with unique mobile data to optimize campaign performance…

5 Tools Businesses Can Use for Predictive Analytics

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Consumers are creatures of habit, and the behaviors they demonstrate today will oftentimes indicate the actions they’ll take tomorrow. A number of hyperlocal vendors are helping businesses create customer profiles based on in-store activities, purchase histories, and demographics. Now, predictive analytics tools are finally putting these customer profiles to use…

Street Fight Daily: Facebook Partners With OpenTable, Groupon Acquires Plumfare

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyFacebook To Offer OpenTable Restaurant Bookings Via Mobile (Reuters)… Plumfare Acquired By Groupon (VentureBeat)… How Foursquare’s Dennis Crowley Lost The Narrative To Yelp’s Keith Rabois (Fast Company)…

Keeping Customers Coming Back Through the Power of Data

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Gone are the days where the only record of a visit to a local business was a credit card transaction, loyalty punch, or cash receipt. Now our activities become user profiles that help real-world businesses to track us — as much to retain their customers as to make that customer experience better suited to the individual and less frustrating…

7 Key Lessons From AOL’s Struggles With Patch

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Why did a well-heeled usurper to newspapers find itself imploding last week? Ultimately, Patch could still reinvent itself — but if it does not there are plenty of lessons to be learned and applied to all of us working to produce the next model of local journalism. Here are seven…

Street Fight Daily: AOL’s Armstrong Fires Patch Director, Twitter Goes ‘Offline’

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyAOL’s Armstrong Fires Patch Creative Director During Conference Call (Screenwerk)… Mobile Ads Favor Coexistence, Not Disruption (Financial Times)…

Bundling Local News With Amazon’s Shopping List

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Combining local news with shopping is the perfect entree to courting SMBs into Amazon’s affiliate program, which surprisingly accounts for 40% of Amazon’s total revenues. That replaces expensive local sales teams with affiliate support call centers. The promise to SMBs is simply inclusion in the shopping lists. Amazon with news is no longer just a purchase destination, it becomes part of daily living…