News and Analysis

Street Fight Daily: User Time on Facebook Drops, Highlights from #SFSW18

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… User Time on Facebook Declines for First Time Ever… Google’s Rivals Say Search-Page Practices Still Unfair… Alexa Can Now Send Text Messages to Phones…

#SFSW18: How Yelp Is Partnering Its Way into the Future

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“We’ve made sure there’s an authenticity in Yelp so that people going to the service for reviews can count on it,” said Yelp SVP Chad Richard in the final conversation of Street Fight Summit West in Los Angeles. Richard called authenticity “the essence of the business.”

#SFSW18: Local’s Visual Future: The Rise of AR, VR, and New Customer Experiences

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“We want to please the restaurants and we want to please the users,” said Danny Gordon, CEO of Auredi, just one company at Street Fight Summit West using visual technology to enrich customer experiences. “It’s unbelievable the amount of excitement we see when we show customers dishes that look exactly like they do in person.”

Latest Posts

Street Fight Daily: Dow Jones Sells Local Media Group, ReachLocal CEO Resigns

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyDow Jones Sells Local Media Group (Poynter)… ReachLocal CEO Gordon Resigns, Chairman Steps In As Interim (MediaPost)… Making Its First Acquisitions, Eventbrite Buys Ticketing Service Eventioz And Event Data Company Lanyrd (GigaOm)…

Legacy Media’s ‘Agency’ Business: Just More Brand Extension?

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When we clear aside all the hype, legacy companies with “agency” offerings are just creating clutter in the marketplace without offering anything of substantial new value for merchants. Media companies are far too busy playing defense to consider offense, and defense always includes copying what the other guy across town is doing…

5 Tools for Measuring In-Store Visits Driven By Mobile Ads

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Matching online ad exposure to offline visits has always been challenging for retailers, many of whom are unwilling to invest heavily in platforms that can’t show a direct ROI. Here are five platforms that merchants and CPG brands can use to get a better idea of how much in-store traffic is being generated by their mobile campaigns…

Street Fight Daily: Target Focuses On In-Store, Nokia’s Hyperlocal Future

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyTarget Tightens Focus On Mobile As In-Store Shopping Tool (Mobile Commerce Daily)… Sizing Up The Nokia That Remains, HERE Business A Bright Spot That Gains More Platform Freedom (TechCrunch)… Who Needs Foursquare More: Google, Yahoo Or Microsoft? (MarketingLand)…

How Local Sites Can Win the War on Fake Reviews

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This week Edmunds, the auto and car dealer review site, announced that it had settled a lawsuit it had filed against Humankind, a firm accused of submitting fake reviews for a fee to about a dozen review sites on behalf of businesses. Humankind was accused of creating fake user accounts and attempting to submit glowing reviews of their clients’ car dealerships. Here are some methods for to your site or app that will catch a high percentage of fake reviews…

Openings and New Hires at Topix, Angie’s List, Drawbridge, PlaceIQ and More

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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 Topix and Local Corp., plus jobs at BuzzTown, Yahoo, Yext, WorldNow, and more…

With $2.5M in the Bank, Trover Eyes ‘Phase Two’ of Its Photo-Sharing Community

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With 130,000 monthly users, Trover’s numbers aren’t enormous, but the community is engaged and growing. And for now that’s just fine for CEO Jason Karas. He spoke with Street Fight recently about the company’s recent fundraise, how to eventually monetize the power of passion, and the strengths of a tiny team…

LBMA Podcast, Google Patents Your Gaze, QR Code’s Plight

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On the show: GoDaddy acquires Locu; Coors Light’s Refresh the Night campaign; Placeable emerges from LocationInsight to normalize location data for enterprises; Coca Cola uses location to help charities with Movement for a Movement campaign; Apple acquires Embark; Google chokes on Yahoo!’s dust; Chuck Martin looks at the plight of the QR code…

Street Fight Daily: Microsoft Eyes Foursquare Investment, Nokia Unveils Connected Car

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyMicrosoft Vying With American Express for Stake in Foursquare (Bloomberg)… Nokia Unveils Its Connected Car Platform: Here Auto (GigaOm)… Apple Sued Over ‘Find my iPhone’ In New Patent Campaign Against Location Apps (PaidContent)…

What Will It Take to Bring All Businesses Online?

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Many small businesses are claiming their Google and Bing listings, interacting with reviewers on Yelp, and using social sites like Facebook and Twitter. Inside the local bubble, it might seem as though the importance of these activities has been long established. Surely only a business stuck in the stone age would ignore the statistics we all know and love about searches with local intent, the explosion of mobile, and the critical need to be well represented in Google search results. How, then, are we to take a report showing that 52% of SMBs still don’t have a website?