News and Analysis

Facebook Brings Users to Local Sites — But the Rest Is Up to the Sites

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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.

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.

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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…

Hyperlocal Social Ads Need to Be ‘Current, Relevant, and Contextual’

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Topsy is one of a handful data analytics startups that are helping brands make sense of the deluge of data flowing through social networks. Street Fight recently caught up with Jamie de Guerre, the company’s VP of product, to talk about the intersection social media and location, and how marketers can leverage location data to make social media marketing work…

LBMA Podcast: Foursquare Sells Data, iInside’s Jon Rosen

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In this week’s episode: Foursquare sells your data – finally! Apple uses location to conserve your battery power. Inglot creates the ultimate video shadow box display. Coupons are making their post-recession comeback. Chuck Martin talks the mobile web retail push in our mobile minute. Jon Rosen of iInside is our special guest.

Street Fight Daily: Patch To Close 400 Sites, eBay Launches Retail CRM

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyAOL Won’t Deny The Rumor That Patch’s CEO Is Out After Just Two Months On The Job (Business Insider)… eBay Launches Salesforce-like Platform For Merchants (TheNextWeb)… Google Directs ‘Relevant Ads’ to Maps (CNet)…

‘Understanding the Reader’ and the Bottom Line: Do They Connect?

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Google’s beta testing of aggregated community news for its recently launched smartphone app Now (“the right information at just the right time”) got some big “hmmm” headlines last week. But is this Google experiment bringing any fear and trembling to community news and information sites?

Case Study: Restaurant Chain Uses Mobile Promotions to Reach Millennials

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Homestyle Dining Chief Marketing Officer Jon Rice knew that implementing a sweepstakes program across all of his company’s 142 Bonanza and Ponderosa steakhouse franchises would be a logistical challenge. So he opted to partner with Front Flip, a mobile engagement and loyalty platform, to generate excitement, boost engagement, and gain more insight about his guests…