News and Analysis
Street Fight Daily: Amazon & Walmart Disrupt Grocery, Facebook Pulls Plug on Separate Feed
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… With Competition from Amazon and Walmart, It’s Getting Tougher for Local Grocers… Facebook, Diverging from Snap, Decides Separating News from Friends and Media Unwise… Attribution Blind Spots Are Eating Into Your Performance…
Placed Opens Up Location Analytics Platform for Free Public Use
Location-insights powered ad measurement company Placed will offer its location-based analytics and insights to the public for free, the company announced on Thursday.
Reputation.com Acquires SIM Partners
In what is sure to be one of local’s major acquisition deals of 2018, Reputation.com has acquired SIM Partners, the companies announced today.
Commentary
Choosing a Data Partner for Local: What to Ask
Jeff Wood is a guest author. To submit a guest post, go here.
With all of the talk about data in our industry, I’m surprised that so few of the people I talk to in the Local space have a true data strategy — one that gives them real control over their own data and, most importantly, access to this data for decision-making.
It’s the nature of Local that a publisher loses the scale of large network buys. However, you gain the value of a centralized audience. With granular data, a site focused on the hyperlocal market can quickly understand the value of small pockets of inventory, and make educated decisions around how to package and allocate that inventory for sale across appropriate channels.
It’s amazing how many people simply don’t know who owns the data collected on their sites.
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2011: The Year the Check-in Reached Puberty
Michael Boland is a guest author. To submit a guest post, go here.
In the location wars of the past two years, one of the battle cries has been the need to continually innovate “beyond the check-in” — building things on top of the core check-in function, driven by evolving device capability and user demand (or boredom).
Companies have taken this in various directions — “checking in” to TV shows, for example. Sector leader Foursquare has dabbled in things like Superbowl check-ins.
At least week’s Where 2.0 conference in Santa Clara, California, Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley talked about how the check-in grows up even as it stays focused on “the relationship between people and places.”..
Where ‘Hyperlocal’ Is a Movement, Not a Business Model
I’ll bet you £10 that “royal wedding” is the first thought that jumps to the mind of an American journalist asked about Britain today. Yet with the ever-present fixation on their profession’s future, perhaps journalists in the U.S. should look past the palaces to the real action happening at the hyperlocal level…
Latest Posts
Placeable Launches New Feature to Help Fix ‘Dirty’ Local Data
Two months after a major rebranding, the Denver-based Placeable has launched a new tool to help big brands clean up their location data. The feature, called Placeable Plot, allows marketers to update and manage location data for a brand’s brick-and-mortar stores across apps, search engines, maps, social networks and marketing campaigns…
Street Fight Daily: Leaf Raises $20 Million, AT&T Starts Selling Location Data
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Square Competitor Leaf Scores $20 Million Investment From Payments Giant Heartland (AllThingsD)… AT&T Turns Its Data Into An Adaptive Intelligence Business (ZDNet)… “Showrooming” Is More About Research Than Price Comparison (PandoDaily)…
Study: More Local Shoppers Using Mobile Devices for Retail Purchases
As mobile devices become smarter, consumers are turning to their devices for more than last-minute directions and simple searches. A new study from Local Corporation finds that the the smartphone, once thought of as a place where consumers went for quick bits of information, is moving deeper into the decision cycle, playing a larger role in more in depth research, once associated with with tablet behavior…
5 Local Data Aggregators for Hyperlocal Startups
For many founders of hyperlocal platforms, the ideas they’ve envisioned require access to local location data—and lots of it. Some of the most important background players in the hyperlocal ecosystem are the local data aggregators, which supply clients with the basic NAP (name, address, and phone number) identities of millions of businesses and points-of-interest worldwide. Here are five local data aggregators that hyperlocal vendors can use to power their local listings…
Street Fight Daily: Patch To Close Sites, GateHouse Files For Chapter 11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Memo: ‘Regretfully, A Number of Patches Will Have To Be Closed (Romenesko)… GateHouse Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection (Wall Street Journal)… The NSA Refuses To Deny That It Collected The Location Data Of U.S. Phone Calls (TechCrunch)…
In Fight Against Amazon, Retail Finds New Ally In Tech
Nearly two decades after the launch of Amazon.com, brick-and-mortar retailers still face a very real threat from the Web. But today, the industry has a critical new partner: the tech community. Retail has emerged as one of the fastest growing sectors in the technology industry, with venture capitalists, startups and retailers themselves, building products to fuse the web with our in-store experience…
Openings and New Hires at YPG, Living Social, BrightRoll, Act-on, NeuStar
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 Mediative and Brightroll, plus jobs at Yext, The Weather Channel, LinkedIn and more…
LBMA Podcast: Zipments, ExactTarget, and David Shalaby of TapTrack
On the show: Facebook uses your data to help carriers market to you better; Zipments proves we are in a bubble by raising $2.25M; ExactTarget moves into location; ESA partners with DMTI; SpeakGeo launches; Intersec gets their Weve on; Bump acquired by Google; a Lowe’s case study; and app of the week Basewarp…
Street Fight Daily: Ebay Buys Braintree, Square’s Next Move
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… EBay Buys Braintree, a Payments Start-Up (New York Times)… Square’s Next Move: Jump On A Platform (ReadWrite)… Clinkle Becomes A Tech Celebrity Magnet, Landing Richard Branson As An Investor (Clinkle)…
Too Many Local Journalists Are Missing The Big Story: Revenue
In the new digital era, which requires journalists to widen their lens far beyond the next big story, they are beginning to channel their passion into how to engage users, embrace technology and examine the limitations of their traditional “Fourth Estate” role is in the community. All good. But there’s one area where local journalists have yet to bring the full measure of their passion — revenue.
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