News and Analysis

As the Local News Industry Struggles, Publishers Ask Readers to Pay

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The local news industry, fighting for survival, is turning its readers into customers. Sites are either charging readers for premium content — after up to 10 free visits a month — or setting up “membership” programs where readers make voluntary monthly or yearly payments.

Street Fight Daily: The Future of Facebook Video, Programmatic’s Year to Prove Itself

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… 2018 Will Be a Pivotal Year for Facebook’s Video Ambitions… Programmatic Faces a Turning Point in 2018… The Limits of Amazon…

Street Fight’s Predictions for 2018: Part Two

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As 2017 draws to a close, we’ve once again asked Street Fight staffers, columnists, and friends to look into their crystal ball and offer prognostications for what they thought will be the biggest story (or stories) in local in 2018. This is the second part of a two-part series.

Latest Posts

8 Tools For the In-Store Delivery of Mobile Coupons

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Sixty-three percent of shoppers say they would be more likely to make a purchase if they received a coupon during their shopping experience. Still, only 27% of companies have plans to implement location-based marketing in 2013. Here are eight straightforward tools that retailers can use to satisfy consumer demand and drum up additional sales with the delivery of mobile coupons…

Sponsored Post: Case Study in Finding a Robust Ad Serving Platform

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It is common for large publishers to face a challenge in finding an ad serving platform that is simultaneously scalable, reliable, secure, simple in usage, and can meet the specific needs of a company. After evaluating some alternatives, Wooga decided to start testing Epom’s Ad Server with Asynchronous Tags in a controlled environment to analyze and compare the new Ad Server efficiency. With successful results, Wooga decided to move all advertisement inventory to Epom.

Street Fight Daily: Google Revamps Zagat, Groupon Loses Mobile Chief

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologylogo_zagat_twtGoogle Unveils Revamped Zagat Website, Apps (TheNextWeb)… Groupon Loses Mobile Head David Katz (TechCrunch)… New Facebook for Business Hub Launches With Tips, Tools, Case Studies (SearchEngineWatch)…

Powering the Payment Stream

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For years, local search has fed consumers to a technological black hole. The systems on which local businesses rely to manage day-to-day operations have remained offline, relegated to legacy tools or silo-ed in digital products not built for the web. But that’s changing. Thanks to a number of new companies that are reimagining the way consumers shop and reprovisioning the systems that business owners use to monitor and transact the exchange of goods locally, that “source code” is coming online, filling a critical gap in the local commerce stack…

Is Foursquare’s SMB Monetization Here for Real?

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The company may discover that SMBs paradoxically prefer the simplicity of flat pricing over relatively complex (albeit more efficient) performance-based ads. The latter requires some degree of ongoing maintenance which challenges non-tech-savvy or time-starved (read: majority) SMBs. This is one reason for famously high churn for SMB self-serve advertising…

Street Fight Daily: Top Patch Exec Resigns, Mobile Payments At Starbucks Increase

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyTop Executive At AOL’s Local News Business, Patch, Resigns (BuzzFeed)… Mobile Payment At U.S. Starbucks Locations Crosses 10% (TechCrunch)… I’m Still Waiting for My Phone to Become My Wallet (New York Times)…

LivingSocial Narrows Losses In Q2

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Losses at LivingSocial slowed in the second quarter as the company began to rebound from a tumultuous start to the year. The company posted a $31 million net loss last quarter — a 38% decrease from the quarter earlier — as operating expenses and revenue sank slightly over the same period, according to a quarterly filing by Amazon, the company’s lead investor…

5 Keys To Making Local Listings Count

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Local listing sites have mushroomed in recent years, sending local businesses scurrying to get their digital houses in order. In a Street Fight webinar Thursday sponsored by YP, David Mihm of Moz, and YP’s Deepak Thakral discussed the growing impact of listings in local search, and outlined a handful of first steps that local businesses can take to improve their presence online…

Street Fight Daily: Lenders Take Over Hibu, Uber Could See $3.5B Valuation

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyYellow Pages Owner Hibu Handed Over To Lenders (BBC)… Fast Car: Uber Funding Auction Could Reach a $3.5B Valuation (AllThingsD)… Steve Case on LivingSocial: ‘I’m Still A Believer’ (Washington Business Journal)…

New Tool From Drawbridge Helps Marketers Bridge the Gap Between Desktop and Mobile

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Seven months after bringing its flagship cross-device and audience retargeting products to market, Drawbirdge has launched a new mobile retargeting product that enables marketers to target existing users based on a previous activity – say, an app download – as they move across apps, mobile web, and desktop browsers.