News and Analysis

Will 2018 Be a Tipping Point for Voice?

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“There may only be 6-7 ‘commands’ that we use regularly with voice, though I’m willing to bet that as people get more and more accustomed to the interface, the horizon of possibilities expands,” David Mihm tells Mike Blumenthal in their biweekly column.

Street Fight Daily: Local Online Pubs Shirk Display, SMBs Key to Growth of Digital Ad Platforms

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Local Digital News Publishers Are Ignoring Display Revenue… IAB: Big Digital Ad Platforms Must Mine SMB Market to Keep Growing… Hearst Scored Record Profits for 7th Consecutive Year by Investing in Data…

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.

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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.

Trover Raises $2.5M to Expand Location-based Photo-Sharing Service

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Trover, a travel startup based around location-tagged photos, has announced a new $2.5 million in series A funding. The company says the money will go towards expanding its community, improve the company’s social connections, and refine the website’s content publishing tools…

Broadstreet’s Mission: Liberate Sites for What Matters Most

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Serving ads can be a big pain for the entrepreneurial publisher of a small community site. Broadstreet Ads’ mission is to make the pain go away. Then, says Broadstreet co-founder Kenny Katzgrau, the publisher can focus on important things like revenue generation, improving editorial content, and enhancing audience engagement.

Local M&A Activity Hits $7.2 Billion In First Half of 2013

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Whether it’s through acquisition or investment, money keeps flowing into the local space. The first half of 2013 saw total investment activity, which includes both M&A and private financing, grow from a year earlier, as the number of deals stayed flat but total reported deal value jumped from $5.2 billion to $7.2 billion over the same period, according to a new report from BIA/Kelsey…

Case Study: Loyalty Program, Targeted Emails Lead to Daily Sales Spikes

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At Gelato Fiasco in Portland, Maine, director of marketing and public affairs Bobby Guerette says his team initially developed the company’s digital loyalty program — dubbed the Red Spoon Society — as a way to promote individual Gelato Fiasco locations. What they later discovered was that the card-less program could be useful in promoting the wholesale side of Gelato Fiasco’s business, as well…