News and Analysis
Street Fight Daily: Google Debuts ‘Auto Ads,’ Digital Media Titan Vox Cuts Staff En Masse
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Debuts AdSense ‘Auto Ads’ with Machine Learning… Vox Media Cuts About 50, Scales Back Social Video… Snapchat’s E-Commerce Strategy Hit a New High…
Pursuant Health, Vistar Media Look to Change How Brands Connect In-Store
In a move that could impact the way marketers connect with more than 30 million shoppers inside physical stores around the country, Pursuant Health is partnering with the location-based advertising technology firm Vistar Media to provide better access to its digital advertising inventory.
What 1-800-Flowers’ Search Dominance Means for Local Florists
With more consumers researching purchases online than ever before, and major e-commerce retailers like 1-800-Flowers and ProFlowers flooding the playing field with paid search ads, there’s a looming question of what will happen to local florists.
Commentary
7 Things I Want From My Phone for Christmas
I’m a little weary of the “Holiday Tech Stuff” roundups, as I suspect are you, so let’s just leap right into what I’d demand from Cell-a-Claus and his App Elves, were he to ask.
I’ve been a goo… not horrible guy this year, Cell-a, really. And I’m not asking for anything current technology would not permit. So please bring me the following:
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‘Location’ is at Apple’s iPhone Core (Patently Apple)
The site Patently Apple has a rather interesting observation about some of the recent patent filings by Apple related to its iPhone. According to PA via records it has surface Apple is attacking the big and the small around geolocation, with technological tweaks and improvements (that are actually
quite complex) and practical setups to solving common human needs like “what am I about to pass on my trip to grandma’s that I might be interested in?”…
Newspapers + GeoMesh of Providers = Interesting
In the olden days (1991) I earned a stipend-like salary working for a Gannett newspaper outside Philadelphia. I did a number of things there, some of them poorly (i.e. quickly copyediting stories on tax rate hike debates) and some well (writing headlines; teaching desktop publishing).
But one of the most fascinating jobs I got to do was man the Associated Press wire. On the old glowing-green terminals they had us looking into in the smokey and nearly windowless newsroom, the AP feed would pour in like a precursor to The Matrix’s cascading code imagery…
Latest Posts
Conference Notebook: For SMBs, Content Marketing May Not Be So Easy
Brands are lauded when they post or tweet the right thing at the right time — and many social media evangelists spread the gospel that in an always-on, interactive consumer culture small businesses need to do the same. But that line of thinking neglects the high costs associated with content creation, and ignores the problematic economics of content marketing for small businesses…
LBMA Podcast: Microsoft’s Nokia Buy, Gucci and Google Maps, and Moasis
On the show: Nymi uses your heartbeat as a password; OnOurRadar enables on-the-ground reporting in emerging economies; Toopher uses location as authentication; Microsoft acquires Nokia but not the juicy parts; Plus our Mobile Minute with Chuck Martin on the emerging market for shopper segmentation based on device and special guest Ryan Golden of Moasis…
Street Fight Daily: More Users Share Location, Twitter Files For IPO
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Three quarters of smartphone users share their location, says study (MarketingLand)… Twitter Files for Initial Public Offering (Wall Street Journal)… Senator Asks Cellphone Carriers: What Exactly Do You Share With Government? (New York Times)…
AdMonsters to Tackle Digital Ad Challenges During Advertising Week
Since the first banner ad appeared in 1994, just one thing has remained constant in digital advertising: change. On September 26 during Advertising Week in New York, OPS NY will bring together ad operations and media technology leaders to tackle challenges and work to navigate the latest shifts in our industry, while staying competitive and profitable. Click for a Street Fight discount…
Daily Voice Reports First ‘Unit’ Profitability (With an Asterisk)
The regional hyperlocal news network Daily Voice says it has recorded its first “unit” profitability for operations covering its 41 sites in the hotly competitive suburban Connecticut and New York market. The profit — which does not include corporate costs — was a tiny $2,000 for August, according to CEO Carll Tucker. But it comes after the company burned through $18 million in four years and experienced near-death six months ago…
Conference Notebook: As Legacy Media Struggles to Adapt, Startups Shift to Software
During BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local event in Austin Wednesday, executives from local media and yellow pages companies spoke about the challenge in weaning these companies off still-profitable, but doomed businesses, toward a higher-risk-and-lower-margin future…
Street Fight Daily: McDonald’s Tests Mobile Ordering, ‘Showrooming’ Threat Wanes
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… McDonald’s Testing Mobile Order App for U.S. Stores (Business Insider)… Maybe Showrooming Isn’t Killing Retailers After All (Businessweek)… SMB Twitter Followers Show Devotion (eMarketer)…
Local Media Companies Need to Decentralize to Survive
As applied to information technology, centralization is an error that needs correction. The concept of centralization is counterintuitive to the network, because the network sees every node as equal. The real business opportunities are all local, not in bundling everything together to create scale in order to accumulate digital pennies…
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