News and Analysis
Google Websites — To Infinity and Beyond?
“In the developing world, Google has a simplified path to the GMB where if a business first creates a website they can get verified more easily,” Mike Blumenthal notes. “Thus the website becomes the hook into Google’s data funnel. In the US, and most other developed countries, I would speculate that it is typically the other way around”
Big Political Ad Spend Set for Local in 2018, but Will News Sites Be Ready?
Political ad spending totaling $1.9 billion will pour into the digital space, most of it on the local level, Borrell Associates estimates in its 2018 forecast. But daily newspapers and local news “pure-plays” will have to fight hard for their share against Facebook, Google and the other digital platforms.
Latest Posts
Why Cars Could Be the Next Big Platform for Local Search
Amid praise and criticism of the flatter design of Apple’s newest mobile operating system, the company quietly introduced a potentially transformative feature in iOS7: iOS in the Car. Pedestrian-friendly cities like New York and San Francisco may prove a fertile breeding grounds for local discovery apps like Foursquare, but it’s the suburban car-bound consumer that presents the biggest opportunity for local technology companies today, including …
Street Fight Daily: Delivery Hero Raises $30M, Groupon Looks To High-End
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Delivery Hero Tops Up Series D With $30M As Its Global Take-Out Service Heads For Profit (TechCrunch)… Groupon Makes Bid To Reach High-End Customers (USA Today)… Here’s A Heavy Dose Of Reality For New Mobile Payments Startup Clinkle (ReadWrite)…
SMG’s Thompson: ‘Not One Client’ is Not Interested in Hyperlocal
“Across Starcom MediaVest’s portfolio, I cannot think of one client that is not interested in this space. You have consumer-packaged-goods (CPG) brands that are asking how location can help them best reach their audiences; you have auto manufacturers who want to reach people in real time at a given place; and you have travel companies that want to understand those audiences. Across the board, brands are curious about location. … They just don’t understand which technologies are out there, and how they can harness these signals and make sense out of them.”…
Non-Profit Indies, One-Time Successors to Local Media, Face Funding Woes
You think traditional broadcast media like TV and radio are struggling with depleted revenue models as audiences move to online screens? Consider those who were already depleted: Community broadcasters on cable access TV and local radio. These folks face even greater challenges with sparse audiences, a limited to non-existent revenue model, and funding from foundations drying up faster than fresh rain in the Mojave Desert.
LBMA Podcast: ‘Connected’ Cars and ‘Connected’ Homes
In this week’s episode, Asif’s take on location in Singapore; SingleTouch launches their FollowMe service; uKnow partners with ESRI to help track your family; Gannett acquires Belo’s television stations and tries to go hyperlocal; Tred delivers your next new car test drive; Google’s Project Loon soars; The connected car is going to be big; Special guest Mike Soucie of Revolv on the connected home.
Street Fight Daily: Clinkle Raises $25M, Square Poaches AdSense ‘Godfather’
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Silicon Valley Luminaries Bet on Clinkle, a Payments Start-Up (TechCrunch)… Square Poaches Facebook’s Lead Ad Engineer Gokul Rajaram (AdAge)… Cramer: Macy’s Hyper-Local Strategy to Drive Sales (CNBC)…
Nextdoor: Where Privacy Is a Double-Edged Sword
Nextdoor has some issues to sort out in whether and how much neighbors want to be walled in from adjacent, or even non-adjacent, communities. In researching this story, I signed up for the service and discovered firsthand its power of engagement — but found its walls dampened the enthusiasm it had engendered in me, and I wondered if the latter will impact the potential of the former to make good on the company’s $100 million valuation…
The Good and Bad of Local Discovery on Our Summer Road Trip
Greetings from a summer road trip in the Pacific Northwest. Amid games of twenty questions and alphabet animals, we have faced the typical needs of the traveler: shelter, food, gas, and fun. Naturally, we’ve turned to local search, just like the other 31% of leisure travelers (up from 18% in 2010). I’ve written mainly about local search on the homefront and travel is another kind of use case entirely, one that in many ways has been “solved” by existing services — but has it? In our experience, you often have to be creative to get what you need…
Street Fight Daily: Revel Raises $10M; LevelUp: We’re ‘Android,’ Square is ‘Apple’
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Revel Systems Raises $10.1M To Help It Grow iPad Point-Of-Sale Business (TechCrunch)… LevelUp: We’re ‘Android,’ Square is ‘Apple’ (Local Onliner)… Why Angie’s List Hires an Auditor to Read its Business Reviews (Bloomberg)…
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