News and Analysis
How Closetbox Is Using Location Tech to Disrupt the Self-Storage Industry
The company uses excess capacity in the existing logistics network to pick up and deliver storage in real-time. When consumers order movers via Closetbox’s mobile app, the company finds the nearest moving trucks with available space, and customers’ items get picked up and stored at private storage warehouses right away.
Latest Posts
Why Mobile Ads Are ‘A Little Scary’ (And Potentially So Valuable)
Mobile isn’t a mass marketing vehicle; it’s my one-to-one, highly intimate connection with the Web. It’s a personal device, and its connection to me is private (or not), powerful, and controllable entirely by me. It is, in fact, a portable, electronic version of me, and I will not permit interruptions in the name of commerce for long…
Street Fight Daily: Google Buys Waze, UBL Snaps Up Local Incite
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Why Google Wanted Waze: The Local Ad Market Is Going Mobile (AdAge)… UBL Acquires Local Incite – Adds Chicago Presence (UBL)… HP and Google Team Up to Offer Small Businesses “IT in a Box” (AllThingsD)…
A Year After Big Scores by SinglePlatform and Yext, Locu Makes a Quiet Push
It’s been nearly a year since Yext announced a massive round of funding and SinglePlatform sold to Constant Contact within a week each other, and the value proposition for a real-time data and content network continues gain steam. As both firms put that capital to use, a third company, Locu, is trying to carve out its own share of the market with a similar model and sizable — albeit smaller — stack of cash…
It’s 2004 All Over Again: Mobile Spending to Double in 2013
According to a Borrell Associates client memo made available to Street Fight, local mobile advertising will increase 100% this year. That’s right; double. In some markets that number may translate into tens of thousands of dollars; in the largest, it’s $100 million or more. Gordon Borrell told us that what’s happening with advertising at the local level is “nothing short of phenomenal.”
Case Study: Meineke Partners With Full Slate for Online Scheduling
As consumers get more comfortable going online to book appointments and services, companies nationwide are rushing to keep up with demand. For larger businesses with multiple locations, however, instituting an online scheduling system isn’t always a cut and dry process. Rather than jumping in head first, Meineke Car Care Centers has taken a measured approach to online appointment scheduling. The company partnered with Full Slate and launched a pilot program at 30 Meineke locations…
Street Fight Daily: Apple Moves iOS Into Car, Yelp Revamps Nearby
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Apple Announces ‘iOS in the Car,’ Offers Access to Maps, Messages, and More (Verge)… Just like Foursquare, Yelp Now Recommending Nearby Places (CNet)… Mobile Companies Crave Maps That Live and Breath With Data (New York Times)…
The Uber-ization of Local Commerce
Last week, ReachLocal took its new commerce platform for home services, ClubLocal, off of its training wheels, expanding the program into the Bay Area. Pitched as an Uber for home services, the company aims to create a self-service platform to facilitate the booking of home repairs and plumbers — but its execution overlooks some of the dynamics that make some industries, like taxicabs, more fitting to the model than others…
5 Strategies for Tracking Hyperlocal Marketing Success
What merchants really need is a clear-cut way to compare the effectiveness of their hyperlocal marketing initiatives, so they focus their energies on the platforms that work. To answer that question, we consulted with experts from inside the industry. Here are five strategies that merchants can use to track the success of their digital marketing initiatives…
3 Ways Local Search is Helping Preserve Your Brand’s Image
In the increasingly mobile and locally-driven digital world in which we find ourselves, it is an absolute necessity to ensure the visibility and accuracy of your brand’s online identity while constantly working to build and preserve a socially-integrated and supported reputation. At the core of it all is the consumer’s mobile and local search behavior…
Street Fight Daily: Google Close to Acquiring Waze, Why Yahoo Should Buy Foursquare
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Google Is Close to Acquiring Waze, a Rival in Maps (New York Times)… Checklist: All the reasons Yahoo is going to acquire Foursquare (Quartz)… Call It Groupon 3.0: Deals giant on a Mobile Mission (Crain’s Chicago Business)…
Streets Ahead: Perplexity’s Ranking Logic, Instagram Metrics