News and Analysis
Street Fight Daily: Uber-SoftBank Deal Clears, Swarm Offers Businesses a Path to Social Prominence
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Uber Sells Stake to SoftBank, Valuing Company at $48 Billion… Swarm Emerges as a Serious Social Tool, Capable of Boosting Reps of Brick-and-Mortars… In 2017, Amazon Will Turn to Private Label Goods…
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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)…
Everybody Is a Media Company, So Now What?
The explosive growth of personal media has disrupted everything it touches. The same inexpensive tools that consumers are now using are also available to any-sized businesses, which has the potential of entirely leveling the playing field in consumer goods and services by driving down the cost of marketing. The neighborhood doughnut shop can just as easily make and distribute media as the Kroger Bakery up the street or, by God, even Walmart. We may chuckle today but just wait…
Do Hipsters Do Hyperlocal?: Bedford + Bowery Editor on Communities and Culture
NYU’s hyperlocal East Village blog is growing up and adding a few new ‘hoods. The Local, which had covered New York’s East Village and the Lower East Side, has become Bedford + Bowery, a site that now also covers the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and Bushwick. So what makes these neighborhoods — hipster havens of the highest order — a fertile proving ground for hyperlocal? We spoke with Daniel Maurer, the NYU professor who oversees the venture to talk a bit about how the project has evolved…
Street Fight Daily: Zagat’s Workplace ‘Nightmare,’ Square Launches Marketplace
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… How Zagat’s Workplace Turned Into A ‘Nightmare’ (Business Insider)… New Square Service Targets Local Merchants’ Market (USA Today)… Microsoft Partners With Deem To Expand Its Ad Inventory With More Local Offers And Deals(TechCrunch)…
Twitter Looks to Monetize Location, But Is It Cart-Before-Horse?
A few days after Twitter acquired local discovery app, Spindle, last week, news surfaced that the microblogging service was developing a long-awaited geo-targeting product for brands. The developments mark the latest episode in an ongoing saga, in which the two largest social networks — Twitter and Facebook — have briefly flirted with local before pulling back to recalibrate. A hyperlocal ad product is welcome news to advertisers, but Twitter needs to sure it does not neglect the users’ side of the equation…
6 Ad Networks With Targeting Capabilities
Ad networks with advanced targeting capabilities are giving national brands and smaller advertisers a way to drive conversion rates and boost sales. By narrowing their focus and targeting specific audiences based on location, demographics, or interests, advertisers can increase the relevancy of their ads and improve click-through rates (CTRs) by a factor of 2x. Here are six ad networks that offer these targeting capabilities…
VIDEO: Making the Economics of Hyperlocal Publishing Work
The once-bright prospects for hyperlocal publishing have dimmed somewhat in recent months, leaving some of the most promising ventures shuttered, bankrupt, or scrambling to save face. During a conversation on stage at Street Fight Summit West in San Francisco earlier this month, Chris Tolles, chief executive of hyperlocal news aggregator Topix, and Sacramento Press co-founder and AdGlue CEO Ben Ilfeld discussed the future of Patch and the long-term sustainability of hyperlocal media at scale…
Street Fight Daily: ZocDoc Opens $55M In Debt, Centro Expands To Mobile
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology
Doctor Appointment Booking Site ZocDoc Opens Up $55 Million In New Convertible Debt (GigaOm)… Centro Expands Locally Focused ‘Brand Exchange’ To Mobile, Tablet Inventory (AdExchanger)… Report: Hyperlocals Can Bridge Gap Between Larger Organizations And Public (Journalism.co.uk)…
6 Strategies for Reaching Customers at the ‘Zero Moment of Purchase’
Targeting consumers at the “zero moment of purchase” — that is, while they’re shopping inside a store where a brand’s product are sold — is a proven way to increase conversion rates on mobile coupons and other discounted offers. Unfortunately, getting this type of high-impact marketing program off the ground can involve much more than a typical offline campaign. To find out more about what marketers should know, we consulted with experts in the field of purchase-based ad targeting…
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Beyond Search: AI Visibility the New Growth Lever for MULO Brands