News and Analysis

SMB Index: Local Stocks Keep Climbing in November

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After a scorching gain in October, the SCP SMB Index continued to rally, climbing another 3.3% in November, outpacing all other major indices we track. The S&P 500, Nasdaq and Dow Jones all experienced gains during the month of 2.1% and 1.9% and 2.5%, respectively.

How Closetbox Is Using Location Tech to Disrupt the Self-Storage Industry

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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.

Why Mobile Ads Need Form and Function (VIDEO)

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Verve VP and creative director Walt Geer believes that effective mobile local advertising balances form and function. The view towards proper balance stems from Geer’s longstanding position that more attention needs to be paid to creative in mobile ad campaigns.

Latest Posts

5 Mobile Marketing ‘Musts’ for SMBs

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As more consumers look to their smartphones to engage with business locally, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) need to lay out a concise mobile marketing strategy. In a Street Fight webinar Tuesday sponsored by YP, Asif Khan of the Location-based Marketing Association, and YP’s David Williams discussed the trends that make mobile a must for SMBs, and highlighted a handful of first steps that local businesses can take to keep up with their smartphone-wielding customers….

Street Fight Daily: Phone Firms Sell Data, A Day in Court for Yelp

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Phone Firms Sell Data on Customers (Wall Street Journal)… Another Day in Court for Yelp (New York Times)… Hyper-Local: Not A Behavioral Disease (Medium)…

Swipely Raises $12M to Expand Push Into SMB Payment Analytics

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The payments space is starting to settle down. The flow of seed funding has slowed, and a handful companies have separated from the pack, raising meaningful capital over the past year. Add Providence-based Swipely to that list. The payments processing and analytics play has raised $12 million in new funding in a series B round led by Shasta Ventures…

Waze Builds Out Traffic Maps to Add Context in Location

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Andy Ellwood, the company’s senior director of business development, will be appearing on a panel at Street Fight Summit West in a couple of weeks in San Francisco to talk about how the future of mapping tech plays into hyperlocal marketing. Street Fight caught up with him recently to talk about how Waze makes money, the vitality of context, and fighting off Google…

5 Tips For Optimizing Hyperlocal Sites For Tablets

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The real question for hyperlocal publishers isn’t how important tablet readers are, but how best to cater to this group. The publishing standards that work on PC browsers don’t always translate to tablet screens. Here are five strategies that hyperlocal publishers should consider when creating content for readers on tablet devices…

Street Fight Daily: Seamless GrubHub Merge, Wanderful Media Raises $9M

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.GrubHub, Seamless, and the Importance of the Purchase (Bloomberg Businessweek)… Newspaper Companies Invest Another $9M In Local Deal Startup Wanderful Media (TechCrunch)… What Patch Employees Were Told During the Friday Evening Conference Call (Romenesko)…

VP Ghaffary: Yelp Is the ‘Local Layer’ of the Internet

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Mike Ghaffary, a grad school friend of CEO Jeremy Stoppelman who helped to write one of Yelp’s first advertiser contracts, now serves as the company’s vice president of business development (and will give a keynote address at Street Fight Summit West in San Francisco next month). Street Fight caught up with Ghaffary recently to discuss the relationship between content and data in local discovery, and why competitors will have a hard time “killing Yelp.”

5 Tools Brands Can Use to Create Socially Targeted Ads

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In a single day, a tech-savvy twenty-something might tweet about a yoga class, check-in at Target, ask friends on Facebook to recommend a local cafe, and post photos on Instagram from inside Whole Foods. Individually, these social media updates might not mean much. But collectively, they can be a useful tool for advertisers trying to get a deeper look inside the minds of their local customers. Here are five tools that merchants can use to create socially targeted ads…

In Push to Profitability, Patch Trims Staff and Promotes Kalin to CEO

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AOL’s Patch network of community news sites made significant staff cuts on Friday among its regional news teams and promoted Steven Kalin to CEO, in what looks to be its biggest move yet toward reaching its long-promised goal of profitability by the end of 2013…

Street Fight Daily: Google Offers Head to Google+, GrubHub and Seamless Merger Rumors

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Google Offers Heading to Google+ (PCMag)… Grubless? Online Takeout Giants GrubHub And Seamless In Talks To Merge (TechCrunch)… LivingSocial Relying on Events to Make Up for Weaker Daily Deals Business (Washington Post)…