News and Analysis

Street Fight Daily: Social Declines in Search Visibility as Video Rises, Amazon Deal Boosts Kohl’s

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Social Sees Precipitous Decline in Google Search Visibility While Video Rises… Kohl’s Shares Could Pop 50 Percent as Amazon Partnership Ramps Up… With Facebook Emphasizing Community, Marketers Are Trying Out Facebook Groups…

5 Tech Companies Changing the Grocery Industry

The percentage of grocery purchases influenced by digital media nearly doubled last year, and by 2025 roughly one-fifth of U.S. grocery sales are expected to happen online. Now it’s time for technology vendors to step in with new innovations, so that the industry can continue to evolve. Here are five firms working to change the way we buy groceries right now.

ThriveHive Balances Software and Human Support to Power SMB Marketing

“So many people on the software side just want to solve everything with software, and on the agency side, there’s too much of a bias toward people. We think the right combination is in between,” said Steve Gottlieb, senior director of demand generation at ThriveHive.

Latest Posts

7 Strategies for Generating Localized News Stories

Appealing to a hyperlocal audience means going beyond repackaged press releases and community events listings to uncover truly newsworthy stories happening in individual neighborhoods. We consulted with experts from some of the country’s top hyperlocal publications to round up the best strategies for developing localized story ideas on a regular basis. Here are their best tips…

Learn to Build a Winning Mobile Experience

Our friends at VentureBeat are gearing up for MobileBeat 2013, their sixth annual event on the future of mobile. It takes place on July 9-10 in San Francisco and we’re offering the Street Fight community 20% off! Click here for the discount and check out the details below:..

How Bad Location Data Is Poisoning the Mobile Well

Marketers don’t have to be at the mercy of bad data. A number of vendors can help marketers sniff out embellished or inaccurate data using machine-learning algorithms to identify lat-longs commonly derived from a centroid. Advertising networks also have a small advantage over ad exchanges in that they can work directly with a publisher to ensure that only quality data gets passed along….

Street Fight Daily: Massive Layoffs at CityGrid, FTC Expands Regulations On Location Data

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyIAC’s CityGrid, Parent Of CitySearch And Urbanspoon, Lays Off Two-Thirds Of Staff, As Local Ad Push Bites(TechCrunch)… FTC Updates COPPA With New Restrictions On Location Data (AdExchanger)… Is Yelp A Bully Or Just Misunderstood? (BuzzFeed)…

When It Comes to Mobile Local Search and SMBs: Mind the Gap

Mobile is inherently local and thus conducive to location-based, high-intent user engagement, all of which appeals to many SMBs. B ut mobile also exacerbates their paradox of choice. That’s why there is a big opportunity for third parties to help SMBs get there. That can be marketing or SEO consultants, but the real opportunity is for the local media organizations with deep roots and existing relationships with SMBs…

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’s 5 Most Popular Stories From the First Half of 2013

The first six months of 2013 has brought a whirlwind of developments in local, from massive fundraising to exciting new products, and of course a few stumbles. What have readers been most interested in to date? Innovation around point-of-sale systems has been hot-hot-hot. Social media strategies for brands and SMBs are also highly evolving and therefore closely read. And it’s hardly a surprise that readers glommed onto our look into where investment dollars may lie. Enjoy this look back at the stories you loved (or may have missed!)…

Street Fight Daily: Delivery Hero Raises $30M, Groupon Looks To High-End

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technologyDelivery 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.