News and Analysis
How Thanksgiving Day Store Closures Impact Black Friday Sales
Shoppers say they don’t want retailers opening their doors on Thanksgiving Day, but research from Foursquare tells a different story. Analyzing proprietary foot traffic data at major retailers, Foursquare found that stores that open earlier on Thanksgiving Day drive more visits and steal share from their competitors.
Latest Posts
Local Search Is Becoming a Mobile Experience With a Social Layer
One of the more surprising revelations from a recent comScore study is that Facebook is now the #2 mobile app for local search, behind Google Maps. This puts it ahead of Mapquest, Bing, and Apple Maps. Yelp isn’t even in the top five. Are people really using Facebook for local search? This may seem counter-intuitive to some, but consider that Facebook is by far the most popular mobile app in the world…
LBMA PODCAST: Visualizing Your Check-ins & Twist’s Edward Marks
In this week’s episode, hosts Rob Woodbridge and Asif Khan looks at Swipp, Punch.in and Fiz. Meanwhile, Visa works with Fandango for location-based offers, and independent fuel retailers band together to create their own payment and loyalty initiative. Resource of the week is the history of location-based games in one infographic, and an interview with special guest Edward Marks of Twist…
Street Fight Daily: Facebook Adds Yext Data, DexOne Emerges from Bankruptcy
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Facebook to Add Yext’s Business Data as It Touts Search Feature (Bloomberg Businessweek)… Dex, SuperMedia Close Merger and Emerge from Chapter 11 As Dex Media (Screenwerk)… Google Calls Reports that Google Now for iOS Srains Batteries “Incorrect” (TheNextWeb)…
Group Commerce to Merge With Nimble Commerce
Three months after laying off a quarter of its staff, Group Commerce has agreed to merge with its primary competitor, Nimble Commerce, in an all-stock deal, continuing the consolidation among white-label deal companies. Under the terms of the deal, Nimble Commerce CEO Prashant Nedungadi will lead the new firm, which will retain the Nimble Commerce name…
In Counting Actual People, Hyperlocals’ Smaller Traffic Numbers Can Be Big
With local merchants looking at more and more digital marketing options in their search for customers, community news sites have to be aggressive in selling themselves to potential advertisers (and raising revenue that will pay for editorial and other improvements). How can they make the most of their traffic numbers, which are much lower than those at most commerce-based sites?
Street Fight Daily: Twitter Brings Local Trends to Mobile, Square Poaches PayPal Exec
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Twitter Updates Its Apps with New Trends Locations (TheNextWeb)… Square Hires An Exec From PayPal To Form Payments Partnerships With Retailers (TechCrunch)… Brownstoner Founder Jonathan Butler’s Venture-ing into Queens (Daily News)…
Yelp Finds Antidote to Mobile Burn in Bundled Inventory
Shares of Yelp rose 10% in after hours trading Wednesday evening after the company reported strong top-line growth in Q1 2013. The reviews site grew its revenue by 67% year-over-year to $46.1 million in Q1, cutting its net loss in half to $4.8 million from $9.8 million a year earlier. The bump came on the back of a 81% jump revenue from local businesses as well as successful monetization efforts in nascent international markets.
Placed Launches Analytics Product to Make Local Ad Targeting Smarter
Placed, a two year-old startup based in Seattle, has spent the last two years passively tracking the physical movements of over 70,000 smartphone owners who chose to share their location with the company. Today, the venture-back firm is opening that data to marketers, launching a Nielsen-like ratings service called Placed Insights to help advertisers intelligently buy location-targeted advertising…
In Tomorrow’s Retail Universe, the Destination Is ‘You’
Based on clues we can see all around us, it is my belief that retail, as we’ve known it for at least the last two millennia, is coming to an end. It won’t end tomorrow or next week. In fact, it will likely take at least a decade or two. But it’s very clear to me that we are coming to a tipping point and data, processing power and connectedness lie at the center of it all…
Streets Ahead: Google Chat, and Instagram Reels