News and Analysis
Why Commercial Banks Are Turning to Proximity Technology
That location intelligence firms are able to use foot traffic patterns to predict the financial performance of businesses is nothing new. But a new report released shines a light on the ways commercial banks and investment companies are upping the ante by using location data to get the most out of the market.
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
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…
The Web Isn’t a Local Broadcast Channel, It’s a Listening Post
Let legacy media be legacy media — but get used to the idea that, in a connected world, the ability to carve out new local news niches and profit centers is based, in large part, on our ability to listen. This is not a skill widely held among those who only “distribute,” but it’s one of the keys to a successful tomorrow in the network…
Street Fight Daily: Discover Pushes Paypal In-Store, Twitter Opens Self-Serve Ads
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Discover Pushes PayPal’s In-Store Service as First Data Holds Out (Wall Street Journal)… Twitter Opens Up Self-Serve Advertising Platform to All Businesses (GigaOm)… Won’t You Be in My Nextdoor Network? (AllThingsD)…
Survey Shows Rise In Mobile Search as a Starting Point for Consumers
A new survey, released by Telmetrics and xAd, indicates that there is increasing use of mobile devices by consumers as a part of their path-to-purchase, as well as increasing desire for local. The results found that 45% of consumers go to their mobile device first when starting a search. One-third said they used mobile throughout their purchasing process, two-thirds switched to another device or converted offline…
Street Fight Daily: Foursquare’s Plans Leaked, Google Now on iOS
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Leaked Doc Shows Foursquare’s Big Plans for Your Check-in Data (CNet)… Google Brings Virtual Assistant to iOS ‘Now’ (Internet2Go)… Jack Dorsey Talks Square and Wearable Devices (New York Times)…
Streets Ahead: Google Chat, and Instagram Reels