News and Analysis

Street Fight Daily: Twitter Debuts API for Mid-Sized Businesses, Beyond the Basics of Chatbots

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Twitter Debuts Cheaper Enterprise APIs for Growing Businesses… Moving Beyond the Gimmicks with Chatbots… Shifts Come to Oath’s Top Ad Tech Brass…

With Yext Integration, ShopKeep Looks Beyond Payment Processing

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More than 24,000 small businesses using an iPad-based point-of-sale system from ShopKeep now have access to online presence management tools from Yext, thanks to a new partnership between the two firms. The partnership raises the stakes in ShopKeep’s push to control a greater share of the SMB market.

Survey: Retail Associates Seek Mobile Tech to Defend Against E-Commerce

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According to the results of a new survey out this morning, nearly half of store associates say consumers are sometimes more knowledgeable about products than they are, but assistive mobile devices are helping these associates prevent customers from leaving their stores empty-handed and making their purchases online.

Latest Posts

Street Fight Daily: Twitter Tests Local Discovery, Bing Aggregates Deals (Again)

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Twitter Testing New Local Discovery Features — And It’s About Time (AllThingsD)… Microsoft Quietly Shuts Down Bing Deals, Launches Bing Offers As A Replacement (TechCrunch)… Belly Dance: Can Lightbank and Chicago’s Hot New Company Avoid Groupon’s Missteps? (PandoDaily)…

Do Community News Sites Really Need to Become ‘Digital Agencies’?

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For answers, I went to Julie Brooks, CEO of eCape.com, who went into and then out of, an ambitious program of agency-like marketing services; Mike Orren, president of the new marketing service firm Speakeasy, which he co-founded with the Dallas Morning News; and Carll Tucker, CEO of Daily Voice, who is considering expansion of marketing services it offers.

Case Study: California Fitness Studio Drives Referrals With Digital Program

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Ninety-two percent of consumers trust “earned media” — like word-of-mouth referrals — above other forms of paid advertising. At b2be Sports & Wellness, a high-end fitness studio in Chula Vista, California, Emmanuel Corona is looking to capitalize on this trend, partnering with Perkville to reward customers for referring their friends…

Street Fight Daily: Angie’s List Rolls, More Consolidation in Deals

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Angie’s List is Killing It: Revenue, Members, Growth — and Stock Price — All Up…  (VentureBeat)… Tippr Is Acquired by nCrowd in Further Consolidation of the Online Deals Space (AllThingsD)… Groupon Pits Itself Against Location-based Services with App Update (Mobile Commerce Daily)…

Local Search for Events: The Great Missed Opportunity

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My jumping off point for this week’s column is a recent post from Greg Sterling, where he observes that despite all the impressive innovation around local search in recent years, no one has launched a truly useful local events service. I have had this feeling for years and wasn’t sure if it was just me. But if Greg doesn’t know about a local events service that truly works, I think it’s fair to say one doesn’t exist. So pay attention, developers and entrepreneurs: local events need a killer app…

How Consumer Messaging Is Going From ‘Push’ to ‘Pull’

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The biggest battle coming in the world of marketing is a 180-degree shift in the routing of commerce-related messages. Today, we call them “advertisements,” one-directional messages FROM somebody with something to sell TO somebody who may potentially be a buyer. Tomorrow, the messages will come FROM those wishing to buy TO those with something to sell…

Street Fight Daily: Facebook Challenges Yelp, Foursquare Rethinks the Web

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Facebook Challenges Yelp With Mobile Pages Redesign Featuring Actions, Local Biz Details, And Ratings (TechCrunch)… Foursquare Revamps Business Pages to Take on Yelp as Web Visitors Hit 50 Million per Month (Verge)… Can Yelp Hold Off Foursquare and Facebook? (Screenwerk)…

Locu Adds Yelp to Its Growing List of Publisher Partners

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The company has announced a new partnership with local reviews and discovery service Yelp. The partnership, which follows previous deals with OpenTable and CitySearch, means that Locu’s 15,000 local merchant customers will be able to distribute their location, coordinates, hours, and menus to Yelp with real-time updates…

7 Mapping Tools for Hyperlocal Publishers

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Including an interactive map alongside a local news story is an excellent way for online journalists to enhance context, relevance, and reader engagement. Here are seven platforms that reporters can use to quickly create interactive maps to go alongside their hyperlocal stories…

Publisher Dave Harte Weighs in on the Quest for Hyperlocal Success in the U.K.

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“I think we’re in a place where the larger media organizations are in the second cycle of trying to rethink hyperlocal, and in the meantime there have been some smaller innovators, often ex-journalists themselves, who are starting to develop out of it,” says the Bourneville Village publisher. “The key still remains having people in place to sell ads.”