News and Analysis

Street Fight Daily: Amazon Adds Local Artisan Products to Prime Now, CPGs Go Digital

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon Brings Its Handmade Local Items to Prime Now Through Holidays (TechCrunch) For the first time, handcrafted items from local artisans – including things like home décor, jewelry, art, and more – will be available on Prime Now today all the way through […]

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.

Latest Posts

Group Commerce to Merge With Nimble Commerce

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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

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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?

Case Study: Roofer Uses Local Marketing Tools to Boost Call Volume

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Muth Roofing owner Chad Muth wasn’t convinced he should be relying solely on Angie’s List as a way to advertise and promote his roofing business. “At one point in time, Angie’s List was driving our business. Almost 40% of our call volume was coming from Angie’s List, which is great, but it’s also kind of scary because it’s like putting all your eggs in one basket,” said Muth…

Street Fight Daily: Twitter Brings Local Trends to Mobile, Square Poaches PayPal Exec

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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

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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

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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’

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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

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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

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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)…

5 Tools For Improving Email Delivery Rates

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Marketers can spend hours crafting the perfect e-newsletters and researching the most opportune times to send their messages out, only to have their emails get bounced before they reach their subscribers’ inboxes. As inboxes get tougher to penetrate, marketers are looking for new ways to ensure their messages get through. Here are five tools that marketers can use to improve their email delivery rates…