News and Analysis

Street Fight Daily: Voice Takes Center Stage at CES, Pizza Hut Bets on Self-Driving Future of Delivery

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Marketers Are Racing to Reach Rapidly Growing Audiences on Echo and Google Home… Pizza Hut, Toyota Team Up for Pizza Delivery in Driverless Vehicles… Vox Media Takes a Measured Approach in Growing Its Programmatic Marketplace…

Street Fight Daily: Facebook Dives Deep on Video Ad Data, Uber Gears Up for 2018

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook Releases Research Examining Complexities of Video Ads… Uber Powered 4 Billion Rides in 2017. Its COO Explains How It Will Do More in 2018… Could Snap’s Unusual and Generative Structure Also Be Its Breaking Point?…

Raise Report: New Funding for AxleHire, Digital Genius, Happy Returns

Every two weeks, we round up some of the biggest fundraises taking place in hyperlocal marketing, commerce, and tech. This week’s edition includes new funding for SendBird, TrendKite, Rubikloud, and Dahmakan.

Latest Posts

Case Study: Overcoming Obstacles When Redeeming Mobile Deals

Digital offers have proven to be an effective driver for customer acquisition, but the infrastructure required to redeem mobile coupons is something that many businesses — and particularly local restaurants — still don’t have in place. Not having the mechanism to scan barcodes prevented Sea Island Restaurant Group from offering digital coupons at its eight Sea Island Shrimp House and Tiago’s Cabo Grille locations, until recently…

Street Fight Daily: Waze Talks Collapse, Wikipedia Launches ‘Nearby’

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Facebook Acquisition Talks With Waze Fall Apart (AllThingsD)… Wikipedia Debuts ‘Nearby’ Feature to Find Pages Around You (VentureBeat)… As Software Trumps Hardware In The World Of Payments, VeriFone Partners With CardSpring For Card-Linked Services (TechCrunch)…

Report: Pureplays Using Legacy Media as a Farm System for Sales Staff

Local media companies need to do something to protect their digital sales assets or run the risk of losing them to pureplay web companies, according to a new report from Borrell Associates. Pureplays offer starting salaries in the range of $12,500 per year more than their nearest competitors, the local TV stations. The gap between starting pureplay sales people and those who work for newspapers is an incredible $21,000 more…

FiveStars Partners With Rogers in Canada, Launches ‘Vicinity’

FiveStars and Canadian media giant Rogers Communications have launched a new local customer loyalty service called Vicinity, which represents the California-based company’s first foray into international markets….

Square’s Kimble: There’s ‘More Opportunity Than Obstacle’ in Payments Space

San Francisco-based mobile payments company Square continues to grow at a rapid clip. Chuck Kimble, who heads up the company’s strategic partnerships, will be appearing on a panel next week in San Francisco at Street Fight Summit West, so we took the opportunity to catch up with him recently over email and find out more about how the company is planning to expand beyond its initial mandate mobile payments…

Local Video Copyrights in the Age of Online Virality

We need to find a way to attach revenue-producing messages to videos, so that the Web can do its thing without hurting the incentive for local media companies to create such videos in the first place. And I’m not talking about attaching 30-second prerolls. It can be done, and we need to talk about it. The Web is not TV…

Take Street Fight’s 2013 Local Merchant Survey

Help us help you: Each year, we publish The Local Merchant Report, the most in-depth, up-close-and-personal look at this important customer constituency. This year’s report will be released in early Q3 and we need your help reaching as many merchants as possible for the best statistical data on their habits, interests and outlook when it comes to local marketing…

Street Fight Daily: NYT Tests Native Ads, Online Retailers Dabble Offline

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.The New York Times Experiments with Native Advertising… On Two Wheels (Nieman Journalism Lab)… From Clicks to Bricks: Online Retailers Dabble in Physical Stores (AdAge)… Apple: ‘We Did Not Make a Bid For Waze’ (Mashable)…

Deseret VP: How Disruption Can Drive Digital Media Companies

Deseret Digital Media is often mentioned in conversations about companies doing disruptive things in local media. Eric Bright, the company’s VP for eCommerce, will be appearing on a panel next week in San Francisco at Street Fight Summit West, so we took the opportunity to catch up with him recently and find out more about the mechanics of disrupting the local space…

7 Ways Marketers Can Make Mobile More Attractive to SMBs

From apps to ads to geo-targeted push notifications, the challenge for marketers is explaining the benefits of mobile without overwhelming small business owners in a sea of technical jargon and complex language. Here are seven tips from experts in the mobile community about how marketers can do a better job of selling their products to merchants…