News and Analysis
Street Fight Daily: Online Ad Prices Rise, How Digital Brands Can Mirror Amazon’s Holiday Success
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Online Ad Prices Rise As Industry Combats Counterfeit Inventory, a Good Sign for Publishers… What E-Commerce Brands Can Learn from Amazon for Holiday Domination… Publishers Scramble to Make Their Annual Sales Numbers…
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Local Search for Events: The Great Missed Opportunity
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’
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
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
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…
Publisher Dave Harte Weighs in on the Quest for Hyperlocal Success in the U.K.
“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.”
Topix CEO: Hyperlocal Companies Are ‘Staying the Course’
The hyperlocal news and community site has continued to chug along, with its user base growing and traffic spiking during the fall 2012 election season. We recently caught up with the company’s CEO Chris Tolles to talk about how the hyperlocal ecosystem is shaking out, how the shift to mobile is affecting publishers’ CPMs, and how Topix is engaging readers with a more moderated discussion…
The Local Marketer’s Guide to Facebook
What steps should local marketers take to maximize the value of their Facebook presence? First, marketers should claim location pages and optimize their presence for Graph Search. Second devise a complementary content strategy for corporate brand pages. Local marketers should also consider using Facebook ads to supplement organic pages content…
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