News and Analysis
As the Local News Industry Struggles, Publishers Ask Readers to Pay
The local news industry, fighting for survival, is turning its readers into customers. Sites are either charging readers for premium content — after up to 10 free visits a month — or setting up “membership” programs where readers make voluntary monthly or yearly payments.
Street Fight Daily: The Future of Facebook Video, Programmatic’s Year to Prove Itself
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… 2018 Will Be a Pivotal Year for Facebook’s Video Ambitions… Programmatic Faces a Turning Point in 2018… The Limits of Amazon…
Street Fight’s Predictions for 2018: Part Two
As 2017 draws to a close, we’ve once again asked Street Fight staffers, columnists, and friends to look into their crystal ball and offer prognostications for what they thought will be the biggest story (or stories) in local in 2018. This is the second part of a two-part series.
Latest Posts
5 Tips For Optimizing Hyperlocal Sites For Tablets
The real question for hyperlocal publishers isn’t how important tablet readers are, but how best to cater to this group. The publishing standards that work on PC browsers don’t always translate to tablet screens. Here are five strategies that hyperlocal publishers should consider when creating content for readers on tablet devices…
Street Fight Daily: Seamless GrubHub Merge, Wanderful Media Raises $9M
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… GrubHub, Seamless, and the Importance of the Purchase (Bloomberg Businessweek)… Newspaper Companies Invest Another $9M In Local Deal Startup Wanderful Media (TechCrunch)… What Patch Employees Were Told During the Friday Evening Conference Call (Romenesko)…
VP Ghaffary: Yelp Is the ‘Local Layer’ of the Internet
Mike Ghaffary, a grad school friend of CEO Jeremy Stoppelman who helped to write one of Yelp’s first advertiser contracts, now serves as the company’s vice president of business development (and will give a keynote address at Street Fight Summit West in San Francisco next month). Street Fight caught up with Ghaffary recently to discuss the relationship between content and data in local discovery, and why competitors will have a hard time “killing Yelp.”
In Push to Profitability, Patch Trims Staff and Promotes Kalin to CEO
AOL’s Patch network of community news sites made significant staff cuts on Friday among its regional news teams and promoted Steven Kalin to CEO, in what looks to be its biggest move yet toward reaching its long-promised goal of profitability by the end of 2013…
Moving Upstream, PayPal and Square Make a Play for the Local Merchant’s POS
There’s a not-too-quiet rivalry brewing between Square and PayPal over offline payments, and this week saw the unofficial opening of an important new theatre: the SMB point of sale (POS). It’s perhaps the stickiest problem for both companies to solve in order to make payments work, and their respective announcements demonstrate a strategic skism similar to what we’ve seen in desktop computers and mobile phones..
5 Ways Brands Can Leverage Place-Based Mobile Targeting
The ability to target consumers based on location is no longer an emerging element of mobile technology — it is the standard on which all other strategies are based. The growing demand for this type of mobile advertising has brought on the development of new and effective location targeting strategies, the most popular being place-based mobile ad targeting. Want in? Here are five place-based mobile targeting strategies to try.
LBMA PODCAST: Square, BlockAvenue, and PlaceIQ CEO Duncan McCall
In this week’s episode, hosts Rob Woodbridge and Asif Khan talk about rumors that Facebook is looking to purchase Waze for $1 billion. Meanwhile, Square is set to check in to Foursquare’s neighborhood; BlockAvenue launches to give your city a grade; and Unilever goes hyperlocal with its rewards program. Plus special guest Duncan McCall, CEO of PlaceIQ.
Street Fight Daily: Mason Moves On, Aruba Buys In-Door GPS Firm Meridian
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Ex-Groupon CEO Mason Moving to San Francisco to Start New Company (Reuters)… Aruba Buys Meridian Apps, Eyes ‘Indoor GPS’ Services (ZDNet)… How Google Made Maps Human, Savvy, and Monetizable (Fast Company)…
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