News and Analysis

Street Fight Daily: Yelp Fights Companies Soliciting Reviews, Snap Reckons with Post-IPO Disaster

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Yelp Increasingly Cracking Down on ‘Review Solicitation’… Snapchat Is Having a Crisis of Confidence. So Are Investors… Postmates Launches Grocery Service, Scheduled Deliveries, and Revamped App…

Street Fight Daily: Salesforce & Google Partner on Analytics, MarTech Budgets to See Big Growth

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Salesforce and Google to Integrate Analytics 360 with Marketing and Sales Clouds… MarTech Budgets Projected to See Double-Digit Growth Next Year… Lyft COO Rex Tibbens Is Stepping Down After More Than 2 Years…

SMB Index: Big Gains for Local Stocks in October

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After gaining 2.1% in September, the SCP SMB Index experienced a scorching start to Q3 gaining 6.8% in October, outpacing all other major indices we track. For the first time, Square cracked the Top 5 Constituents list after climbing 29% in October.

Latest Posts

Local Retail Won’t Disappear — Mobile Will Transform the In-Store Experience

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“The changes in the next five years in retail will be more profound and transformational than the last 100 years in retail have been because largely because of mobile,” said Cyriac Roeding, CEO of Shopkick. “I don’t think people will go [to stores] because they need something. I don’t even think they’ll go because they want something. I think they’ll go because they want to feel better.”

6 Tools for Creating Performance-Based Offers

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As pure-play daily deals sites struggle to remain attractive to local merchants, a new model for offers is beginning to emerge. Rather than giving blanket discounts on general merchandise — a hallmark of the original Groupon deals — brand advertisers are increasingly opting to use performance-based offers as a way to drive traffic without necessarily hurting the bottom line. Here are six tools that merchants can use to create performance-based marketing offers…

Street Fight Daily: Apple Buys WifiSLAM, NYU’s Hyperlocal Finds New Home

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Apple Acquires Indoor Location Company WifiSLAM (Wall Street Journal)… Changing Trains: The Local East Village, NYU’s hyperlocal blog, Moves from The New York Times to New York Magazine (Nieman Lab)… Local Search Service Roamz Shifts Again – Now “Local Measure,” Startup Brings Geo-Based Data To Businesses (& Gets Them To Pay) (TechCrunch)…

Can Newspapers Evolve Into ‘Local Membership’ Organizations?

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Newspapers are well positioned to start local membership programs modeled after AAA or AARP. They have great brands in their communities, they already have a membership base in the form of subscribers, and they have strong relationships with local businesses and organizations…

Restaurant Chain Looks For Location-Specific Trends in Online Reviews

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Keeping up with customer reviews and social media chatter can be especially difficult for a national chain. As the director of digital marketing at Houlihan’s, a “polished casual” restaurant chain with 85 locations, Natalie Bass is responsible for making sure the company is being found online and communicating with customers through all the most popular digital channels…

PODCAST: This Week in Location-Based Marketing — Ping Mobile

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In this week’s episode, hosts Rob Woodbridge and Asif Khan discuss LinkedIn’s rumored acquisition of the Pulse News Reader. Meanwhile Posse saddles up and moves to the U.S.; the earth’s magnetic field may hold the key to indoor location; and Quri gives brands a little leverage. Plus special guest Shuli Lowy from Ping Mobile on SMS marketing…

Street Fight Daily: Local News Lost, Groupon Bundles SEO

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.American News Consumers Have Gained the World but Lost Their Backyards (Atlantic)… Groupon Offers SEO Deal to Businesses (Upstart)… Barista Problems: Why Starbucks Isn’t the Energy Shot Square Needed (PandoDaily)…

Patch: Here’s Ten Things We’re Doing RIGHT

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Anyone paying attention to this column knows I’ve dedicated plenty of thought to AOL’s efforts in local, primarily via its Patch effort. Some at Patch/AOL were unhappy. Others mailed me with even more colorful complaints, or “can-you-believe-this” vignettes. So I wanted to turn the tables on myself a bit and challenge Patch to sell us on what is going right…

Borrell: Promotions Will Dominate Local Media Ad Spend in 2013

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Local advertisers are set to spend 81% more on promotions than media-based advertising this year, according to a new study by Borrell Associates. The report forecasts that growth in digital promotions will outpace digital advertising by 65% over the next four years, jumping from $32.2 billion in 2012 to over $80 billion in 2017…

Street Fight Daily: Pinterest Buys Livestar, Starbucks’ Shoddy Square Rollout

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Pinterest Acquires Local Recommendation App Livestar (AllThingsD)… Starbuck’s Shoddy Square Rollout Baffles Baristas, Confuses Customers (Fast Company)… Yelp: Study Says Our SMB Advertisers Make $23K More per Year (Screenwerk)…