News and Analysis

DNAinfo and Gothamist Shuttered Suddenly by Ricketts Following Vote to Unionize

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The delete button has hit two well-known and established local news sites. The twin closures came a week after the staff at DNAinfo New York voted to be unionized under Writers Guild of America East.

GateHouse’s UpCurve Acquires Closely to Complement ThriveHive

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Closely will be integrated into ThriveHive’s digital solutions, deepening UpCurve’s ability to aggregate and analyze SMB data. The buy enhances ThriveHive’s data-driven product suite by marrying its guided marketing platform with social media management software.

Borrell Sizes Up What’s Behind Local Ad Media Choices

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We know from the numbers that local advertisers are increasingly choosing social media to place their messages. But they’re also turning out to be cautious businesspeople who like to maintain a balance in their placements among multiple media, according to a new study from Borrell Associates.

Latest Posts

Why Local Online Publishers Should Also Be Designing Merchants’ Sites

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One of the most sustainable sources of income for local digital publishers ought to be web design and hosting for their local customers. Web design and hosting has counted for 20% of my company’s total annual revenue for the last five years. It’s a natural fit for publishers in so many ways, and yet I see very few who offer it. They’re missing out big time…

Defining the Local Coefficient: A Conversation with Yelp

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A growing chunk of physical purchases are influenced online. And the path to purchase increasingly weaves between different screens. But for conversions, it’s all about offline. The question is how long this will remain to be the case. Out of sheer curiosity, Yelp VP Mike Ghaffary ventured to quantify this…

Street Fight Daily: Zaarly Pivots, Can Hyperlocal Scale?

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Zaarly Shutters Its Reverse Craigslist Marketplace, Goes All In On Virtual Storefronts As Co-Founder Exits (TechCrunch)… Hyperlocal Cooties (Buzz Machine)… NY Daily News Releases City Guide App With MyCityWay (AdWeek)…

Publishers Could Gain More Control as Browsers Curb Behavioral Ads

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As limits arise on behavioral ads, endemic sites (or sites with actionable user data) can essentially become ad networks. If browser limits mean that Cars.com can no longer sell its data, then the opportunity exists for the company itself to develop a platform to sell audience extension…

With New Self-Serve Product, Weather Channel Eyes SMB Spend

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Late last week the company began piloting a new self-serve interface in a move to open its advertising platform to small and medium-sized business — a new market for the company. Built on top of PaperG’s white-label interface, the product is still in its early days…

PODCAST: This Week in Location-Based Marketing — CrowdOptic

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In this week’s episode, hosts Rob Woodbridge and Asif Khan look at Guardly’s indoor emergency services; Banjo is chosen by Google+; Qualcomm’s greatest location advertising campaign ever; Hot Wheels tweets for Cameros; Sonar introduces us to the Bing Fund; and Andrew Mason shows his character…

Street Fight Daily: Facebook’s New Feed, Plum District Founder Out

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Don’t Laugh at Zuckerberg’s Newspaper Metaphor, It’s More Accurate Than You Think (PadnoDaily)… CEO And Founder Megan Gardner Out At Mom-Centric Deals Site Plum District, Ex-Googler Susan Kim Takes Over (TechCrunch)… AOL’s CEO to Haters: Our Content Strategy Was Right After All (and Patch is Fine Too) (Paid Content)…

Deep Cuts Brought Daily Voice Back From the Brink

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Faced with uneasy investors and a cash burn of $500,000 a month, the company’s founder Carll Tucker wondered last weekend: “Is this it?” But after 48 hours of number crunching, Tucker finally came up with a one-page document that he was convinced would be Daily Voice’s passport to a secure future…

Banjo Founder: ‘Emotional Connection’ Is Key for Mobile

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In less than a year, social discovery app Banjo has jumped from fewer than a million users to over four million. The mobile service allows users to discover real-time data across social networks and learn more about places, and it recently launched a tablet app. Street Fight caught up with Banjo founder and CEO Damien Patton to chat about the future of mobile, making money, and the value of data…

5 Can’t-Miss SXSWi Panels for the Local-Obsessed

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The annual SXSW Interactive Festival starts tomorrow and runs through Tuesday. With five days packed with a wide range of panels and presentations, the confab can be thrilling and overwhelming at the same time. Here are five sessions focused on the future of local and social that Street Fight readers will be especially interested in…