News and Analysis

Street Fight Daily: Google Bests Facebook on Web Traffic Referral, How BBC Uses Voice Assistants

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… In Reversal, Google Now Sending More Traffic to Publishers than Facebook… How the BBC Is Using Voice-Assistant Platforms… The Mall of America’s New Chatbot Makes Holiday Shopping Easy…

Google Websites — To Infinity and Beyond?

“In the developing world, Google has a simplified path to the GMB where if a business first creates a website they can get verified more easily,” Mike Blumenthal notes. “Thus the website becomes the hook into Google’s data funnel. In the US, and most other developed countries, I would speculate that it is typically the other way around”

Big Political Ad Spend Set for Local in 2018, but Will News Sites Be Ready?

Political ad spending totaling $1.9 billion will pour into the digital space, most of it on the local level, Borrell Associates estimates in its 2018 forecast. But daily newspapers and local news “pure-plays” will have to fight hard for their share against Facebook, Google and the other digital platforms.

Latest Posts

CityGrid CEO: Passive Location Data Will Be ‘Transformative’ for Hyperlocal

In May 2011, Street Fight spoke with Jay Herrati, the former CEO of CityGrid, about the fragmented nature of the local online advertising marketplace and the future of the then-exploding Groupon. Recently, we caught up with Jason Finger, Herrati’s replacement, to discuss some surprises over the past two years and the coming “verticalization” of the hyperlocal industry…

Street Fight Daily: Waze’s Advantage, Location Data Drives Mobile Ads

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.As Mapping Costs Rise, Waze’s Volunteer Army Will Give It an Edge  (AllThingsD)… Location Information to Make Mobile Ads More Valuable (CNET)… Foursquare Needs Check-ins to Build Strong Local Search Engine (Mobile Marketer)…

Street Fight at Two: Looking Back, Looking Forward

When we first launched Street Fight in April of 2011, we saw a lot of energy coming together around consumer targeting by location, and over he past two years we’ve seen many companies in the hyperlocal space really starting to gain traction. We’ve really enjoyed the ride so far and we look forward to bringing you even more of the latest news, research and community around hyperlocal business in the coming years…

6 Ad Servers for Hyperlocal News Sites

Selecting the right ad server for a local news site has both financial and functional implications. Although many first-time publishers manage ads within their CMS platforms using ad plugins, those tools can only scale so far. Here are six ad servers that work with hyperlocal sites…

What Reviews Sites Need to Do to Prepare for Facebook’s Graph Search

It’s well known that reviews, ratings, and recommendations are a major factor in driving consumer decisions. Sourcing friends or people you know to provide advice holds even more weight when it comes to personalization and has an added benefit of trust. This is what makes the concept of Facebook’s new Graph Search so powerful…

Street Fight Daily: Facebook Readies SMB Push, Foursquare’s Nascent Asset

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.As Small Businesses Become Tech Savvy, They Could Earn Big Ad Revenue For Facebook (TechCrunch)… Why Foursquare’s Growth Story Is Better Than You Think (Forbes)… Andrew Mason on How to Deal: From Founder to Ex-Groupon CEO (Fast Company)…

Openings & New Hires at Yelp, Groupon, Local.com, Viddy and more

It is indeed hiring season! Who are the eager employers? Nokia, DexOne, Yelp, Hibu, CityGrid, Local.com and Street Fight among them (us). On the move this week include executives at Local Market Launch, Groupon, Acquisio and Viddy, where the son of Michael Ovitz has faced some controversy over his company’s distribution techniques. Plus, find out who’s looking to make the leap. Read on…

Report: Online Ad Revenue to Hit $24.3B in 2013

In looking at the categories of ad revenue, Borrell found that displays ads, which have taken a lot of heat in the industry for their supposed increasing irrelevance,, remain the dominant choice of businesses. But targeted display has moved ahead of run-of-site display, and targeted’s rate of growth is far higher…

Constant Contact Founder Randy Parker Launches Mobile Web Platform PagePart

Constant Contact founder Randy Parker has launched a new mobile web platform for SMBs called PagePart. The company seeks to be a simple and low-cost online and mobile solution for SMBs to establish and update their information online, and to optimize it for mobile…

LBMA PODCAST: David Lieb Ushers in the ‘Age of Inference’

In this week’s episode, hosts Rob Woodbridge and Asif Khan look at a new universal ad metric; Tata Docomo makes it easy to check in without GPS or internet (but why?); and Glympse moves onto the streets inside of BMW. Special guest David Lieb ushers in the age of inference and we all take a much needed mobile moment thanks to Chadwick Martin Bailey…