News and Analysis

Patch’s Leader Says the Network Today Is Proof That Local Can Scale

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Warren St. John, who has led Hale Global’s Patch since its 2015 takeover from Aol., says the network has evolved into a workable model for scaled local news — editorially, financially and as a community asset. In this Q & A, he presents his case.

Street Fight Daily: Brands Benefit from Voice Revolution, Placed Unveils New Attribution Tool

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… As Voice Has Its Moment, Tech Giants Give Brands a Way Into the Conversation (AdWeek) Voice is having its moment. People are talking, devices are listening and brands are attempting to insert themselves into the conversation, using Amazon Alexa voice skills and Google […]

SMB Index: Local Stocks Make Gains in September

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After a flat month in August, the SCP SMB Index gained 2.1%, consistent with the S&P 500 and Dow Jones. Xero led the gainers, up 17.7% in the month of September, while GrubHub led the list of losers down 7.8% during September.

Latest Posts

Openings & New Hires at eBay, Foursquare, Copilot, Condé Nast, Square, and More…

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Two high-profile exits took place this week — those of Jack Abraham at eBay and Keith Rabois at Square. In both cases, the tales are still unfolding. At Group Commerce, 28% of the staff was cut. Meanwhile, other employers are picking up their pace, advertising openings in sales, product management, design, social media, and management. Learn more about who’s changing jobs and where you can apply for a job now…

Selling Local Is Hard — Here’s What You Need to Do to Make It Work

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For the past couple of months I’ve been testing a new targeted local online advertising product as part of my fellowship project at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute.The test has been essentially to sell the product to regional businesses within a given market. And at the end of the two-month trial, after calling on more than 150 businesses multiple times, I have a much greater appreciation not only for local salespeople but for the brands in the marketplace that can sell local…

PODCAST: This Week in Location-Based Marketing — Locationary

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In this week’s episode, hosts Rob Woodbridge and Asif Khan bring you stories on Listia and FrontFlip; a deep dive into what Facebook Graph Search means to location; and Rob’s latest obsession app called Moves. Plus special guest Grant Ritchie, founder and CEO of Locationary, and our resource of the week from Forrester…

Street Fight Daily: Mobile Moves In-Store, Hyperlocal Comes to TV

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Pew: 72 Percent Of Smartphone Owners Used Devices While Shopping In Stores (Marketing Land)… A TV that Knows Who You Are (Financial Times)… Small Firms Say LinkedIn Works, Twitter Doesn’t (The Wall Street Journal)…

Case Study: Jelmar Reaches Younger Demo With Location-Based Promotion

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The cleaning products manufacturer ran a promotion last year with inMarket’s CheckPoints mobile app, which rewarded customers for scanning CLR and CLR Bath & Kitchen products with their smartphones. As a result, Jelmar saw an immediate uptick in sales at stores where the mobile promotion ran…

Humanizing ‘Dry’ Data Is Only Part of the Challenge for Community News

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I’m utterly convinced that data will be the salvation of community news sites, both in delivering more audience-engaging content and doing so cost-effectively. But the big problem in community journalism is not data that’s dry and creepy. It’s data that’s incomplete, badly formatted, sloppily collected or – most serious of all – withheld…

Street Fight Daily: LivingSocial Losses, Facebook Offers Pick Up

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.LivingSocial records net loss of $650 million for 2012 (The Washington Post)… Facebook Offers Have Been Claimed By 42M Users (TechCrunch)… Time to Retire the Term ‘HyperLocal’ (Screenwerk)…

What We Mean When We Talk About ‘Hyperlocal’

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When we launched Street Fight, we expanded the term “hyperlocal” from its traditional use pertaining only to passionate, driven, highly local publishers who were the first to act on the erosion of local media’s business. We have applied it to include anyone who is disrupting and taking market share from traditional media and offering local businesses new ways to reach consumers…

Edo Bucks Trend, Expands Into Local

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As firms like Group Commerce pull out of the local market, others like Edo are moving in the opposite direction.The company, which syndicates card-linked offers to financial institutions like Ally Bank and Fifth Third, has hooked up with local reseller 2Go Media to open its network to local merchants through a simplified version of its enterprise platform…

The Local Conundrum: Rich Content or Accurate Information?

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Google may have thought that situating local within Google+ would somehow obviate the need to fix it, but the presence of engaging content does nothing to modify the basic requirement that information services provide useful information. Perversely, information services spend too much time pretending they are content services but offer none of the openness of those services where it’s really needed…