News and Analysis

LBMA Podcast: Warby Parker, Marriott & Samsung, McDonald’s

This Week in Location Based Marketing is a weekly video podcast from the Location Based Marketing Association with Asif Khan and Rob Woodbridge. On the show: Hotstepper app, Lunera, Visa at the Olympics, Blippar’s AR City app. Special guest: Kent Weber from Leo Burnett.

Street Fight Daily: Black Friday Was a Bonanza, SoftBank Tries to Buy Uber Shares at a Discount

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Black Friday Sales, Click Rates Soar… SoftBank Will Try to Buy Uber Shares at a 30% Discount… Amazon Expands Its Influence on Video Infrastructure…

How Far Can Google Local Services Expand?

Regardless of what Google thinks is in the best interest of the searcher, the company has “no choice but to accelerate their monetization in Local to keep their revenues growing at a healthy clip and Wall Street happy,” David mihm tells Mike Blumenthal in their biweekly column.

Latest Posts

Street Fight Daily: Verifone CEO Out, Passbook Still Disappoints

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.VeriFone’s Bergeron Out After Outlook Misses Estimates  (BloombergBusinessweek)… iPhone Passbook: Six Months On and It Still Disappoints (ZDNet)… Google Concedes That Drive-by Prying Violated Privacy (New York Times)…

SXSW: Foursquare’s Crowley Wants to Leverage ‘Active’ Recommendations

As Foursquare’s user base expands and its database of grows past 3 billion data points, the company’s CEO says the amount of data available will increasingly make location a fulcrum for leveraging behavior modification.

6 Platforms For Booking Local Services

Platforms that allow consumers to book appointments with service-based professionals (like plumbers, electricians, and mechanics) are disrupting the way local services have traditionally been scheduled. Here are six platforms working to change the way local, service-based businesses schedule appointments with consumers…

SXSW: With Pivot, Zaarly’s Focus Shifts to Merchants

Zaarly rolled out its “storefronts” initiative last fall, and soon will completely drop the consumer-generated request model it was founded around to shift entirely to a storefront selling approach. From a hyperlocal marketing perspective, one of the most profound effects of this is the way Zaarly is now counting on sellers to bring in buyers…

Street Fight Daily: Google Delivers Same-Day, Local Search on Mobile

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Google Shopping Express Test Partners Include Target And Other Local SF Stores (TechCrunch)… Only 29% Of Consumers Regularly Use Mobile Devices To Find Local Businesses (Search Engine Land)… Retailer Enthusiasm for Mobile Payments Tempered by Power Struggles in Industry (Mobile Commerce Daily)…

Why Local Online Publishers Should Also Be Designing Merchants’ Sites

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

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?

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

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

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…