News and Analysis
Hyperlocal Pioneer Howard Owens Sees New Mobile App as Key to Scaling Beyond His ‘Batavian’
Eight and a half years after launching his hyperlocal news site The Batavian, in upstate New York, Howard Owens is looking at growing his base company, Album Corp., beyond Batavia to multiple locations. His plan for expansion is driven by a homemade mobile app that he’s experimenting with for the site.
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The Local Conundrum: Rich Content or Accurate Information?
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…
With Abraham Out, What’s Next for eBay Local?
Earlier this week eBay announced that it had parted ways with Jack Abraham, the founder of Milo (which eBay acquired two years ago) and a centerpiece of the web giant’s blistering push into the local space. Abraham’s departure leaves a vacancy at one of the more important positions in the hyperlocal ecosystem and presents questions about the evolving structure of eBay’s off-line commerce efforts….
Why OpenTable’s Foodspotting Buy Is Good for Restaurants
Foodspotting, a provider of a food-sharing and recommendations app, announced yesterday that it would be acquired by reservations company OpenTable for $10 million. While the two services seem quite different (one is for reservations and the other is a social network organized around food) the acquisition could mean good things for both companies as well as local restaurants….
Street Fight Daily: Intuit’s New Direction, Fousquare’s New Business App
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Intuit’s New Payments Directions In NFC, Passbook And Facebook Revealed In 20+ New Products (TechCrunch)… Foursquare’s New App Is Open for Business (AllThingsD)… Belly Bites is Free Sampling for Local Merchants Done Right (PandoDaily)…
#SFSNYC VIDEOS: Panels and Presentations From Our Recent NYC Summit
It’s been a couple of weeks since we gathered hundreds of hyperlocal industry execs in New York at the Street Fight Summit, but we’re still sifting through a lot of the ideas and inspiration that emerged from those few days. We’ve uploaded video clips of nearly all the onstage presentations and panels and are happy to share them with you…
6 Indoor Navigation Platforms for Retailers
Nearly three-quarters of consumers with smartphones say they would rather use their mobile devices inside a store than ask an associate for help. Here are six platforms that merchants of all sizes can use to help customers find products on store shelves and perhaps complete more transactions…
Street Fight Daily: Abraham Leaves eBay, Opentable Acquires Foodspotting
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… eBay Loses Head of Local Jack Abraham (Fortune)… OpenTable to Acquire Foodspotting for $10 Million (The New York Times)… Why the Future of Local-Mobile Advertising Is Not What You May Think (Screenwerk)…
What Multilocation Brands Need to Do to Prepare for Facebook’s Graph Search
National brands have invested nearly all their Facebook resources in building and supporting brand pages for the purpose of publishing content and managing customer relationships at the corporate level. But these brands don’t do business at the corporate level.They do business at the local level through large, brick-and-mortar networks. When it comes to Graph Search, these physical locations and their corresponding local Facebook pages are what really matter…
Bringing SMB Point-of-Sale Systems to the Cloud
The introduction of SaaS POS has broad implications, not only for payment firms like Square, but also a host of other loyalty and lead generation start-ups that have worked to tie into the point of sale over the past 18 months. It brings scalable access to real-time data on nearly every inch of local retailers’ operations, not only accelerating existing sectors like loyalty and rewards but opening new opportunities for key services like live inventory search…
Street Fight Daily: Group Commerce Layoffs, Mayer Talks Location
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Group Commerce Has Laid Off 28% Of Its Staff (Business Insider)… Is Foursquare on Marissa Mayer’s Silicon Alley Shopping List? (BetaBeat)… Keith Rabois Talks About Sexual Harassment Claim, Becoming a “Distraction” at Square and What’s Next (AllThingsD)…
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