News and Analysis

Street Fight Daily: Alphabet Mulls Big Investment in Lyft, Pubs Not Making Money on Facebook

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amid Waymo-Uber Drama, Alphabet Considers Lyft Investment of About $1 Billion… Study Finds Publishers Are Not Making Much Money on Facebook… Why Amazon Is the New Google for Buying…

Will Local News Providers Make Virtual Reality an Actual Strategy?

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Trying to predict how popular VR will become is difficult because the most accessible virtual experiences so far, like those achieved with Google Cardboard and the New York Times’ “360 videos,” reveal only a glimpse of VR’s potential.

How Brands Are Targeting Moms with Localized Campaigns

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Moms control the purse strings year-round, but their influence on the retail sector is especially strong during the fourth quarter, when back-to-school and holiday shopping give the industry a much-needed boost. Here are five examples of hyperlocal strategies that brands are using to target moms right now.

Latest Posts

PODCAST: This Week in Location-Based Marketing — Esquire, GetGlue

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In this week’s episode, hosts Rob Woodbridge and Asif Khan look at jeans that check-in for you; Esquire jumps the gap between magazine and digital; and is Foursquare’s new valuation too high? Plus news from GetGlue, a new Apple patent on location and a clip from the archives with Holger Luedorf, VP mobile and international at Foursquare…

Street Fight Daily: Mason Stays, LivingSocial Speeds to a Halt

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Groupon CEO Mason to Stay After Directors Discuss His Tenure (Businessweek)… LivingSocial Learns Speeding Doesn’t Pay  (The Wall Street Journal)… Hyperlocal Ads Are Linchpin to Holiday Mobile Search Auccess (Mobile Marketer)…

Memo to Hyperlocal Editors: You Too Can Be a Nate Silver

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As I watched Nate Silver achieve such success analyzing numbers during the election, I asked myself: Can hyperlocal news sites learn anything from FiveThirtyEight? The question is pertinent because numbers of all kind — far beyond those from polling and elections — are gushing from local governments, but not many of them are showing up in meaningful ways on community sites…

Can Businesses Use Hyperlocal to Leverage Customers’ Politics?

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There has been significant coverage about the differences in Democrats and Republicans, but to date there hasn’t been any analysis on real world activities associated with political affiliation. From grocery stores to restaurants, from retailers to gas stations, voting Democrat or Republican plays a part in which establishments we step foot in and which ones we don’t…

Street Fight Daily: LivingSocial Layoffs, Google Buys Couponer

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.LivingSocial expected to lay off 400 in U.S. (Washington Business Journal)…
Google Buys ‘Coupon’ Platform Incentive Targeting For Closed-Loop Marketing (Screenwerk)… The Story Of Adku, And Why Andrew Mason Isn’t The Problem At Groupon (TechCrunch)…

Groupon’s Mason: It Would Be ‘Weird’ If Board Wasn’t Discussing My Job

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“There’s no question that we’ve had bumps in the road, but Groupon has created not just a business, but an entirely new category,” said the CEO. “If I ever thought I wasn’t the right guy for the job, I would be the first guy to fire myself. I care much more about the success of Groupon than being CEO.”

The Steaks in Square’s Future

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Back in June, social/local analyst Rocky Agrawal bet Reuters financial journalist Felix Salmon a steak dinner that Square would be acquired by a company other than PayPal in 2012. At this point, a sale seems pretty unlikely before the end of the year — and I don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon. So if someone wants to bet me that Square gets acquired before this time in 2013, I’ll take that bet…

A Quick Guide to SMB Success on Mobile

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Less than 5 percent of local businesses have a website optimized for mobile devices. In some cases, a company’s site isn’t even “findable” through searches on mobile devices. Worse, consumers, when they do find the local business’s website, can only see a desktop-specific version. Here are a few tips to help demystify mobile for business owners and help them get started right away…

Conference Notebook: Yelp ‘Focused,’ Foursquare Denies Slower Growth

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It doesn’t look like Yelp has plans to push across the local marketing stack anytime soon. Responding to a question of whether Yelp planned to position itself as a local operating system for local business like Groupon, CEO Jeremy Stoppelman said it was “hard to say what tangential businesses [Yelp would] get into” but “its safe to say we’re focused.”

Street Fight Daily: Groupon CEO on Hot Seat, Apple Maps Manager Out

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Is Andrew Mason on the Bubble as CEO of Groupon? (AllThingsD)… What Kinds of Local Stories Drive Engagement? The Results of an NPR Facebook Experiment (Nieman Lab)… Apple Fires a Manager Over Its Misfire on Maps (New York Times/Bits)…