News and Analysis
6 Mobile Customer Service Platforms for Retailers
Tech vendors are stepping in with mobile solutions designed to expand the ways store associates interact with customers. These solutions allow employees to do everything from checking inventory and processing transactions on smartphones to accessing real-time information about current promotions and customer purchase histories.
Street Fight Daily: Online Brands Go Brick-and-Mortar, Voice-Assistant Arms Race Escalates
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Why E-Commerce Brands Are Opening Brick-and-Mortar Stores… Amazon and Apple Escalate Battle of Virtual Assistants… Tech Companies, Led by Amazon, Spend More Than Any Other U.S. Companies on R&D…
GTCR Acquires Majority Stake in Simpli.fi
GTCR, a Chicago-based private equity firm, has acquired a majority stake in Simpli.fi, a programmatic advertising platform that helps brands master local marketing at scale. The Simpli.fi management team, headed up by co-founders Frost Prioleau and Paul Harrison, will remain in charge of the company’s operations.
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PODCAST: This Week in Location Based Marketing — McDonalds, Mondelez
In this week’s episode, hosts Rob Woodbridge and Asif Khan talk about how McDonalds is taking aim with Rovio’s Angry birds in China; Square makes its way north to Canada; Plus news from Gigwalk, Yelp and Yahoo + special guest Ed Kaczmarek, Director of Innovation and Emerging Technology at Mondelez International…
Street FIght Daily: Yelp Dismisses Google’s Local Content, Google Expands Wallet
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Yelp Not Worried About Google’s “Struggling” Local Content Play (PandoDaily)… Google Wallet Expands To Mobile Web (TechCrunch)… Coupons Boost Starbucks (The Wall Street Journal)…
Does Hyperlocal ‘Engagement’ Work — And Can it Be Monetized?
In 2002, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jan Schaffer founded J-Lab to help the news media use technology to engage citizens on big public issues. There’s a lot of talk about hyperlocal news sites using technology and social media to take civic journalism to a new level where the community is an equal player, but how much is wishful thinking and how much reality? I went to Schaffer for answers…
Pirq Closes $1.2 Million Funding Round, Launches New Version of App
Instant-deals and loyalty provider Pirq released version 2.0 of its mobile real-time deals app this morning, offering consumers digital punch cards to accumulate rewards in four new verticals. The Washington-based company also announced it’s closed a $1.2 million round in venture financing…
Lucky Ant Waives Fees, Opens Crowdfunding to SMBs in Wake of Sandy
Many small businesses affected by the wrath of the hurricane will require working capital to make repairs, and the Brooklyn-based Lucky Ant wants to help them raise that money from their communities. The company has waived its fee, allowing any business (in New York or elsewhere) to raise funds for recovery free of charge…
Survey: 91% of Brands to Maintain or Increase Local Spend in 2013
The study also found that while SEO and social media marketing dominated in 2012, more and more brands are looking to invest in new tactics in 2013. While mobile leads the way in terms of new types of marketing, over a third of brands surveyed said they wanted to use online customer reviews (31%) and local blogs (31.5%) in the coming year…
SeeClickFix Partners With HuffPo, Takes On Sandy
In the lead up to the storm, the New Haven-based company hooked up with the Huffington Post and NBC Washington to embed its interactive widget, which is already used by the Journal Register Company as well as smaller hyperlocal sites, into the sites’ storm-tracking coverage. Street Fight caught up with Ben Berkowitz, the co-founder and CEO of SeeClickFix, to talk about why “the crowd” is critical during major events…
Guess Who Has a Hyperlocal Foothold in 156 Locations?
So what exactly is the CBS Local product for consumers, merchants and advertisers? “We are local media business that is focused on four areas: News, Sports, Music and Lifestyle content,” said CBS Local Digital Media president Ezra Kucharz in an email interview. “We reach consumers online, mobile and over-the-air. Merchants and advertisers work with us to reach consumers whether on a national or local level.”
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