News and Analysis

Street Fight Daily: Duopoly’s Strength Exceeds Expectations, Pubs Struggle with Apple News

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google and Facebook Tighten Grip on US Digital Ad Market… Publishers Continue to Encounter Problems with Apple New… Alphabet’s Waymo Wants Uber to Pay $2.6 Billion for Single Stolen Trade Secret…

BUST: A Hard Landing as Soft Surroundings Files for Bankruptcy

How Showroom Concept Stores Are Changing the Retail Industry

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A number of major retailers and startups have been pioneering a local showrooming strategy, divorcing the purchasing of products from the distribution, and focusing more on experiences than in-person sales. Here are six examples of retailers that have been able to navigate this merchandise-free (or light) approach to local retail.

Street Fight Daily: Pinterest Empowers Brands, Uber Sues an Agency

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Brands Can Now Tap Pinterest’s Pin Collective Via a Self-Serve Customer Platform (AdWeek) Pinterest formed Pin Collective last October as a way to give brands access to the social network’s best content creators—publishers, production shops and individuals—to work directly with them on their campaigns. How […]

Latest Posts

Sizing the Industry: Who Gets Counted as ‘Hyperlocal?’

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Since we launched Street Fight in April of last year, one question has come up again and again that we don’t have a very good answer for: “How many hyperlocal news sites are currently operating in the U.S. — and is that number growing? And if it’s growing, how fast is it growing?”

SMBs on Mobile: Questions of Analytics and Performance

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The proliferation of mobile apps for local continues, with all major local search players maintaining their own apps, and Apple’s App Store currently returning 347 results for the phrase “local search.” With all of this attention, the time is not far away when businesses will begin to get concerned about the presence, accuracy, and effectiveness of their listings on mobile apps. I’d love to see a service that aims at comprehensive analysis of SMB presence across the “app space” for Android and Apple…

‘Tis the Season for Mobile-Motivated Sales

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Nothing makes the holidays jolly for retailers like increased foot traffic, elevated sales and full cash registers. Here’s how new hyperlocal mobile ad technologies this year are helping retailers who target some of their marketing efforts at mobile devices significantly increase their odds of achieving the jolliness they’re hoping for…

Street Fight Daily: Nokia Maps ‘Here’, Airbnb Launches Local Guides

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Nokia Maps a Course for Its Location Business, Unveils “Here” Cloud Service(AllThingsD)… Airbnb Launches Neighborhoods For Hyper-Local Travel Guides (Forbes)… GrubHub ‘Track Your Grub’ Lets You Keep Tabs on Your Order (PC Mag)…

Forget Apple vs. Google; a Battle Brews Between Yelp and Foursquare

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Foursquare bears tend to ridicule the check-in as a passing fad, but the check-in did two critical things for the company. It provided a mechanism through which the company could build and maintain its own dataset, and more importantly, it served as both an opaque piece of content (“Oh look, my friend checked-in here, it must be good.”) as well as an actionable, and manipulable, piece of data that (unlike content) gains value as inventory scales…

Street Fight Daily: Google’s Hyperlocal ‘Activity Stream’, A GrubHub IPO?

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Google Map Maker Goes Hyper-Local with Activity Stream (CNet)… Sizing Up GrubHub’s IPO Prospects (Crain’s Chicago Business)…Death of the Classified: Publishers Struggle to Ignite Old Ads in New Media (Paid Content)…

8 Ways Retailers Can Use Hyperlocal Tools to Capitalize on Black Friday

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Black Friday sales accounted for almost 20% of total retail industry sales in 2011, and the National Retail Federation expects that figure to rise another 4.1% in 2012. In an effort to help local retailers boost their share of those sales, a number of hyperlocal platforms are stepping in with their own tools built specifically for local businesses. We spoke to several hyperlocal industry leaders to get their tips on how small businesses can promote themselves on Black Friday without overspending on expensive marketing campaigns…

Deals Plus Ads Equal a Bundle of Conversions

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Deals companies that want to remain relevant must diversify their solution sets to include other services for local merchants. At the same time, publishers who are looking to expand digital revenues through deals and offers need to overcome some of the objections raised by merchants. We wondered what would happen if we bundled local deals with other advertising products, like display ads. The result was that publisher sales conversion rates nearly doubled…

Street Fight Daily: Yelp Settles ‘Best of’ Suit, Groupon Fights for Survival

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Village Voice, Yelp Settle ‘Best Of’ Trademark Suit (PC Mag)… Groupon Fights for Its Life as Daily Deals Fade (Reuters)… Learning From a Failed IPO (Venture Beat)…

Patch CCO Talks Election Coverage: Virtual News Teams, Trending Hashtag

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The election was a big national story, but it was also an important local story — and served as yet another crucible to test how deeply hyperlocal network Patch has woven itself into the 850+ communities it serves across the country. Rachel Feddersen, Patch’s Chief Content Officer, spoke with Street Fight this week about how the network approached and executed its election coverage, and what potential lessons the event had for the rest of the news cycle.