News and Analysis
Street Fight Daily: Google Makes Maps Interactive, Amazon Rolls Out ‘Instant Pickup’
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Brings Q&A to Maps, Further Entering the Local Recommendation Space… Amazon Adds ‘Instant Pickup’ in U.S. Brick-and-Mortar Push… Aiming for Transformation via Acquisition, Non-Tech Companies Buy Tech Firms…
Latest Posts
We’ve Seen the Past — And It Is ‘The Neighborhood’
For the past few years, social startups have been spiraling inward toward a smaller and smaller target: your neighborhood, your block. Now Patch is going all in by to leverage neighborhoods through communities of interest. But maybe neighborhoods are an artificial constructs, with borders that mean little even to those they bind. If that’s the case, we need to rethink a lot more than design and tools and lessons of the past…
Nimble Commerce Expands Off of White-Label Model, Launches Deal Exchange
White label deal purveyor Nimble Commerce has taken a page from the online advertising industry’s book, rolling out an offers exchange this morning to play matchmaker between local publishers and sales forces. Called Nimble Network, the product takes much of the thinking from only ad exchanges and applies it to the deals space…
Street Fight Daily: Groupon Snaps Up Savored, Ebay’s Mobile Momentum
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Groupon Moves Into Restaurant Reservations With Savored Deal (New York Times)… EBay’s Mobile Momentum: 100M App Downloads, 100M Items Listed (All Things D)… Data Firm Hits Craigslist With Monopoly Claim (GigaOm)…
iOS6: Can Google Beat Apple in its Own Backyard?
Mapping is a game ultimately won on function rather than form. This requires lots of listings data and search algorithms; in other words, things that are non-core to Apple. Relative to Google’s tenure in this area, Apple is only starting to stitch together local vertical content partners like Yelp and TomTom. And it’s already starting to show…
7 Reporting Tools for Hyperlocal Journalists
It can be difficult for journalists covering hyperlocal news events to find enough relevant information and quality sources to generate the types of comprehensive articles and reports that readers find useful. Here are seven tools that hyperlocal journalists can use to streamline the process of gathering data and generating the types of multiplatform content that readers embrace…
Street Fight Daily: Village Voice Sold, Groupon Cuts Loom
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Village Voice Media Execs Acquire The Company’s Famed Alt Weeklies, Form New Holding Company (TechCrunch)… As Groupon’s New Operations Czar Seeks to Streamline, Job Cuts Loom (Crain’s Chicago Business)… Local Search Cage Match: Google Vs. Apple Maps (And Siri) (Search Engine Land)…
Patch Redesign Emphasizes Social as Path to Revenue Growth
AOL’s hyperlocal news network released a major redesign Sunday evening, pushing the platform away from a traditional editorial news property and into a more social, user-driven service. The move marks the beginning of what AOL CEO Tim Armstrong called “phase two” in the company’s evolution…
BxB Recap: Is This the Future of Local News?
The passion with the group at Block by Block isn’t just about great journalism — it’s about turning online journalism into a business; it’s about leveraging existing tools and creating new ones; and most importantly it’s about working to collaboratively across these businesses to make an impact…
Poll: 66% of Consumers Visit Hyperlocal News Sites
Two-thirds of U.S. consumers visit hyperlocal news sites within their area, according to a recent Street Fight poll, with 9% visiting multiple times per day, 26% visiting on a daily basis, and another 16% doing so weekly. The 500-person survey, conducted on behalf of Street Fight by third-party opinions site Toluna QuickSurveys, reveals an avid and growing reader base…
The Road Ahead: What Autonomous Cars Teach Us About Marketing Automation