News and Analysis

5 Ways Retail Brands Are Using Mobile Tech to Assist In-Store Shoppers

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Consumers are doing more of their shopping online, and when they do come inside physical stores, they expect to be wowed. Here are five examples of ways that major retailers like Lowe’s, Nordstrom, and Bonobos are implementing mobile technology platforms inside their physical stores.

Street Fight Daily: Facebook Helps Brands on Mobile Video, Snap Gets a Boost from Big Ad Buyer

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook Wants to Help Brands Tailor Their TV Ads for Mobile (AdWeek) After quietly piloting a video program with brands called PockeTVC (short for pocket television commercials) for more than a year that takes existing TV assets and fits them for mobile, Facebook […]

Street Culture: How Signpost’s Start Was Inspired By Family and Succeeded with Persistence

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CEO Stuart Wall says that many tech startups struggle with finding a perfect-fit co-founding developer, as Signpost did, but that finding the right people to hire is one of the most important things a leader can do. “I think it’s two things: skill and will,” Wall says.

Latest Posts

Block-by-Blockers Respond to Borrell’s Revenue Prescription

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“People are beginning to figure out that the display advertising model is a bad carryover from mass media,” says Gordon Borrell. “What does that mean for the future of hyperlocal websites? I think there’s value in them, but I honestly don’t think there’s enough value to sustain the business model in any single market beyond being a very small niche.”

How Real Estate Agents Are Using LBS to Connect Buyers and Sellers

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Real estate has always been about “location, location, location,” but that maxim is truer now than ever. Mobile apps and location-based services are increasingly becoming an important part of a real estate agent’s marketing arsenal, and an important part of the way prospective buyers find places to live…

Street Fight Daily: Yelp Surges, Google Monetizes Third-party Maps

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Yelp Surges as Growth Potential Counters Lockup Expiry (Businessweek)… Google Launches New Ad Formats To Help Developers Monetize Google Maps (TechCrunch)… Square Extends Its Retail Reach, Now Sells Its Card Reader at 1k AT&T Stores, 20k total (The Next Web)…

Why Are Local Search Results Polluted With Bad Content?

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Really good local is half Q&A, half search and includes enough activity and ratings and comments to provide more than temporal relevance. But many sites that come up high in searches have few ratings, and don’t provide me with particularly useful or relevant information. And there is rarely a social graph overlay…

6 Ways to Encourage User Contributions on Hyperlocal Sites

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Encouraging readers to comment on stories, share news tips, and contribute content involves more than adding a commenting widget or slapping a “Tips” button on the header of a site. Here are six tips from successful publishers and editors about how independent publications can solicit feedback from their readers online…

Street Fight Daily: Yelp Bulls Get Bearish, Google Wants More Wallet

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Yelp Traders Brace for Lockup Expiration; ‘Better to Be Safe Than Sorry’ (Wall Street Journal)… Google Wallet Aspires To Hold All Your Cards and Tickets (GigaOm)… How The Web ‘Check In’ Is Growing Up (Forbes)…

Where Do Business Listings Come From?

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At some point in the future, local data must become purely digital, because the phone book will not be around forever. But until a critical mass of U.S. businesses understands the rationale for managing online data, this fundamental problem will continue. We need the concerted effort of all local search players to educate the local business community and advocate for the transition to digital data…

Clif Bar Uses Foursquare’s API for Geo-Targeted Twitter Campaign

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By restricting advertisers from targeting users at specific locations, Twitter has made it difficult for big brands to use its platform when running geo-targeted campaigns in the past. Clif Bar found a way around this challenge earlier this summer, when the company began asking customers with GPS-enabled devices to voluntarily tweet their locations for the chance to win coupons and prizes…

Street Fight Daily: iPhone Leaks Show NFC, LivingSocial Sued

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Here Comes Passbook: Latest Leak Points To NFC-Equipped Next-Gen iPhone (TechCrunch)… Marketer That Sued Groupon Now Targeting LivingSocial (CNet)… Marketer That Sued Groupon Now Targeting LivingSocial (CNet)…

Data That Thinks ‘Big,’ But Acts Local

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Local media is increasingly colliding with the emerging super-sector known as “Big Data.” This will define the “mobile+local” promise we keep hearing about — that location targeted ads will boost relevance, performance and thus monetiztion. But one thing often missing from the discussion is what the heck we mean by “location targeted?”