News and Analysis

Facebook on Local News Partnerships: ‘We’re Just Getting Started’

The “Facebook Journalism Project” was launched recently to meet the “needs” of a news industry concerned about all the free editorial content being made available to the giant distribution platform. In this Q & A, Josh Mabry, manager of Facebook’s local news partnerships, details what FB is doing and plans to do for community news.

At Mobile Innovation Summit a Focus on Customer Experience and Paths to Purchase

Total digital commerce has more than doubled in the last five years, it shows no signs of stopping, and brands must address customer experience on mobile if they intend to grow in coming years. That was one takeaway from the Mobile Innovation Summit event in Denver this week.

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

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…

Latest Posts

Street Fight Daily: Square To Partner With NYC Cabs, Freespee Raises $3.3 M

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Square Likely To Announce Cabs Partnership With New York City (Forbes)… Freespee Raises Further €3.3 Million For Its Mobile Click-To-Call Advertising And Analytics Service (TechCrunch)… Relocation, Relocation, Relocation – A “New” Local Ranking Tactic? (USA Today)…

Street Fight Daily: Local Search Share Increases, The Bubble That Wasn’t

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology... Study: 43 Percent Of Total Google Search Queries Are Local (Search Engine Land)… The Bubble That Wasn’t: What Happened to ‘People Discovery’ App (The Verge)… St. Louis Public Radio, St. Louis Beacon to Explore ‘Combining Talents and Resources’ (Poynter)…

Hyperlocal Online Ads Are About to Get a Lot Bigger — Billboard-Sized

The next time you are in your doctor’s office, at the mall or at the local sports arena, the ad that you see on a plasma TV display or a digital kiosk could have been purchased and placed there using the same type of system advertisers are using today to buy and place online display ads…

Openings & New Hires at Repair.com, Amazon, Seamless, DexOne & more

Six new AEs at Yelp, five new engineers at Apple, plus shifts across the industry in business development, sales and product management. On the move this week: Jennifer Monteverde, Navid Davani, Rebecca Lawler, Robert Kilgarriff, and more. Openings at Yext, Yahoo, Ebay, LinkedIn, Manta and more…

PODCAST: This Week in Location-Based Marketing — Gary Schwartz

In this week’s episode, hosts Rob Woodbridge and Asif Khantalking about “pretty much everyone,” including Tagwhat, Redlaser, Shopkick, Saucony, Foursquare, LooConnect, Groupon, Savored, Evzdrop, Cisco, ThinkSmart and Google. Plus, special guest Gary Schwartz, author of “Fast Shopper, Slow Store.”

Street Fight Daily: Local Online Ad Rev to Jump 30%, Facebook Reviews

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Borrell: Newspaper Revenue to Rise in 2013 (GigaOm)… Watch Out, Yelp: Facebook Is Thinking About Restaurant Reviews
 (Business Insider)… Square, Starbucks roll out service (USA Today)…

How Local Sites Can Leverage Technology to Build Community

I wonder why more hyperlocal news sites aren’t adopting, or at least adapting to, this new news model that makes community and journalism what they should be – partners. Journalists need to enter this new wall-less newsroom that has been reassembled digitally in the community. If they don’t, they will end up clutching at their buggy whips like the hansom drivers who had to give the right-of-way to Henry Ford’s Model A…

Case Study: Restaurant Uses Customer Data to Measure Marketing Success

At Ping Pong Dim Sum in Washington, D.C., Myca Ferrer works hard to make sure every dollar spent on marketing is measured and tracked. By tying Venga’s loyalty platform into his restaurant’s POS system and email marketing database, Ferrer is able to track customer spending patterns and email click-through rates. He’s found that loyalty club members spend between 30% and 40% more per visit than non-loyalty club members…

Street FIght Daily: Square Launches Directory, Airbnb Pushes Into Local Recs

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Square Launches Web Directory to Find Local Merchants (GigaOm)… Airbnb Gets Into Recommendations With “Local Lists” Of Users’ Favorite Neighborhood Hangouts (TechCrucnh)… 5 Reasons Location Is The Smartphone’s Killer Map (Fast Company)…

What Can Online Directories Learn From the Yellow Pages?

I’m not advocating a return to the phone book, but I am curious about the lesson it might have to teach us. In particular, the notion of restricted and curated data sets may be worth a revisit. Without foregoing the benefits of scalability, search sites could do more to enable the curation of local data by business owners and other members of local communities…