News and Analysis

The Place of Newspapers in the Local Marketing Ecosystem

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“Digitally speaking, NextDoor is encroaching on a space that local papers really should own.” David Mihm tells Mike Blumenthal. “It’s basically a glorified forum that in my view would be every bit as successful, if not more so, if hosted by a truly local entity.”

New CEO at Daily Voice Says Full-Bore Expansion Is His Mission

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Randy Kilgore succeeds Carll Tucker, who founded Daily Voice in 2010, after a long career in print community news and will continue as chairman of the private Daily Voice company. In this Q & A, the two execs talk about the transition and what’s next for hyperlocal news network.

Street Fight Daily: Inside Uber’s Messy CEO Search, Why Brick-and-Mortars Are Closing Down

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Uber’s Search for New CEO Hampered by Deep Split on Board… Amazon Is One Part of a Much Larger Picture of the Retail Apocalypse… Focus on Mobile and Product Drives Q2 Digital Ads…

Latest Posts

Behind Constant Contact’s $100 Million Bet

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SinglePlatform, a two-year-old startup in the listings business, was close to closing a $15 million funding round when it was snapped up by email marketer Constant Contact last month in a $100 million deal. Recently, SinglePlatform founder Wiley Cerilli and Constant Contact CEO Gail Goodman spoke with Street Fight’s Steven Jacobs about how their respective companies met at an intersection of services for SMBs. Read more on the motivations behind the deal.

More ‘Serious Disruption’ in Store for the Local News Industry

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Local and hyperlocal journalism, like the entire news industry, is being pushed toward big change — to leave its editor-centric culture and connect more deeply with the community in the news-gathering process. Peggy Holman, co-founder of Journalism That Matters, is one of the on-the-ground agents of change…

Street Fight Daily: Groupon’s Free-Fall Continues, Svpply to Local

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Free-Falling Groupon Has Its Problems but Bankrupacy Talk Is Bunk (All Things D)… Svpply’s Store Explorer Lets You Window Shop From Your Phone (Fast Company)… Location, Personalization Key Factors in Mobile Advertising Triumph (Mobile Marketer)

Twitter Loses Significant Local Audience in Cutting Off LinkedIn

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In the purely hyperlocal sense of the word, LinkedIn is not like a Patch.com or a Foursquare. But, like Facebook, it is one of the primary filters though which people view social graph data. And social graph data, by definition, is local to some degree. Twitter’s decision to exclude the network from its API risks giving up on sizable growth opportunities…

Case Study: Target Encourages Guest Loyalty With Shopkick Partnership

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When Target took its partnership with Shopkick nationwide and rolled out the app at its 1,764 stores in May 2012, it became the largest retailer to partner with the mobile loyalty platform to date. While the partnership is still in its infancy, Target communications manager Molly Snyder says store managers are already reporting tremendous feedback and enthusiasm…

Street Fight Daily: Groupon Hits Low, Foursquare Helps Ad Sales

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Groupon’s Stock Hits New Low, Slipping More than 5% on the Day (The Next Web)… Foursquare Helps Magazine and Radio Station Sell Ads (AdWeek)… Hyperlocal News Sites Mature as Founders of Baristanet, Dallas South News Move On (Poynter)…

Digital First’s Buttry: Turning Community Engagement Into Profit

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“The engagement is part of building the brand, and the better brand you have, the easier the sale is for your sales staff,” says Buttry. “And the better brand you have, the more you’re going to feed in traffic. The more you become a place to find everything in the community, you’re going to generate more traffic, which generates more revenue.”

6 Tools for Identifying and Rewarding Brand Advocates

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Local marketers can’t force customers to talk about their brands online, but they can provide incentives to encourage this type of social sharing. Here are six platforms that businesses can use to identify and reward customers for talking about their products and services on Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare…

Street Fight Daily: Baristanet Founder Departs, ‘Showrooming’

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Departure of Baristanet Founder Doesn’t Portend Changes, Says Editor (Poynter)… Is the Future of Retail Showrooming? (GigaOm)… Let’s Explode the Myth that Data Journalism is ‘Resource Intensive’ (Online Journalism Blog)… Let’s Explode the Myth that Data Journalism is ‘Resource Intensive’ (Online Journalism Blog)…

Debbie Galant Leaving Baristanet for Role at Montclair State

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Galant, who co-founded Baristanet, the New Jersey network of indie hyperlocals, is leaving management of the site to take a role at Montclair State University, where she’ll join “an ambitious effort to nurture digital and hyperlocal journalism in New Jersey.”