News and Analysis
Google’s Product Bid for DIY Wallet Share
“Google has been on a tear this past month in the DIY realm,” notes Mike Blumenthal in his bi-monthly conversation with David Mihm. “Three major product rollouts in a 30-day span; Websites, Posts and now SMS messaging. And Google only needs uptake on one of them to get a chance to sell Adwords Express.”
Street Fight Daily: Snap’s Location Partnerships Yield Fruit, Paid Search Outperforms Social
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Snapchat’s Foursquare and Factual Partnerships Double Geofilter Usage… Paid Search Advertising Still Outranks Social in Performance… Amazon Might Launch Its Own Messaging App That Would Allow Users to Order Food…
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Placecast Expands Geo-Marketing Platform to Mobile Wallets
Earlier this month, mobile advertising company Placecast hit 10 million active users on its ShopAlerts platform — a white-label service that helps advertisers like North Face and AT&T push geo-targeted offers to consumers who opt in. Now, the six-year-old company is expanding into the mobile wallet space with the launch of ShopAlerts Wallet this morning…
Case Study: Coffee Shop Prizes Engagement Over Customer Acquisition
Customer engagement will always trump customer acquisition at Groundwork Coffee, an organic coffee roaster with seven outposts in the Southern California area. The company has been able to increase both the frequency of customer visits and the average ticket per visit by partnering with a digital loyalty program called FiveStars…
Street Fight Daily: NYT Ends ‘Local’ Experiment, Patch Pressure
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… ‘Times’ Will End Partnerships with N.Y.U., CUNY on Hyperlocal Blogs (Capital New York)… Patch Puts Pressure on Local Editors (Romenesko) … Groupon China Venture To Merge With Tencent-Backed FTuan (Bloomberg)…
Why Loyalty Programs Are Broken — And How to Fix Them
The customer loyalty vertical is red-hot. Startups from Silicon Valley to Chicago are working hard to innovate in this area, and, in so doing, are revolutionizing the way brick-and-mortar businesses do business. But startups need to look beyond the simple punch-card model and expand their loyalty products to include features that will effectively influence customer behavior…
Street Fight Daily: Yelp Featured, Facebook Pulls Location-Aware App
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.…
Apple To Feature Yelp Check-Ins Within IPhone Maps App (Bloomberg)…
You Won’t Find Friends Nearby Anymore: Facebook Pulls Its Location-Aware Mobile App To Add New Friends (TechCrunch)…
An NJ Hyperlocal Net to Rival Patch, Literally (NetNewsCheck)…
As Passive Loyalty Platforms Arise, Will Merchants Miss the Check-In?
What effect does asking less of the consumer have on the value proposition for the merchant? For companies like Foursquare whose product is built on user-generated data, a passive platform means less relevant and lower quality content. The check-in, for all its issues, created over two billion pieces of content in less than three years…
Street Fight Daily: Facebook Highlights, Google Loosens
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.…
‘Find Friends Nearby’: Facebook’s New Mobile Feature For Finding People Around You… (TechCrunch)…Google loosens its limits and pricing on Maps API (Nieman Journalism Lab)… The High Value of Discount Prices (WSJ)… Google’s Maps And Commerce Group Is In A CRAZY Level Of Disarray (SAI)
Can Local Publishers Successfully Charge for Online?
The key for small-to-medium-sized legacy publishers online is keeping it local. The New York Times has unmatched quality, The Wall Street Journal has unmatched business insight and analysis, and the Concord Monitors and The Tulsa Worlds of the industry must have unmatched local content. If so, newspaper paywalls, at least in the short term, might be more than just a “Band-Aid on a bullet wound.”
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