News and Analysis

How Wells Fargo Connects Locally Via Sports, Philanthropy, and Digital

Gary Korotzer, EVP of marketing and brand strategy and community bank marketing for Wells Fargo, says that through a mix of efforts the bank weaves its way into the day-to-day lives and needs of its customers.

Street Fight Daily: Self-Driving Cars Now Deliver Pizzas, Amazon Expands Advertising

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Ford and Domino’s to Deliver Pizza Using Self-Driving Cars in New Test… Amazon Grows Its Programmatic Ad Business… Uber’s CEO Choice Faces a Question of Ambitions…

The Fallacy of Google’s “Micro-Moment” Positioning

“I see the customer journey as the customer journey wherever it leads,” Mike Blumenthal tells David Mihm. “I see Google’s efforts to oversimplify it into discrete points in time as a gross form of reductionism that doesn’t help us understand that journey better. “

Latest Posts

PODCAST: This Week in Location-Based Marketing — Nokia, Banjo

In this week’s episode, hosts Rob Woodbridge and Asif Khan discuss the new map and direction functionality on the Nook; Nokia gets Groupon in a daily deals partnership and GM gets cars to detect pedestrians; plus funding news, our resource of the week and Banjo CEO Damien Patton…

Street Fight Daily: Gilt City Names New Head, Facebook Courts SMBs

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Sarah Chubb, Former President Of Conde Nast Digital, Is Now President Of Gilt City (SAI)… Facebook Courts Small Business Dollars With Easy Social Ad Campaign Creation (TechCrunch)…  Reid Hoffman: Groupon Made Multiple Missteps While Going Public (PandoDaily)…

Getting Local Online Ad Dollars to Flow Into Hyperlocal News

Hyperlocal news sites are turning up everywhere, but advertisers aren’t following them nearly as fast. “Advertisers don’t want to be around local news,” Gordon Borrell, CEO of Borrell Associates, told Street Fight. I went to several people building business models around hyperlocal news to find out how they are planning to turn the tables on Borrell’s assessment…

Case Study: Hotel Boosts Business, Cuts Costs With Facebook Contests

In December 2011, hotelier Ronan McAuley decided to forego traditional advertising and focus his resources on social media. He now uses Offerpop to run competitions and promotions on his hotel’s Facebook page — business is already up 18%, while his marketing costs are only 20% of what they once were…

Street Fight Daily: Ford Integrates Offers, Web Readership Booming

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Daily Deals Are Coming to Your Car (Wired)… Why Starbucks is betting on Square (GigaOm)… Two Years After the Tipping Point, Papers’ Web Readership is Booming (Paid Content)…

Nextdoor CEO on Patch, Facebook, and Building Social for the Real World

In July, dot-com veteran Nirav Tolia announced announced a major round of funding which valued his 22-month-old startup Nextdoor at $100 million. Street Fight caught up with Tolia recently to discuss raising money for hyperlocal projects, developing technology for real-world communities, and the increasingly blurred line between information and social connectivity in the local space…

Why Online Marketers Are Rethinking Their Yelp Strategy

Merchants have historically been wary of Yelp reviews — and for good reason. Yelpers have tended to be snarky and more focused on humor than accuracy. But there are changes coming at the end of 2012 that are likely to make many marketing pros reevaluate their relationship to the user-generated reviews site…

Street Fight Daily: Starbucks Meet Square, Craigslist Holes Up

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Starbucks and Square to Team Up (NYT)… Craigslist Cuts Off Its Search Engine to Spite Its Face (GigaOm)… Why Apple Should Buy Foursquare (TechCrunch)…

Hyperlocal Investment Report Debuts Stock Index, Sees Dip in Valuations

Hyperlocal stock performance was largely on an upward trend July, according to the Hyperlocal Stock Index which debuts in the latest issue of Street Fight’s monthly investment newsletter. The greatest gains were made by DexOne, ReachLocal and AOL, while Groupon and Facebook suffered staggering losses, and Angie’s List failed to reverse its downward trend.

The Long Tail of Local Search

Far from invisible tools that merely get you to the store or service you want, local search products actually tell a story about the needs local search companies think they are trying to fulfill, demonstrating in some cases a stark contrast between the actual habits of the local consumer and the assumptions of local apps and websites…