News and Analysis

Street Fight Daily: Target Acquires Grand Junction, Lyft Has Capitalized On Uber’s Woes

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Target Acquires Transportation Company Grand Junction to Expand Same-Day Delivery… Lyft Focuses on Self-Driving Cars But Confirms It’s Gotten a Boost from Uber’s Troubles… Ad Institute Challenges Google and Facebook to Improve Measurement Standards…

Can Yelp Extend Its Moment in the Sun?

“[Yelp has] not been very innovative in approaching the many needs of the SMB markets,” Mike Blumenthal writes to David Mihm. “It would seem that there could be (or should have been?) a raft of functionality that they could provide from appointments to customer follow-up that would be a natural fit.”

LinkedIn Focuses on Revving Up Its SMB Efforts

“There is a huge market of smaller companies, and it is a fast-growing segment. There is definitely momentum,” says LinkedIn’s independent agency head Ryan Wilson. “But they are often made to feel like second-class citizens. Enterprise companies have been getting all the love.”

Latest Posts

PODCAST: This Week in Location-Based Marketing — Apple, Facebook, Yelp

In this week’s episode, hosts Rob Woodbridge and Asif Khan look at what the iOS maps and Yelp integration means for Apple; Facebook’s “Friends Near By” folly; Yammer winning the Microsoft lottery; and are smartphones helping in-store sales? Plus special guest Holger Leudorf of Foursquare talks about find vs. search…

Street Fight Daily: ‘Daily Deals’ Profit, Yelp Surges

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Report: Most Daily Deals Now Profitable for SMBs, but Not Restaurants (Screenwerk)… Yelp Rises on Speculation of Smaller iPad (Bloomberg)… Community-Powered Traffic Navigation App Waze Hits 20 Million Users, Doubles Up in 6 Months (The Next Web)…

For Troubled News Industry, Is It Enough to ‘Pivot’?

“Let’s just assume that the traditional newspaper organization is a loss and will not survive, and come up with other plans to produce local journalism,” said the AP’s Jonathan Stray. “I may or may not be right about the possibility of survival for the former news industry, but I think this point of view forces the right questions.”

Case Study: Massage Therapist Uses Scheduling to Propel Online Marketing

Massage therapist Lisa Bedoya knew there had to be a better way to schedule client appoints than via email or phone. Since turning to Full Slate late last year, Bedoya has noticed an increase in repeat clients. She attributes this boost in business to the ease with which clients can now make appointments online, as well as the email newsletters and special coupons she sends out…

Why Square Is Succeeding in the Hyperlocal Payments Space

Square’s biggest advantage is its founder, Jack Dorsey. Not because Dorsey’s a genius — he is that, too — but because he’s (understandably) a media darling. For a company that needs visibility, there’s nothing better than having a leader magazines want to profile…

Street Fight Daily: Groupon Retail, Journatic Fallout Continues

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.Groupon Opens Concept Store in Singapore (CNet)… The Uncomfortable Truth Behind the Journatic Byline Scandal (GigaOm)… Rumor: Twitter To Acquire Sense Networks To Better Target Local Ads (TechCrunch)

6 Email Marketing Tools for Hyperlocal Publishers

By sending out email newsletters with links to the most important stories of the day, hyperlocal publishers can help their content go viral and build a loyal readership with low acquisition costs. Here are six email marketing platforms with built-in tools to help online publishers automate the process of creating and publishing daily email newsletters, as well as other important marketing materials…

Offerpop CMO: Social Media Engagement Is All About Clickthroughs

New York City-based social media marketer Offerpop works with close to 29,000 merchants (mainly SMBs) both in the U.S. and abroad. Street Fight recently caught up with the company’s marketing chief, Mark Cooper, to find out more about how the company helps small businesses engage consumers over social media.

Street Fight Daily: Amazon Maps, Groupon’s Lefkofsky Steps Back

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Amazon Buys 3D Mapping Startup UpNext (GigaOm)… Groupon Chairman Lefkofsky Steps Back From Company (WSJ)… Google+ Local Officially Replaces Places Apps in Mobile (Screenwerk)…

Journatic CEO Accepts Blame for Bogus Bylines

The popular National Public Radio show “This American Life” turned its eye on hyperlocal news service Journatic this weekend, revealing in its latest episode that the company’s local real estate site BlockShopper had slapped fake bylines onto some of the site’s lawsuit-prone stories. “This was a mistake,” Journatic CEO Brian Timpone told Street Fight yesterday. “We should never have run an alias byline and sent the article to our partners.”