News and Analysis
What Happens to Local Data When Physical Stores Close?
More than 8,600 brick-and-mortar stores are expected to close this year. But long after the doors have been shuttered for the final time, much of the local data for those stores remains online. For national chains, outdated location data can lead to frustrated shoppers and missed opportunities for sales.
Instagram Collaboration Is Making Social Media Work for Small Businesses
“All social media is a funnel,” says Chris Warren, owner of Marjory Warren Boutique in New York City. “You’re trying to get someone to buy something.” Warren connected with other local shops via Townsquared, hyperlocal networking platform for small businesses, and joined a sort of “Instagram collective” with other store owners.
Latest Posts
Social Curation Tools Like Pinterest Are a Great Fit for Local
Curation services are coming of age because people are increasingly using their smartphones to upload pictures and videos on the fly. As user-generated media continues to flourish, its local manifestations (and curated collections of contributed content) will paint a far more diverse and detailed picture of a community than coverage by paid media…
Street Fight Daily: Foursquare’s New Ad Platform, CBS’s Kucharz
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology...
Foursquare Eyes June for Launch of New Advertising Platform (Ad Age)…
CBS’s Kucharz on Taking a Conservative Path to Local Digital Success (NetNewsCheck)…
NY Tabloid’s New South Asian Section Shows ‘Local’ Is Cultural, Not Geographic (PaidContent)…
Prescription for Patch: Become an All-in-One SMB Marketing Solution
There is a real opportunity to offer businesses a service that bundles together as many online promotional vehicles as possible into a simple, low-cost package that makes it easy for them to communicate with their customers. If Patch decided to go this route, the company would be well-positioned to make the service work. Unlike other local start-ups, it has the resources to build this kind of integrated system…
How Digital Merchant Marketplaces Are Enabling Hyperlocal Commerce
When we think about online marketplaces, the giants in the field (eBay, Amazon and Craigslist) immediately come to mind. But a new crop of location-based marketplaces is now empowering consumers and small businesses alike to buy and sell products and services from one another in their own backyard…
PODCAST: This Week in Location-Based Marketing — Picksie, AisleBuyer
In this week’s episode, hosts Rob Woodbridge and Asif Khan discuss some big acquisitions in the space, starting with Facebook’s purchase of Tagtile and Instagram, and Intuit’s acquisition of AisleBuyer. Retail’s revival is happening through location and mobile with PointInside’s nSide, Picksie’s ticket purchasing and Jetshop’s pop-up stores in Stockholm + AisleBuyer’s founder, Andrew Paradise…
Street Fight Daily: Yell’s ‘eMarketplace’, Foursquare Hires UTA
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology...
Yell Readies New ‘eMarketplace’ Site (ScreenWerk)…
Foursquare Signs With UTA to Build Ties With Entertainment Industry (Variety)…
Forecast: Mobile Content, Ad Sales Will Hit $67 Billion in 2012 (PaidContent)…
Yipit’s Vacanti: Flash Offers Will Drive Growth of Deals Industry
During a keynote address at yesterday’s Daily Deal Summit in New York, Yipit CEO Vin Vacanti laid out a trajectory for the deals space, in which Gilt-like flash offers would drive much of the industry’s growth. “It’s not about daily deals anymore; what these companies have realized is that they’re building a user base that’s willing to consume from them,” said Vacanti.
How to Engage Hyperlocal ‘Hard’ News Enthusiasts
Hyperlocal sites shouldn’t look at hard news as journalistic broccoli. The challenge is to serve up hard news appealingly – to connect it with each user’s gut-level self-interest. This means giving users the space to talk about their news enthusiasms. It’s not always enough to ask, “What do you think?” Sometimes a site has to offer a prompt…
Street Fight’s Big 3
Street Fight Columns
Street Fight Categories
AI Is Breaking Down Data Silos — Without Breaking Privacy