News and Analysis
Street Fight Daily: Instagram Steals Snap’s Business, Google Wades Further into Local
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Publishers Are Switching Affections from Snapchat to Instagram… Google Expands Reserve with Google, Adding Salon and Spa Bookings… Moz Founder Rand Fishkin to Step Away from Day-to-Day Operations, Will Remain Chairman…
Ex-Patcher Uses ‘Local Language’ to Succeed in Crowded Suburban Market
Mike Dinan founded NewCanaanite.com in suburban Connecticut in 2014 after his job as regional editor at Patch disappeared. In this interview, Dinan tells how, despite a crowded local media market, he’s made New Canaanite succeed as a community force and independent business.
Street Fight Daily: Brands Navigate Snapchat, Amazon Tightens Grip on the Smart-Home Future
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… How Brands Get Around Low Discoverability on Snapchat… This Year’s Prime Day Echo Sales Could Mark a Tipping Point for Amazon’s Product… Uber Offers a Thankless Job, and The Applications Roll In…
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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.
Study: Local Mobile Search Will Pass Desktop in 2016
Local mobile searches will surpass local desktop searches for the first time in 2016, according to a new study by BIA/Kelsey. The report projects that users will conduct 113.4 billion local mobile searches vs. 85.6 billion local searches via desktop…
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…
Case Study: Seattle Office Caterer Grows Business With Mobile Payments
At Molly’s Salads in Seattle, Washington, founder Stefan Kalb needed an easy way to collect payments from customers without being present in person. His solution? Seconds, a mobile commerce platform that customers can use to pay via text message…
Why TechStars’ Tisch Won’t Buy Your ‘Daily Deal’ Company
Investment interest in daily deal companies has been flat for some time, but the stigma attached to the “daily deal” has turned the classification into a scarlet letter for companies. Some of the negativity around the term is likely a consequence of the irregularities found in Groupon’s accounting. But the underlying shift stems from a simpler strategic shift in industry organization…
Addressing Foursquare’s Engagement Problem
Foursquare has an engagement problem driven by the fact that users don’t view the application as communications platform. Two-way communications have become more important as overall engagement in social media has risen. A check-in, by default, is a one-way communication and not a conversation…
Study: Restaurants, Autos Are Top Local Search Categories
In both mobile and online searches, restaurants and automotive took the No. 1 and No. 2 spots, respectively. However, while movie theaters, beauty services, and hotels filled out the 3rd through 5th slot for mobile, finance, real estate, and legal figure 3-5 overall in online searches…
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AI Won’t Fix Advertising – It May Scale Its Chaotic Nature