News and Analysis

Empyr Partners with Vendasta to Expand Its SMB Reach

Online-to-offline marketing platform Empyr has announced a partnership with Vendasta that has the potential to rapidly scale up and deepen its customer base. The deal makes Empyr’s CPR (cost-per-revenue), performance marketing platform available on Vendasta’s marketplace, which sells digital solutions through more than 2,000 local marketing agencies.

Street Fight Daily: Verizon’s Path to Disrupting the Duopoly, Twitter Data’s Potential

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Verizon to Face Challenges Integrating Yahoo and AOL Before It Challenges Google and Facebook… MoPub Is Testing Ways to Do More with Twitter Data… Modern Marketing Means Mobile Messaging…

30A Takes Its Local Media Success Story 5,637 Miles to Moscow

Eight-year-old 30A is one of the top revenue producers among Internet news pure-plays – hitting $2.2 million last year and projected to reach $3 million in 2017. It attains numbers that elude some daily newspapers because its revenue streams include everything from a radio station to events to retail shops, as CEO Mike Ragsdale explains in this Q & A.

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Local Quotables: Rafer, Duggan, Pincus and more

The best words about and around the hyperlocal industry.

Lumatic’s Scott Rafer wants to revolutionize mobile map-technology; Kris Duggan of Badgevile critiques Foursquare’s signature “mayor” status as driving away users; Pincus wants to bring “play” into the mainstream; and more:

PODCAST: This Week in Location-Based Marketing — Klout, Syzzle.me

n this week’s episode, hosts Rob Woodbridge and Asif Khan highlight British Petroleum’s innovative use of Navteq to drive (literally) gas sales; Dwolla closes cash; and Groupon makes a buy. Scott Rankine also talks up the yet-to-be released Syzzle.me…

Street Fight Daily: 02.17.12

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...

Yelp Expects Its IPO to Price at $12 to $14 Per Share (New York Times)…

Glassmap and Highlight Take on the Next Frontier of Location Sharing: Doing It All the Time (AllThingsD)…

Mason: Groupon To Begin Offering Deal Personalization Abroad Later This Quarter (TechCrunch)…

LevelUp Expands to 4 More Cities, Doubling Footprint

The mobile payment and loyalty app launched in four new markets today, expanding significantly a little over three months after leaving Beta. The app, a sibling of location-based social discovery app SCVNGR, is now available in Seattle, San Diego, Chicago, and Atlanta, in addition to its launch markets of Philadelphia, Boston, New York, and San Fransisco…

For Growing Hyperlocals, Investing in Better Tech May Beat Staffing Up

Technology that exploits social media can lead to better content and more engaged users, and can open the way to new advertisers and sponsorship. It is also less expensive than hiring new reporters and editors to bolster your lineup…

Hyperlocal Media and Collaborative Consumption Services

The “shared economy” being ushered in by startups like Airbnb, Getaround and Toolspinner is creating new marketplaces where locals can rent their homes, cars, and tools to neighbors. This new trend enables the efficient sharing of resources and goods that are used on occasion as an alternative to outright ownership…

Case Study: Golf Center’s ‘Grizzly’ Check-Ins Build Loyalty

At TopGolf, a golf entertainment facility with locations in Virginia, Illinois, and Texas, regional marketing director Scott McMahon says he was able to boost the number of Foursquare check-ins in 2011 by creating a “Grizzly” special that tied in with the company’s “Fun Doesn’t Hibernate” marketing campaign…

Street Fight Daily: 02.16.12

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...

Groupon: Offering Deals With No Time Limits? (TechCrunch)…

Building Location-Based Social Networks in Egypt (TheNextWeb)…

Localmind Gooses Location-Advice Service by Broadening Focus (CNET)…

New LocalResponse Products Give Brands Instant Access

Social advertising platform LocalResponse launched a host of products today that are designed to help brands and other marketers to respond to consumer intent in real-time. The company released an analytics and action platform for marketers, PRO Dashboard, and took two advertising products out of beta, Direct Response and Intent Retargeting…

Bob Garfield Is Wrong About Hyperlocal — Here’s Why

I’d venture online news will enjoy more significant changes in the next decade than it has in the last — and that’s saying something, considering that the last decade saw the rise of the broadband Internet and smartphone saturation. Ironically, the very same week that Garfield nailed the coffin shut on hyperlocal, we read about how NPR used localized Facebook targeting to jack traffic on some of its articles…