News and Analysis

Street Fight Daily: Google Boosts Ads with Machine Learning, Gannett Acquires SweetIQ

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Leans on Machine Learning and Scale for Smarter Display Ads… Amazon’s Alexa Voice Tech is Now Available to Build Chatbots… Twitter is Testing a New Way to Show You News Articles…

Gannett Acquires SweetIQ, Building Out ReachLocal’s Suite of Digital Products

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Gannett announced on Thursday afternoon that it has acquired Montreal-based listings management company SweetIQ, which will be rolled into its ReachLocal suite of software for small businesses and brands. SweetIQ’s products provide local businesses with tools to manage their listings and reputation, and measure consumer engagement.

Location Data About Legal Cannabis Reveals Shifts in Consumer Behavior

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Another 4/20 is upon us and as cannabis patrons prepare to celebrate, the marketing world is still trying to figure out how best to reach legal consumers of marijuana. Foursquare released data earlier this week that illustrates a few trends among legal cannabis consumers.

Latest Posts

What Works in One Local Market Won’t Necessarily Work in Another

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I’ve learned, sometimes through epic failures, what works in Tracy (a suburb of Sacramento, Calif.) won’t work in Tampa. However, I’ve also learned, through epic victories, that when you harness the power of 200+ communities for a common goal great things can happen. Here are a few bits of wisdom I’ve picked up along the way.

Street Fight Daily: 12.12.11

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

AOL’s Patch Gets a Little Less Hyperlocal (Ad Age)…
The Gowalla-Facebook Deal Didn’t ‘Screw Over’ Gowalla’s Investors (Business Insider)…
How Can Local Businesses Structure More Effective Daily Deals? (TechCrunch)…

The Capitulation of a Social-Mobile High-Flyer

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Two years ago it would have been hard to imagine Gowalla selling for anything less than a pretty penny. But a couple things have happened since then to devalue mobile apps. First, the location-based gamification juggernaut has not developed as quickly as some had predicted. Second, the competition for mindshare on handsets has magnified as many more eye-popping apps vie for attention. It’s a real street fight out there in the land of mobile apps and we will likely see more casualties, even among worthy players like Gowalla.

PODCAST: This Week in Location-Based Marketing — WHERE’s Dan Gilmartin & More…

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In this episode, hosts Rob Woodbridge and Asif Khan discuss the long death of Gowalla, indoor mapping plans from Google and Nokia, plus a little Foursquare, HelloWallet, Calvin Klein + Shazam, McDonalds + LivingSocial and marketing VP Dan Gilmartin from WHERE.com…

Local Quotables: Rick Waghorn, DJ Patil, Michael Fives, Emily Chang & More…

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It’s not easy being a reporter on the daily Groupon deals beat these days. So says fatigued Emily Chang at Bloomberg West. And why did Foursquare win over Gowalla? Because if you can make it in New York, pretty much no one else stands a chance. Or, in the pith provided by one Gowalla investor on why that service lost: “Austin.”

Street Fight Daily: 12.09.11

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

Groupon in Talks to Acquire Clever Sense, the Startup Behind ‘Alfred’ (TechCrunch)…

Google Isn’t Done With Location, Launches Schemer in Private Beta (The Next Web)…

LevelUp Releases HTML5 Web App To Make Its Payments Solution Ubiquitous (ReadWriteWeb)…

Social Media for Hyperlocals: How to Turbo-Charge Engagement

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It’s not enough for hyperlocals to simply post articles to their Facebook page or just tweet them out, say a number of engagement-conscious publishers and editors. Sites need to really understand how social media can propel their brands — and ultimately help the bottom line…

Street Fight Daily: 12.08.11

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

LivingSocial Closes Nearly Half of a $400 Million Round to Delay IPO (AllThingsD)…

Big Ad Money Shifting to Promotions — And Away From Media (PoMo Blog)…

CityMaps Shows Where Businesses Are, Block by Block (New York Times)…

Opening Up the ‘Walled Garden’: Content APIs and the Location Layer

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For small-radius media, in which location plays a far greater role than niche or national media, walling off content will substantially impede industry growth. Ignoring LBS as a viable distribution channel is tantamount to leaving the industry’s most valuable asset grossly under-leveraged.

Hyperpublic: Structuring Place Data, Redefining Hyperlocal’s Scope

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What might we see spring forth from the ether when local data is properly structured? It’s easy to imagine various applications of search — i.e. “Show me all wine bars that serve croquettes.” Similarly, one can imagine that this type of data would be immensely valuable to advertisers who want to target, for example, everybody who drinks beer and is in walking distance of an establishment…