News and Analysis
Street Fight Daily: Uber Fires Self-Driving Car Architect, Google Tests Personalized Search
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Uber Fires Former Google Engineer at Heart of Self-Driving Dispute… Google Tests Personalized Search, Likely a Future Ad Targeting Weapon… How to Differentiate Among the Many Marketing Automation Companies…
Foursquare Extends Industry Reach With New Reddit Partnership
Foursquare is announcing a new partnership with Reddit this morning, as the location technology firm looks to expand its reach within the social technology space. With Foursquare on board, Reddit users will now have the option of adding their real-time location to any mobile post.
Understanding Facebook’s Place as a Small Business Marketing Vehicle
“While [Facebook is] not yet anywhere near Google’s ability to generate leads, I have, over the past 6 months, started to see them surpassing Yelp in driving local key performance indicators on the pre-sale side,” Mike Blumenthal tells David Mihm.
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Hyperlocal Publishers Join SOPA Protest
Online publishers large and small went dark yesterday to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act currently pending in Congress. Declared the “Web Goes on Strike” day by Fight for the Future, sites such as Wikipedia and hyperlocal city directories like City View have gone entirely dark. Google placed a black banner over its logo and included a link “Tell Congress: Please don’t censor the web.”
Non-Profit ‘Independent’ Raises the Bar in New Haven
In 2006, veteran reporter Paul Bass launched the New Haven Independent as a one-man outfit. Half a decade later, the Connecticut publication boasts nine full-time reporters, runs 20 stories every day, and has a partnership that sees its stories appear in the Spanish-language publication La Voz. Street Fight spoke with Bass recently about the future of the business model, how non-profit local publishers work, and why he thinks Patch was a mistake.
The Daily Deal — Dead Man Walking?
The evolution of daily deals has not been unlike that of other successful startup stories. But while the story is the same, the pace at which the deals industry went through the stages of maturity has dramatically amplified the signal. Almost four years later, where do we stand?
Music Marketing — A Location-Based Listening Experience
As location-based marketing becomes increasingly popular, the variation of place-centric apps is also increasing, with niche players competing to provide targeted local ads and promotions. The music industry, in particular, has staked out its place in the location-based marketing scrum through the development of applications that combine music and location into integrated marketing tools…
IAB Counsel: Push to Regulate Online Ads May Lose Traction
Hyperlocal news publishers have a better chance to prosper with targeted display advertising that is self-regulated, according to Mike Zaneis, the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s General Counsel and Senior Vice President of public policy. Industry groups like the IAB fear government regulations may slow growth for the online industry…
4 Ways Hyperlocal Vendors Are Helping Merchants Run Efficient Campaigns
In addition to battling it out over features and functionality, more and more platforms and services are upping their game in the way they work one-on-one with merchants. Here are a handful of the ways hyperlocal companies have begun providing support and information to help businesses run more successful deals…
Street Fight Daily: 01.17.12
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Google Launching Goofy Game to Promote Location Products in Google+ (ReadWriteWeb)…
Groupon CEO Andrew Mason Defends His Decisions on ’60 Minutes’ (AllThingsD)…
How Well Your Deal Sells is Inversely Proportional to Its Amount of Fine Print (Zuupy)…
The Call of the Mall: Where Mobile Advertising Might Really Rock
Since you are going to be spending money, why not get deals that might help you save money? That’s the theory behind the upwelling of location-based advertising startups hoping to hit it big at the mall. The benefits of layering hyperlocal onto a mall experience are numerous…
Local Quotables: Hartley, Gardner, Thompson and more
This week’s quotes focus on advertising, technology and new businesses. Sarah Hartley describes how the end of a site can be good while Scott Thompson, newly-appointed CEO of Yahoo talks about the beginning of a new Yahoo. Pat McDevitt discusses the community’s role in advertising, Jonathan Gardner talks about how advertising will change and more.
PODCAST: This Week in Location-Based Marketing — Maponics, Geofencing
Hosts Rob Woodbridge and Asif Khan heap affection on Soundtracking, debate the merits of a one-off event-based app (for the Chick-fil-a Bowl), and talk geofencing with Maponics CEO Darrin Clement.
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