News and Analysis
DoorDash Expands Jack in the Box Partnership, Continues Growth in Competitive Sector
Just four months after announcing that it would be launching a pilot program with Jack in the Box and delivering late-night orders to customers in San Francisco, DoorDash is expanding the partnership and will offer deliveries from more than 830 locations across 229 cities throughout the U.S.
With Metro D.C. Cool to Community News, One Publisher Pulls Back to Profitable Niches
Local News Now seemed to be on an expansion trajectory earlier in the decade with two sites in Northern Virginia and two in the District of Columbia. But today the company has just two — and while they’re both profitable, founder Scott Brodbeck isn’t thinking of launching more sites anytime soon.
Street Fight Daily: Pinterest Targets SMB Advertisers, Retale Offers Attribution Guarantee
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Pinterest Targets Small Business Advertisers in Push to Diversify Revenue… Retale Offers In-Store Foot Traffic Guarantee On In-App Inventory… Snapchat’s Pitch to Small Brands and Businesses: Self-Serve Sponsored Geofilters …
Latest Posts
Street Fight Daily: 10.24.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups…
Groupon Now! generated just $1 million of gross billings in September, despite being available in 25 markets — only $40k per market. In other words, the product that Groupon is telling investors to view as the future of the company, still represents less than 1% of Groupon’s total gross billings in North America. (Yipit Blog)…
Group buying sites in China are reaching 42 million customers according to figures released by The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC). The figure represents an increase of 125% on the previous the year’s business, with the country’s group buying industry now estimated to reach 8.7% of China’s Internet users. (The Next Web)…
Local Quotables: BJ Emerson, Joe Meyer, Tim O’Shaugnessy and more…
In this week’s column, of all people, the VP of technology at Tasti-D-Lite, BJ Emerson, turned a sharp tongue on location-based services at the LocNav conference in San Jose (“they used to call it ‘stalking'”). Jim Brady talked scale; Joe Meyer described the realization that there was a business in local companies; and one small business owner cleverly noted that Twitter and Facebook don’t do a local merchant much good “if people don’t know where you are located.” Read all of this week’s the wise words and wise-cracks around and about the hyperlocal industry.
Case Study: The Trouble with Mobile Marketing for a Small Town Restaurant
At Chattan Loch Bistro & Public House in Bellefontaine, Ohio (pop. 13,069), owner Tracy McPherson is struggling to find cost-effective ways to reach customers in her small town. After a promising start with Foursquare in 2010—when customers were checking-in and claiming specials at least a couple days a week—McPherson says interest in the app has waned, in part due to a lack of resources at the restaurant. She now relies on a mix of local ads, email newsletters, and successful beer and wine clubs to get new customers through the door.
Street Fight Daily: 10.20.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Groupon is seeking to sell shares in an offering that would value the company at close to $12 billion. The valuation is a steep comedown from earlier expectations that an I.P.O. of the Internet darling could value the company as much as $25 billion to $30 billion. (New York Times/Dealbook)…
Ownlocal has announcing a new round of investment from a string of investors including the Knight Enterprise Fund, Automattic, the makers of WordPress, and a number of prominent angels. The company creates web services for small businesses through partnerships with local media outlets and other organizations. (GigaOm)…
HopStop Launches Self-Serve Local Ad Play
Hopstop, the navigation service that pioneered point-to-point transit directions six years ago, has launched an advertising product aimed at local marketers. The self-serve platform allows local merchants to target HopStop users who search for directions to or from their neighborhood with a short call-to-action ad…
Jim Brady Reflects on WaPo, ‘Blown Up’ TBD and the Do or Die Future of Local
Combine digital community journalism and the New York Jets? Jim Brady might call that heaven. The longtime leader in online journalism and hyperlocal endeavors (though he avoids the term hyperlocal) seems to expend as much Twitter juice on the finer points of the team’s play as he does on crowdsourcing the news. But just barely. Fact is Brady is one of the most recognized editorial leaders in online news going back to washingtonpost.com (the first time … ya know, in the ’90s) then AOL, then Washington Post 2.0, next TBD and now the Journal Register Company. Before he gets picked up by the Jets as a mid-season PR QB, I thought it a good time to catch up…
Streets Ahead: Google Chat, and Instagram Reels