News and Analysis
How SMB Networking is Driving More Referral Marketing
Many small businesses have picked up on referral marketing options, but word-of-mouth referrals are an ancillary benefit of networking with other local business owners. “The entire business community needs a way to connect and have ongoing dialogue,” says Ro Prakash, co-founder of Townsquared.
Street Fight Daily: D.C. Taxis to Replace Meters with Square, Instagram May Allow Search by Location
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Square Will Replace Meters in D.C. Taxis, Potentially Fueling Data Collection and Local Commerce… Instagram May Allow Users to Search Publicly Shared Stories by Location… Web-Retail Startups Turn to Bricks and Mortar for Growth…
Why TGI Fridays Is Thinking About Marketing Like a Startup
While marketers always try to understand trending topics among customers, for a national restaurant chain it also means finding ways to listen and react quickly at the local level. Sherif Mityas, who will speak at Street Fight Summit, says his company is working to connect more personally with the chain’s customers.
Latest Posts
What Works in One Local Market Won’t Necessarily Work in Another
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.
The Capitulation of a Social-Mobile High-Flyer
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…
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…
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
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
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…
Opening Up the ‘Walled Garden’: Content APIs and the Location Layer
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
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…







































AI Won’t Fix Advertising – It May Scale Its Chaotic Nature