News and Analysis
Street Fight Daily: Amazon Tackles Brick-and-Mortar, WhatsApp Tests Chat Tools for Businesses
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon Confirms Plans for a 10th Book Store, Demonstrating Commitment to Brick-and-Mortar… WhatsApp Tests Business Chat Tools in Search for Revenue… Joe Ricketts, Local News Publisher and Trump Backer, Acquires Gothamist Websites…
NinthDecimal Decouples Its Data, Expands Partnerships, and Moves Into the Black
The location data company announced this morning that it has crossed the line into profitability and CEO Michael Fordyce believes NinthDecimal has found an approach that will help it scale up in a big way. Fordyce and chief revenue officer Brian Slitt spoke with Street Fight recently about the need to measure and understand audiences across a myriad of media and channels.
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Case Study: Using Foursquare to Increase Foot Traffic
How does the owner of a business with minimal signage and a hidden fourth-floor location encourage walk-in business? For Tom Elliot of Idea Greenhouse, a co-working office space for entrepreneurs and startups in Durham, New Hampshire (pop. 14,638), location-based services have been key. Elliot uses platforms like Foursquare, SCVNGR and Yelp to let people working in coffee shops know that a more attractive group workspace is available nearby.
Street Fight Daily: 08.23.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Placecast’s ShopAlerts service, which delivers retailer and merchant offers and discounts to consumers via their mobile phones, has announced its integration with mobile smartphone apps. (TechCrunch)…
With millions of Americans carrying GPS-enabled smartphones around all day, mobile marketers dream of using their locations to serve them targeted ads. But recent studies show that consumers and advertisers aren’t yet ready for location-based advertising to take over our touchscreens. (Poynter)…
Paycloud Brings Merchant Loyalty Cards to Your Phone
Earlier this month, Sparkbase launched its new mobile rewards application Paycloud, which allows small and medium-sized merchants to offer and track mobile loyalty programs to customers in the vicinity of their shop. The company’s CEO Doug Hardman talks about scaling local merchant acquisition and why the company’s recent move into the mobile wallet space may have a year or two headstart on the competition…
Street Fight Daily: 08.22.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Imagine if Groupon starts instructing its sales force to start focusing on opportunities other than restaurants, spas, massages and pilates classes. Theoretically, the company could leverage its enormous international subscriber base to venture into offering deals for groceries, household items and other goods regularly purchased offline. (TechCrunch)…
“Patch is AOL’s last, best chance to build a growth engine,” writes Maxwell Wessel. “Investors shouldn’t be calling for AOL to back off the business. They should be calling for AOL to double down — not by increasing Patch’s $150M+ yearly cash burn, but by increasing commitment. ” (Harvard Business Review Blog)…
Ex-‘Rocky’ Editor Weighs in on YourHub
Street Fight Columnist Tom Grubisich’s recent piece about the trials and tribulations of the Denver Post’s YourHub hyperlocal network sparked plenty of debate among readers in our comments and over social media. Among those throwing the topic back and forth on our pages was John Temple, the former editor of the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News, and one of those behind the original incarnation of YourHub…
Bloomspot’s Guarantee Shows the Future of Daily Deals
A week ago daily-deal service Bloomspot dropped the interesting announcement that it would roll out a “performance-based business model that takes responsibility for the profitability of its merchant partners.” The company will guarantee profitable spending levels from customers. Our post on the Bloomspot news gave a nod to the long-term implications of this announcement. My two cents: This is a clear signal that the daily deals business will quickly morph into something else and that the balance of power has shifted to the merchants…
Patch and Profitability
Deep-ish into a story about AOL’s growth this week. The Wall Street Journal tucked this tasty nugget of information: AOL is spending about $160 million a year on Patch, which equates to about $150,000 to run each individual Patch site annually, according to an analyst’s estimate.
It begs the obvious question of whether AOL will–or even can–make a profit from this enterprise…
Street Fight Daily: 08.19.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Foursquare announced new features on Thursday that allow check-ins at events, like concerts or movies, instead of just the places where those events are happening. The company said the new features will simply formalize the existing behavior of its users. (New York Times)…
Groupon has not only faced questions about its controversial accounting practices, but is now also having to respond to questions from members of Congress about its privacy policies. (AllThingsD)…
Denver Post Unveils ‘New’ YourHub. But Is It New Enough?
Six years ago YourHub was major media’s first big foray into hyperlocal. It was the answer to newspapers desperately looking to replace shrinking print revenues with digital gold. But digital gold, like the real stuff, is not easy to find. What happened in Denver is a sobering case study about metro newspapers and hyperlocal publishing.
Case Study: Connecticut Pub Casts a Wide Net With Patch Ads
Like many entrepreneurs, Daneen Grabe, owner of Little Pub restaurant, has little time to research all the advertising platforms that are available in her town of Ridgefield, Conn. She now spends most of her marketing budget on ads in six local Patch sites, in the hopes of attracting some of the hyperlocal news network’s most plugged-in readers. Here’s why.
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The Road Ahead: What Autonomous Cars Teach Us About Marketing Automation