News and Analysis
Street Fight Daily: Yahoo and Verizon Near Cheaper Deal, Facebook Adds Job Postings for Brands
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Yahoo and Verizon Are Said to Be Near a Cheaper Deal… Facebook Swipes at LinkedIn by Letting Brands Post Job Openings on Pages… Snap Sets Valuation at $19.5 to $22.5 Billion as IPO Approaches…
As E-Commerce Looks for a Local Edge, In-Person Return Services Expand
This morning e-commerce fashion marketplace Tradesy is announcing an extended partnership with Happy Returns, a consumer returns startup that offers in-person returns for online retailers. Tradesy found that customers overwhelmingly preferred to return their online purchases in-person rather than by mail.
Street Fight Daily: Yelps Adds Feature to Drive User Engagement, VR’s Future Role for Consumers
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Yelp Launches New Feature for Asking and Answering Questions About Any Business… How VR Headsets Will Infiltrate the Market and Impact Advertising… Retailers Are Testing Price Increases Online…
Latest Posts
Case Study: How a Nashville Salon Retains Daily Deal Customers
Julie Marler is the owner of J. Bangs Salon, a hairstyling studio in Nashville that has had great success running deals with Groupon and LivingSocial. Marler estimates that she’s retained 50% of her daily deal customers by preparing her staff ahead of time and increasing stylists in the weeks following each deal…
HopStop Revamps, Adds Features and New Cities
HopStop, which was created in 2005 as a point-to-point transit routing website, has given itself a few facelifts over the years as it tries to stay unique and relevant in its increasingly crowded niche. The company announced another one yesterday, partnering up with big names like Yelp!, Hertz, Limos.com and Zvents, to become a “general lifestyle app.”
Street Fight Daily: 06.21.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups...
Just-over-two-year-old Foursquare has just announced an important milestone: 10 million user accounts. The company will pass 750 million check-ins later this week, with users are now averaging about 3 million check-ins a day. (TechCrunch)…
EveryBlock, the website that collects community news and connects neighbors with each other, has hired a new president, Brian Addison, to oversee its growth and marketing efforts. Founder Adrian Holovaty remains with EveryBlock, focusing more on product than business. (Chicago Tribune)…
Google Offers: Not a ‘Groupon Killer’ (But Still Pretty Killer)
It’s been widely reported over the past few weeks that Google has launched a deals platform known as Offers. But most of this coverage has missed the point — falling into the tired but pervasive trope of “[insertnamehere] Killer” claims (in this case, Groupon). Offers will be similar to Groupon in some ways, but its economics and mobile integration are quite different. Comparisons aside, the real story is how Offers plugs into Google’s massive distribution network of search, Gmail, mobile and about 26 other products.
Localeze’s Dague: Solving the Problem of Search for Local Merchants
As online search has become such a pervasive utility in our lives, maintenance of accurate local search results has become increasingly important for brick-and-mortar businesses everywhere — as well as for the ever-growing number of location-based platforms that serve up those search results as part of their geo-located service. Localeze does a lot of the behind-the-scenes work in making sure that listings across hundreds of platforms remain accurate and current. The company monitors and manages local business identities, and authenticates local search results, making sure that business information is accurate and consistent…
Post-IPO, Will Pandora Go Hyperlocal?
Over a year ago I got a chance to sit down with Pandora founder Tim Westergren for a long interview about the company. In our conversation about business models and Pandora, the most compelling feature he discussed was a hyperlocal, blue-sky idea that sounded incredibly cool. It left me thinking back then that Pandora could become a hyperlocal powerhouse when that ad market developed…
Edmunds’ Drive for a Daily Deal
The single-best deal, assertion, investment or other strategy this week…
Who: Edmunds…
Why: For its bid to play in daily deals for cars…
“It helps automakers and dealers who have excess inventory or oversupply of specific models, or have a need to get rid of the past model-year vehicles through additional discounts. So it is intended to be very targeted to areas that need that focused conversation around certain vehicles.” — Michelle Denogean, VP of business operations at Edmunds.com…
Street Fight Daily: 06.17.11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.… eBay is beefing up its mobile arsenal with its first local shopping app, powered by the local shopping search engine that eBay acquired in June, Milo. (Mashable)…
AOL chief Tim Armstrong said yesterday that “certain” Patch outlets — there are 800 and counting — should be profitable by Q3 or Q4, though he didn’t offer specifics. (Paid Content)…
Patch Partners With Geomentum to Attract Big Brands
It’s widely known that AOL’s Patch network has been hemorrhaging money at a rapid clip — and that ad sales across its network of over 800 hyperlocal sites aren’t yet where they would need to be to ultimately make the company viable. But a new partnership with the country’s largest hyperlocal ad agency, Geomentum, could potentially turn into a major boost.
Why TV Remains the Heartbeat of Local Connection