Street Fight Daily: Patch Not Dead Yet, Amazon Buys Square Competitor
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.… Amid Postmortems, AOL Says Patch Is Still Alive (Businessweek)… Amazon Reportedly Buys Mobile Payments Startup Gopago, Working On An ‘Ambitious’ New Project (TechCrunch)… Customers Out in the Cold Balk at Uber Surge Pricing (New York Times)…
Street Fight Daily: AOL Winds Down Patch, Twitter Tests ‘Nearby’ Feature
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.… AOL Chief’s White Whale Finally Slips His Grasp (New York Times)… Twitter Test Shows ‘Nearby’ Tweets (Wall Street Journal)… Amazon Said To Launch Pantry To Take On Costco, Sam’s (USA Today)…
Street Fight Daily: Shopify To Push Offline, Patch’s Impending Partnership
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.… Shopify Raises $100 million Series C To Expand Offline Into general Commerce (GigaOm)… AOL’s Tim Armstrong Hints at Impending Patch Partnership (AdAge)… Square Acquires Evenly, A Venmo Competitor For Sending And Receiving Payments With Friends (TechCrunch)…
Street Fight Daily: Patch Co-Founder Exits AOL, Tracking Tech Gains Traction
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.… Patch Co-Founder Leaving AOL to Join a Startup (Wall Street Journal)… Tracking Technology Sheds Light on Shopper Habits (Wall Street Journal)… ApartmentList’s Big Bet On Mobile (PandoDaily)….
Street Fight Daily: Square’s New Reader, Layoffs At Clinkle
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.… New Square Reader Offers Better Performance, Thinner Design (PCMag)… 6 Mobile Payment Solutions for Restaurants and Bars (Street Fight)… Uber’s CEO Hints That It Could Branch Out Into Other On-Demand Transport And Delivery Services (TheNextWeb)…
ARLnow Expands to Third Community in Metro D.C. – Reston, Va.
Independent hyperlocal publisher Scott Brodbeck has launched a third digital news publication in the suburbs of metro Washington, D.C. His new RestonNow serves a thriving, nationally recognized planned community that was built from scratch on farmland in Northern Virginia’s Fairfax County…
Street Fight Daily: Square Explores IPO, Google Tests Real-World Tracking
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Square Exploring 2014 IPO With Banks (Wall Street Journal)… Google Takes Its Tracking Into The Real World (Digiday)… The Cost Of Winning: Tim Armstrong, Patch, And The Struggle To Save AOL (Business Insider)…
Winding Down Investment In Patch, AOL Writes Off Millions
AOL revenues fell sharply in the third quarter due to large writeoffs related to the continued challenges at the company’s hyperlocal news network Patch. During an earnings call Tuesday, the company said it took a $19 million charge due to recent restructuring costs at the hyperlocal media division as well as a $25 million charge related to non-cash asset impairment, or decrease in the valuation, of the project…
Street Fight Daily: Showrooming’s False Threat, Groupon ‘Designed’ For Mobile
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Showrooming Is Not A Threat To Retailers’ Revenue (eConsultancy)… Groupon CEO: Our Deals Are ‘Designed For Mobile’ (CNBC)… OpenTable Is Hoping For A Second Helping (PandoDaily)…
Street Fight Daily: Patch Staffs Top Sites Only, BrandNetworks Acquires Optimal
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Patch Will Staff Outlets In Top-Performing Areas Only, Memo Says (Poynter)… Social Ad Companies Team Up As Brand Networks Acquires Optimal For $35M (TechCrunch)… In-Store Analytics Firm Nomi Raises $10 Million, Looks Beyond Retail (Mashable)…
Street Fight Daily: Patch To Close Sites, GateHouse Files For Chapter 11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Memo: ‘Regretfully, A Number of Patches Will Have To Be Closed (Romenesko)… GateHouse Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection (Wall Street Journal)… The NSA Refuses To Deny That It Collected The Location Data Of U.S. Phone Calls (TechCrunch)…
Community News Revenues: How the Networks Compare to the ‘Indies’
I was surprised — shocked, actually — to discover that the regional community news network Daily Voice has average ad sales of only $38,000 annually on a current basis at each of its 41 sites in suburban Connecticut and New York. Is this the new normal for ad revenue at community news sites? I went to four other community news publishers-owners, all independents, to get their reaction…
Street Fight Daily: Apple’s NFC Alternative, Google Faces ‘Street View’ Lawsuit
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… With iBeacon, Apple is Going To Dump NFC (GigaOm)… Google Loses Appeal in Street View Privacy Case (Reuters)… Yelp’s Newest Weapon Against Fake Reviews: Lawsuits (BloombergBusinessweek)…
6 Strategies for Patching Up Patch
To meet the promise he made to shareholders, AOL’s chief executive Tim Armstrong is in the process of cutting staff and other costs at Patch in the hopes that his network of hyperlocal sites will be profitable by the end of 2013. But just making short-term cuts to hit profitability might not be the optimum choice. Patch also has to plant seedlings for mid- and long-term benefits that the company can reap 6-12 months from now…
Street Fight Daily: Inside Patch’s Revenues, Yelp Adds Mobile Reviews
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Inside Patch’s Leaked Revenue Numbers And Its Hunt For Profitability (TechCrunch)… Yelp Adds Mobile Reviews (Mashable)…
Groupon Suspends Sales Rep While It Investigates Thinly Veiled Yelp Review Threat (AllThingsD)
What Scale Means After Patch and Groupon
Macroeconomic developments and internal politics aside, both Tim Armstrong and Andrew Mason succumbed to the flawed assumption, held by many at the time, that local was a land grab. They mistook opportunity with urgency, falsely believing that the local market was some homogenous block, which would open its coffers to the first company that invested enough money, or put enough feet on the street, to make it work…